Is there such a thing as a modern-English version of the Canterbury Tales? I have these guilts about never having read Chaucer but I was talked out of learning Early Anglo-Saxon/Middle English by a friend who had to take it for her Ph. D. They told her to write an essay in Early Anglo-Saxon on any subject of her own choosing. "Which is all very well," she said bitterly, "but the only essay subject you can find enough Early Anglo-Saxon words for is 'How to Slaughter a Thousand Men in a Mead Hall.'"

I won it. I won a $5,000 Grant-in-Aid, off CBS, it's supposed to support me for a year while I write American History dramatizations. I am starting with a script about New York under seven years of British Occupation and I MARVEL at how I rise above it to address you in friendly and forgiving fashion, your behavior over here from 1776 to 1783 was simply FILTHY.

She also filled me in on Beowulf and his illegitimate son Sidwith-or is it Widsith? she says it's not worth reading so that killed my interest in the entire subject, just send me a modern Chaucer.

I write to say I have got work.

Give my regards to Nora.

Sir:

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