But what is to become of all these diaries, I asked myself yesterday. If I died, what would Leo make of them? He would be disciplined to burn them; he could not publish them. Well, he should make up a book from them, I think; and then burn the body. I daresay there is a little book in them: if the scraps and scratches were straightened out a little. God knows.

Leonard, as we know followed his wife’s suggestion in part, and the ‘little book’ which resulted was A Writer’s Diary, published in 1953. It would not have been prudent for Leonard to have published the complete letters or diary during his lifetime. As the occasional editorial omissions indicate, there are