Writing about Koestler

To the Editors:

David Cesarani’s erratic book on Arthur Koestler demonstrates that facts hold little interest for him, but I should like to put it on record that I did not, as Cesarani peculiarly claims [“Morality & Arthur Koestler,” Letters, NYR, April 27], start my biography of Arthur Koestler in 1984. My correspondence with Harold Harris is in the Edinburgh Special Collections, where Cesarani spent so many lip-smacking hours reading about Koestler’s sex life. Had he been able to wrench himself away, Cesarani could have read in the Harris files that Harris contacted me in 1985, and that, because of another writing project, I could not start on Koestler until December 1988 (which in effect meant the beginning of 1989).

Michael Scammell
Dover, New Hampshire