The review of Paul Bailey's The Prince's Boy (The Tablet, 10 May) by Emma Hughes is unworthy of your publication.
It has always been my understanding that if a reviewer, for whatever reason, decides in advance of reading the work in question that they did not, on principle, care for the publication or author (even, as here, on the basis of a superficial glance at the dust jacket) that they should return the book and ask for it to be reviewed by another.
Emma Hughes, having admitted she had an aversion to the type of novel she had decided this novel would be, then merely re-told the story - hardly the main draw of a subtle and highly detailed imaginative, world-creation such as this - throwing in a few unsubtle adjectives (“twee”, “tinkling”) and a trite, negative comparison with Barbara Cartland. It amounted to little more than a crude, and somewhat vulgar, kick in the teeth.
Of course opinions about fiction may differ. I have not always found Paul Bailey's taut and pared-down style easy (and, it is true, I once knew him slightly some 40 years ago as an undergraduate, when he was Northern Arts Literary Fellow). But, surely, someone as renowned and serious a writer as Bailey undoubtedly is, deserves better.
Can a thoughtful, fair, review be simply a parade of the reviewer's personal prejudices about types of fiction they do not much care for?
Dr P. A. Packer, London SE15
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