2110-7-1-8

E.S.P. Haynes. Telephone No.: Holborn 3907. Telegrams Inland "Chasseur, Holb, London." Foreign, "Chasseur, London." Code, "Unicode"

9, New Square Lincoln's Inn W.C.2.

29th Jany 1935

Dear Buchan,

I have been reading your book on Gordon with great interest and admire the way in which you have disentangled the most difficult points. I imagine that your book must have been freely used in the broadcast performance on Saturday night.

I venture to suggest that in subsequent editions you should expose a characteristic equivocation by John Morley. In his life of Gladstone he puts in a footnote that the story of Gladstone going to the theatre on the night of the 5th February 1885 is untrue. As against that, the first Lord Kilbracken in his Reminiscences published by Murray in 1917 records the fact that Gladstone did go to the theatre on the night when the news reached London which was, I suppose, the 1st of February, his excuse being that the news was not then properly authenticated. I have referred to the incident on page 108 of "More from a Lawyer's notebook" published by Secker in 1933, which reminds me that there is also a reference to you in the same volume on page 82.

Yours sincere1y

E.S.P. Haynes

John Buchan Esq C.H., M.P. &c Elsfield Manor Oxford .