A true labour of love

This is a fascinating example of a small genre, in which the author decides at an early stage in his adult life that he would like to devote himself to a great figure whom he idolises, but who needs help of one kind or another to continue with his work, or at least for what he has done to be more widely appreciated. The classic case in the recent past is that of Robert Craft, who in his early twenties offered his unlimited services to Igor Stravinsky, and can plausibly be claimed to have enabled the Master to create the works of his last decade, but who also fought against being seen as no more than a vassal, and whose copious writings, in all their brilliance, both celebrate Stravinsky and reduce him, at least as a person, to size. Henry Hardy met Isaiah Berlin in 1972, and was interviewed by him and others for entry to Oxford to read for a B.Phil at the recently founded Wolfson College, of which Berlin was the Master. Hardy rapidly developed a passion for Berlin, the personality and the intellect, and after graduating suggested to Berlin that he should edit his writings.

Berlin was notoriously unwilling to write books, but it turned out that he had produced far more articles, most of them on the history of ideas, than apparently he realised. Hardy managed to persuade Berlin to allow him to collect and publish some in book form, despite Berlin’s previously having agreed to do so with an American publisher. ‘Berlin had undeniably treated him shabbily, ‘Hardy concedes. Anyway, one book led to another, until Hardy published 14 volumes of Berlin’s writings, as well as four immense volumes of his letters. It has been Hardy’s life, and he is still in search of communications or other pieces which may have escaped him.