Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1971 May 5 : carbon copy typescript.

Saying that he enjoyed her observations on the "Indian character" and suggested she call the collection of short stories "Beautiful Souls, Terrible Characters" so that they "could refer not only to the people in the stories, but to Indians generally"; saying that regardless of this idea, he anticipates she will stick with "An Experience of India"; pondering that it feels surreal to be beginning another film so soon after "Bombay Talkie"'s release; describing the look and feel of the cast for the new project, including Paulita Sedgwick, who looks like "a mixture of Garbo and Janis Joplin"; elaborating that she is the cousin of Edie Segewick, "the first and probably the most famous of Andy Warhol's super-stars, but she went very, very off her head and is now in an insane asylum"; pivoting to describe another actress who will star in the film, Anne Francine, as "one of the few actresses around here who has a real upper class American accent and a manner to go with it"; telling her about a cobweb-making machine they've hired for the production; moving on to write about the tortured dynamic between Henry James and Oscar Wilde he has read about, which all comes down to James' insecurities about the success of Wilde's plays in comparison with his plays; narrating a particularly upsetting night in which James was booed when taking a bow after the opening of his play "Guy Domville"; mentioning he will have to lend Jhabvala the correspondence where James writes an account of that opening to a few different people and worries "if audiences can be so enraptured by such a play as Wilde's they can never possibly like mine"; asking that she send over her thoughts on the Delhi premiere of "Bombay Talkie," saying "it will arrive as we're shooting our new film, but I will find time, I'm sure, to fulminate over it"; wishing her a happy birthday, and closing with love.