Nomination

To the Editors:

Apropos of the exchanges between Elizabeth Hardwick and F.C. Crews: (NYR, December 23) on the current estimate of Edmund Wilson in the academic community, I might report the opinion of one member of that community. When, some time within the last year, I received a ballot from the Swedish Academy, I nominated Mr. Wilson for the Nobel Prize in literature. The Academy’s record being what it has been, I had of course very faint hopes of any consequences, but I felt moved none the less to bear witness to Mr. Wilson’s critical independence and his disinterested services to literature and the literary public. I might add that a few years earlier I had put in the name of Robert Frost, as no doubt many other people had done at various times—with what effect we all know.

Douglas Bush

Cambridge, Massachusetts