Arnold Rattenbury

The editorial note printed after Judith Chernaik’s letter (Letters, 19 October) seems churlish. No doubt Longman, publishers of the Everest/Matthews edition of Shelley, are poor salesmen and should not have left the LRB in darkness about their second volume, published this June. Nonetheless their Volume I – the relevant one, since it more than covers the period of the Reiman/Fraistat under review...

I much regret that two misdatings appeared in my piece on Ivor Gurney (LRB, 14 October). First, Gurney’s work on ‘Rewards of Wonder’ began in 1921, not 1919; second, his radically changing ‘sense of war’ is notable from 1923, not 1925, onwards. Neither misdating, I think, affected my awed view of the man but both are silly.