TLS, three pages on two adjoining sheets, 5.5 x 7, Winterbrook House letterhead, February 19, 1966. Letter to Miss Evelyn B. Bryne, in part: "I would say that I much enjoyed the historical novels of Stanley Wayman—'Under the Red Robe,' 'The Abbess of Veaye,' 'The Castle Inn' (this I read again with much pleasure only a year ago), etc. All the Sherlock Holmes stories were enthusiasms of mine. Maurice Hewletts’ 'The Forest Lovers.' Practically all of Dickens, though I did skip some of the more sentimental bits, but much relished Mrs. Nickleby, for example, especially the mad old gentleman who was courting her by throwing vegetable marrows over his garden wall! Charlotte M. Young’s 'Unknown to History' was very good. Charlotte Bronte’s 'Jane Eyre' I found wildly exciting. The early Hugh Walpole were his best—I enjoyed 'Mr. Perrin and Mr. Trail' and 'Prelude to Adventure' attracted me, when I was rather elder, by their intense originality. P. G. Wodehouse I enjoyed enormously…I had a brief passion for Maeterlink’s 'Bluebird.' Nobody forced me on to Shakespeare, which I consider very lucky, as I was able to approach him from seeing him first on a stage! This is the way that I think all teenagers should meet Shakespeare first, since that is the purpose for which they were meant…The short stories of H. G. Wells also made a great impression on me, especially 'The Crystal Egg' and the 'Country of the Blind.'" In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
Byrne ran a program at New York City's Elizabeth Barrett Browning Junior High School where she asked major literary and artistic figures for recollections of what books inspired them; some responses were published in the 1971 book Attacks of Taste.
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