Sir, - Angus Mitchell (October 31st) asks why I made no reference to Roger Casement's "White Diary" "in either end notes or bibliography of unprinted sources in [Casement:] The Flawed Hero (1984)".
If your correspondent cares to look inside the inscribed copy of that book which I gave him when he was staying at my house on the Isle of Wight, he will get three surprises. Not only is the "White" diary cited in the Notes and References and listed in the Bibliography under "unprinted sources", but it is also quoted in the text.
The letter goes on to say that I ignored the Dublin diary "and authenticated the Black Diaries on the strength of rumour and the opinion of handwriting experts . . ." Rumour has tended to be the prerogative of the forgery school of thought, and Sir Basil Thomson has been one of the victims of it. As readers of my introduction to 1910: The Black and the White will find, I favour a five-stranded multiple approach, of which the opinions of handwriting experts make up only one strand.
Finally, it is stated that all the biographers failed to make the distinction between the manuscript and the typescript version of the "White Diary". Professor Reid, with whom I corresponded, took care to explain why it existed in two forms. Those who read his book will be reassured of his integrity. - Yours, etc.,
Bembridge, Isle of Wight, England.