I remember you telling me that you liked the novels of
Molly Keane when I visited you with Peter Muller in October of last year. I
was delighted to see that Virago Press have decided to reprint her early
novels and I thought of you when I saw them oin the bookshops. I am sending
you herewith The Rising Tide - the first in the series of reprints and I very
much hope you enjoy reading it.

                     I remember with great affection our chat about W.H. Auden
and I am very grateful to you for sharing those memories with me. Plans for
the Auden Exhibition in the Kunstlerhaus are now very far advanced. I have
put togther a complete collection of Auden's first editions, selections from
his contributions to periodicals, representative anthologies, his films for
the G.P.O Film Unit, many items connected with his work for the Group Theatre,
all the opera libretti, hishisBritten's arrangements of his poems and many other items.
I have also arranged for various portraits of Auden to be sent to Vienna ; they
include Sir William Coldstream's 1937 portrait, a portrait by Mervyn Peake painted
in the same year, two drawings by Maurice Field and a portrait by Don Bachardy.
I have also managed to get 26 lithographs by Henry Moore which he did in 1973 to
illustrate a selection of Auden's poems.

                     Stephen Spender has agreed to come to Vienna during the
period of the Exhibition - that is 11th October to 3rd November.  Humphrey
Carpenter will lecture on Auden at the invitation of the British Council, so it
all promises to be a splendid celebration of Auden's life and work.

                     I was terribly disappointed not to have seen you when I was
in Vienna in March but alas I was at the mercy of my friends who have cars and,
as luck would have it,they were all so busy at various things I was left stranded in
Vienna throughout my brief visit. However I shall be spending September, October
and November in Austria and I very much look forward to seeing you then.

                     I had a letter from Edward Mendelson yesterday and he asked
me to send you his very best wishes which I do along with my own. I hope this
finds you in good spirits and that Summer is being better behaved in Austria []than
it is here in Ireland.