Literary encounters.(Letter to the editor)

Steven Isenberg's essay in the Winter issue richly evokes his meetings with four august lovers of language. As a broadcaster of many years, during which I interviewed more than 1,600 authors, I was reminded of the joy I had in meeting them and of that curious sense of not ever being quite up to the task of making the meeting as interesting for my subjects as it was for their interlocutor.

PAUL BLEZARD

London, United Kingdom

Steven Isenberg's line, "Larkin connects so many," reminded me of a time when the portrait painter Humphrey Ocean was staying with us while painting Philip Larkin's portrait. Ocean had recently won a prestigious prize at the National Portrait Gallery in London. An element of the prize was a commission for a new portrait. Ocean had more or less agreed to paint Paul McCartney, but he bargained with the ...