2110-1-4-2

34 Queen Mary Avenue Glasgow

July: 8: 98

My dear Mr Murray

Very many thanks indeed for your kind note. I am so glad that you find J.B. not wholly dull. To tell the truth I am rather ashamed of it; it is so very immature & boyish. I had no really serious interest in fiction when I wrote it, and the result is a sort of hotch-potch. My Jacobite story is coming out in Spring. I think you will like it better; at any rate it seems a great deal better to me.

I hope your health is better now. I heard most disquieting rumours about it both from Lodge and Fisher. I was going ot send you my Newdigate but I

thought you might be too ill to be troubled with it. I hope you are quite strong again after such a long time of illness.

I have just had a royal fortnight in Galloway. Four of us went down from Oxford and took possession of a house there. I am afraid we didn't do much work, but we had some wonderful expeditions into the hills. And some respectable fishing. I am now settling down to a long spell of work till the end of the month. I am trying to write the Lothian, and the work for it is rather heavy.

I haven't seen you for such an age that I haven't heard any news about your plays or your Euripides. I suppose you have been resting lately.

With kind regards to Lady Mary

Yours very sincerely

John Buchan