One mid-morning in the mid-Fifties, I came across Ken Tynan on Fleet Street, hurrying towards the Evening Standard offices, then around the corner in Shoe Lane. I tagged along as he explained, between puffs, that there had been an unfortunate misprint in a piece he had written about Orson Welles. Luckily, he had spotted this in the first edition and now was on his way to ensure it was corrected for the rest of the day's run. While he was inside, I bought the paper and read his article in the pub over the way. I could not see the error that so agitated him. It seemed a brilliant sketch, containing one phrase I particularly admired, envied even. When Ken returned, he stabbed his finger at the page. 'That's it! What I wrote was: "Everything that passes through the hands of Mr Welles acquires a touch of poetry." ' I could not bring myself to tell him that the compositor's slip had been, for me, the most penetrating insight in the essay. In the first edition, it had read: 'Everything that passes through the hands of Mr Welles acquires a touch of perjury.'

LRB 5 December 1985 | PDF Download