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"...Mr. Paul Auster's review of two books of mine in your issue of August 7th: Communicated views of it of friends, communicated to me., impressed on me the need of comment. One thought it 'rather nice'."

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"I pause over one of Mr. Auster's historical touches, reference to Robert Graves telling of Auden for his imitations of me. That is retrospective self-preening. Auden's takings from me were Gargantuan, rather comically assiduous."

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"At least two things rise up to engage my thought, from what you present in your letter, besides the question that you put to me, and I am giving them priority of attention in this my reply because, in their bearing on research in which a connection between my poetic work and the poetic work of Mr. Auden is pointed to, they have more importance than the source of my quotation in the preface of my Collected Poems. First, as to your words on 'the relation' of my poetry and W.H. Auden's."

Scope and Contents "Supposed I clear the list of the matter of Mr. K.C. Gay first? There was a german person by name Karl Goldschmidt who worked secretarially for myself and Mr. Robert Graves in the mid-thirties, and into 1937, and 38, by my memory. There was no other secretarial assistant to me in that period."...."To go next to this to-me queer matter of my reference to Mr. Auden in my preface to my Collected Poems, and your researches anent it. Why have you been on the trail of...

Scope and Contents "A friend who knows something of my language-studies but is only slightly acquainted with my other work, early and later, has sent me a copy of Mr. Paul Auster's review of my books Selected Poems: In Five Sets and The Telling published in your issue of August 7th, commenting on it as "a rather nice review". It is not a nice review, as my friend would know if he had better acquaintance with my work in the whole, and experienced sense of the procedures followed by poets, poet-critics,...