14 May 1963

Dr. Peter Pauling

University College

Gower Street WC1

London, England

Dear Peter:

I was pleased to received your letter.

Mama went to Berkeley yesterday. She is staying with the Hultgrens. Today she is speaking at the University, on the invitation of some undergraduate group. She is going to come home on Thursday.

You may remember that she had a fever in London. She got worse a day or so after we got home, in January, and after she had got pretty sick and had a high fever for two or three days she was weak enough to let me get a doctor for her - the partner of Bob Boyd came out to see her and prescribe some antibiotic. This got rid of the fever, and she had a slow recovery, staying in bed for over a month.

She got along alright on a lecture tour for the American Friends Service Committee, in March.

Then Bob Boyd checked up on her and found bacteria in the urine. He gave her another antibiotic, during a period of about one week. She seems to be feeling better, but has not yet had a check to see whether or not the bladder infection or kidney infection has been brought under control. I hope that she will do this soon, but perhaps she will not be able to do it until we get back from New York.

On Sunday we are going to New York, because the libel suit that I filed some time ago against the New York Daily News is to come up for trial. My attorney in this case, Mr. Hoague, estimates that it will last about ten days.

As to your suggestion about a High School Chemistry text, I am thinking about it, and W. H. Freeman Company (Stan Shaffer) is much interested in it. However, I can see that there is no possibility of my beginning work on it for about a year. I have a good assistant now, who might be valuable in this work - it is Gus Albrecht, whom you probably do not remember. He has been teaching in Junior Colleges or City Colleges during recent years.

Dr. Albrecht has been helpful to me in connection with College Chemistry, but I have another man working for me who was less helpful. My experience indicates pretty clearly that the author of a book has to plan on doing practically all the work himself - or the authors, if there are two.

I am not interested in your offer, because I think the manuscript of a High School Chemistry text would be worth far more than the sum of $10,000, over a period of twenty years (during which the book would have to be revised several times). I am still hoping to find a good co-author.

I suppose that I may have made College Chemistry too difficult, in preparing the third edition. Perhaps I can simplify it again when I prepare the fourth edition.

Much love from