The story of how I came to write this book and own these letters from Debussy to Inghelbrecht is the result of three chance encounters I had in Paris. The first came in 1925, when I spent the winter in school in Paris. There I had piano lessons with Henri Etlin, who, I later learned, had won a Premier Prix at the Conservatoire in 1907. He began my lessons with the usual Czerny et al. compositions and then started me on some of the Debussy Préludes. I liked these so much that I asked to study only Debussy that whole winter. He agreed and seemed quite happy at my request.

On returning home, I continued my piano lessons with a Russian teacher who encouraged me to work on Debussy. Then came marriage, two children, and a job as freelance copy-editor for a large publishing house, a position I held for thirty-two years. There was then no longer time for piano lessons. During my last five years of copy-editing, while working on a medical dictionary, I began to think that I would like to write a book myself. As my interest in Debussy had never waned, and I had learned about him and his music, especially his songs, I thought that this was an area that I could explore. I had always been interested in French poetry, so here was my link to Debussy. Therefore, I decided that I would go to Paris for my annual vacations and do some work on Debussy and his songs.

My first trip to Paris for this project was in 1967. I started my work in the Music Department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2 rue Louvois. There I met François Lesure, who was the head of that department and was soon to become well known as a Debussy specialist. He helped me in my work and also encouraged me in my project of a possible book. I was also able to work in the beautiful reading room of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 58 rue de Richelieu. There I found the editions of the books of poems that Debussy would have used and noted the changes he sometimes made in the texts of his early songs.

One day in late October 1968, when leaving the Music Department, I walked out with a woman who had also been working there.