July 10, 2001
Dear Michael,
Just to be on the safe side I enclose a hard copy – or what we used to call a few bits of paper - of what I take to be the genuine Sempe introduction.
But really I want to thank you for the magnificent edition of Candide. I have always thought Voltaire was a great man – well, not always, because there was probably a time when I thought Richmal Crompton was the best writer in the world, but I can clearly remember that I first fell under Voltaire’s spell in a big way when I was spending what we now call a gap year in New York in 1960, as a callow 18 year old, dodging in and out of jazz clubs and having a look at baseball and being propositioned by all sorts of American homosexuals.
Somewhere I acquired a pocket book version of Voltaire’s Tales and carried it around till it fell to bits. I then came across Voltaire again at Oxford, doing French. He was in all honesty the only author we studied that I ever wanted to write like. We spent two or thee weeks on him alone, and when the dry tutor said, “We’d better move on now.” And I pleaded with him to spend another week on the great man, and he said, “No, that’s all we need for the syllabus – time to move on to J-J Rousseau now…” well, that’s when I conceived deep dislike for syllabuses and for J-J Rousseau.
Anyway, thanks for a brilliant present. Not many people would go to the lengths of printing a present specially for someone. And as it won’t fit in my pocket there’s no danger of it falling to bits.
Please pass on a meaningful message to Caroline. (I realise I said that because my son and I are currently laughing at the dying words of Pancho Villa, the Mexican patriot. Apparently someone leant over him as he lay dying and said: “Any famous last words?” And he said: “Tell them I said something interesting…” and died).
Yours