Book excerpt: A. S. Neill, founder of Summerhill, the most admired and most feared of all progressive schools, was famous as a schoolteacher, educational reformer, and author of illuminating and stylish books about education and the mind of the child. But few people know he was also a dedicated, prolific, uninhibited, witty and often mischievous letter writer. This selection of gems, first published in 1983, has been chosen from hundreds of his letters by his biographer. It includes letters about education, children, politics, writing, fatherhood, the Bomb, old age and death. ‘All the best, Neill’ was the familiar ending of his letters to the famous – H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Henry Miller, Paul Goodman, Wilhelm Reich, Homer Lane; to important educators – W. B. Curry of Dartington, John Aitkenhead of Kilquhanity, Bob Mackenzie of Braehead, Dora Russell of Beacon Hill; to unknown friends, parents, and even casual correspondents. To read these letters is to share the company of a great and always delightful man, who wrote each one with the same commitment and gaiety.