The Eton schoolboy, Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), was not yet 17 when he first met his musical hero Frederick Delius at a concert in 1911. The next day he wrote an ecstatic letter to Delius who was flattered and intrigued by the young admirer. And so began a correspondence that was to last until Heseltine's untimely death in 1930. Barry Smith has fully researched the background of the correspondence and by means of generous annotations and linking narrative has produced a compelling story of an unusual and unique friendship between two composers.

The composer Philip Heseltine (1894-1930), better known by his pseudonym 'Peter Warlock', is one of the most fascinating characters in twentieth-century English music. Educated at Eton and Oxford, yet musically largely self-taught, he is considered by many to be one of the great English song-writers. But besides being a composer, he was also an important pioneer editor of early music as well as the author of a number of books and numerous articles for newspapers and journals. His eccentric life-style, his outspoken comments and writings about music, as well as the mysterious circumstances...