Loving Letters from Ogden Nash: A Family Album

Smith, Nash's daughter, here unveils only a portion of the letters written by the humorist to his wife, children and relatives. It is nevertheless a collection of generous scope, revealing the family man behind the famous creator of beguiling light verse and lyricist of the smash hit One Touch of Venus . The funniest and most touching epistles went daily from New York to Frances Leonard, a woman Nash met in Baltimore in 1928; he carried on a courtship by mail until she consented to marry him in 1931. Despite hard times in their long years together, Nash (1907-1971) remained, above all, a lover, and Frances his best-beloved, as revealed in one of his annual Valentine notes: ``More than a cat bird hates a cat, / Or a criminal hates a cue, / Or the Axis hates the United States, / That's how much I love you.'' Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)