Letter: In Brief

Sir: John Campbell (Friday Book, 11 June) says that a "lapse of 17 years between the first and second volumes of a biography must be close to the record". Perhaps: but it hardly compares with the lapse of 105 years between the appearance of the first volume of Royal and Historical Letters: Henry IV in 1860 and the publication of the second HMSO in 1965.

ERIC THOMPSON

London NW2