2110-5-12-13

19th April, 1932

4, Clermiston Terrace, Corstorphine, Edinburgh.

Colonel John Buchan, Elsfield Manor, Oxford.

Dear Sir,

I have just finished reading your book on "Sir Walter Scott" and I wish to let you know how greatly I have enjoyed it and how much I appreciate your estimate of him and his work. It is because I have gained so much pleasure from the book that I take the liberty, which I trust you will not consider presumptious, of pointing out one or two slips and inaccuracies in case you may wish to prepare a second edition.

On page 55 you say that Scott's heart "was soon

'handsomely pierced'. Surely "pieced is the word intended. On the same page you mention that Lady Scott's father had been "a royalist refugee". I don't think "royalist" is correct.

Page 56. "His son once wrote to her" about her "laughing philosophy". I have come across this in one of Scott's letters to Charlotte during their courtship. I don't rememer either of the sons writing to that effect.

Page 173. It was Aime, not Sophia, "who all but fainted" at the opening of the Regalia chst.

Then, in the index, you give Surties under Richard Surties when it should be Robert. Scott, of course, often wrote to him mistakenly as Richard.

I do hope you will pardon my pointing out these things, but it is because I am genuinely interested. You may care to know I am preparing the Centenary Edition of the Scott Letters with Professor Gliason.

Yours very truly,

W.M. Parker (W.M. Parker)