This late book by Cabell consists of a dozen unposted letters and ten posted ones. The ten are each brief and polite (if sometimes just detectably arch) replies to unsolicited mail received in the course of a career as a professional author. And in each case, there follows a much longer corresponding unsent "draft" letter, in which Cabell declares his real sentiments regarding the matter raised, the sorts of correspondents who raise such matters, and tangent issues of various sorts. The opening and closing letters are addressed to the reader and to the writer himself, respectively.

If you're up for witty slams against book collectors, professional reviewers, aspiring and mediocre writers, this volume offers them in abundance. It also touches on sexual mores, the creative process, magic, drugs, and religion (but I repeat myself). The letter I found most surprising was "About Loveliness Revised," addressed to a former lover and given the honor of finishing the series.

"The reader is asked to believe that all the correspondents addressed in this book are imaginary persons. Should the reader not comply with this moderate and civil request, the author must decline to accept any responsibility for such stubbornness."

The foregoing disclaimer is not only more urbane, but a good deal less categorical than the one typical in today's works of fiction. What's more, if we observe the addressees of "The Epistle Explicative" and "The Epistle Egoistic," and complete the syllogism, we discover that we are requested to believe that both Branch Cabell and the readers of this book "are imaginary persons." I think this consequence was the author's intention, and not an oversight.

There are few books like this. It is an auctorial extravagance. It is self-indulgence run amok in Amokdom. It is a sort of elaborate revenge on both the good will and ill-will of readers.

It is a perfect book.

But what is it? It is a series of letters, replies to impositions by readers and critics. It is a literary exercise in self-defense and self-definition. It begins with a simple note:

"The reader is asked to believe that all the corresondents addressed in this book are imaginary persons. Should the reader not comply with this moderate and civil request, the author must decline to accept any responsibility for such stubbornness."

And yet, every reader knows that the author is addressing certain types of letters he did receive. You know, the letter from the aging widow, the letter from the young woman ready to throw herself wantonly at the author of the books she admires, the high school student asking for help with a school assignment, the young author asking the elder artist to read his first masterpiece. We know that the aging author, Cabell, had received letters very much like that. And this book is his defense.

It is must reading for all those readers who, in their reading, assume some special, personal relationship with the author in question. Call it a prophylactic. ( )