In response to:

Just Good Friends from the July 19, 1973 issue

To the Editors:

John Wain concludes his review [NYR, July 19] of Mary Hyde’s book on Boswell and Mrs. Thrale, “May one express the hope that this excellent book from Harvard will spur the Yale scholars to press on with the edition of Johnson’s Works, which seems so unaccountably to have shuddered to a halt?”

As one of the “Yale scholars” involved—editor of the volume announced as next in the series to be published—I can assure him that it is not we who need the prodding. My copy for this volume was submitted in 1965, and the annotation gets more out of date year by year. Copy for other unpublished volumes has also long been ready. The exhortation should be addressed to the functionaries of the Yale University Press.

Donald Greene

University of Southern California

Los Angeles, California

This Issue

October 4, 1973