¹ A similar piece of fatuity occurs on p. 68, where in a characteristically pretentious note a discussion of ambiguity reminds Mr. Ahmad of “Mr. Empson” who, we are told, “should read these verses of Ghalib”—adding in the next breath that they need to be “read in the original”. I may perhaps be permitted to remark at this point on Mr. Ahmad's ignorance of, or ignoring of, a book which his interested reader could consult, viz. Ghalib: life and letters, translated and edited by myself and Khurshidul Islam. He recommends three things to his readers (all of them in Urdu)—Yādgār-i-Ghālib, Ghālib's own letters, and the work of S. M. Ikram. These same three things form the main basis of our book. (For our grateful, and duly acknowledged, use of lkram seep. 11 of our Introduction.) The book was published simultaneously by Allen and Unwin in Britain and Harvard University Press in the U.S.A. in October 1969. Mr. Ahmad's Introduction is dated April 15, 1970, and his book was published in 1971.

² Emphasis in this and the following quotation is mine.