To: GB

From:

Pliny (the Younger)
LXVII Oysterbath Way
Lower Triumphia
BCBG81

Do please release my hendecasyllables from their promise – they were guarantors to our friends for the apperance of your work, and every day brings in some new request and demand; so they now run the risk of being served with a writ to produce it. I know I am very slow to publish my own work, but you overdo even my doubts and hesitations. So bestir yourself, or else beware lest I drag those books out of you by the fury of my iambics, since my hendcasyllables failed to entice them with honeyed words! The work is already finished and perfect; revision will not give them further polish but only dull its freshness.

Please let me see your name published and hear that my friend’s books are being copied, read and sold. In view of our warm friendship, it is only fair that you should let me have the same pleasure from you as you enjoy in me.

Perturbed,

Pliny (the Younger)

Perturbed,

Pliny (the Younger)

My DEAR Pliny,

I’d rather appreciate if you refrain from sending these “helpful reminders” re: my memoirs. It is already quite difficult to produce a work of Quality and Substance with my rotten editor breathing down my neck (foul woman, quite unplesant and crass!), so I’d thank you to keep your trips of guilt and whimsy to yourself, thank you very much!

Adieu!

GB

P.S. Bridge on Tuesday? You bring the crusty loaves, this time!