 The idea for a new edition of the letters of Joshua Reynolds had been raised in the 1980s when Brian Allen and John Edgcumbe found that they were independently collecting new material and decided to collaborate.After he retired, Edgcumbe held a visiting fellowship at the Yale Center for British Art in order to complete the work.The book was eventually published by Yale University Press in 2000, jointly edited by Edgcumbe and John Ingamells.