Max's Little Monster

To Edmund Gosse

Monday [8] June, 1896

19 Hyde Park Place, W.

Dear Mr. Gosse,

I send you a copy of my first book, and my excuse is that you, unconsciously, suggested the title of it. One afternoon of last summer, in the garden of a certain club, you were complaining of the folly of journalists, and you declared that, next time they asked you what works you had found most "helpful", you would say, "The Works of Max Beerbohm". So I send you the little monster that has been born of your mot, hoping you will be one of its keepers.

Yours very truly

Max Beerbohm

-from Letters of Max Beerbohm 1892-1956 edited by Rupert Hart-Davis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988) p. 10.