Arno Schmidt once remarked that he was a "lazy" letter writer: "My closer acquaintances - for I actually have some - know this and wait patiently. (And the most beautiful 'letter' that an author can send remains the 'new book'.)" This self-assessment aligns with the public prejudice about the "solipsist in the heath," but it is only half the truth, as the fourth volume of the Arno Schmidt letter edition demonstrates. The fully presented correspondences of Schmidt with Böll, Deschner, Döblin, Edschmid, Hesse, Jahnn, Kreuder, Rühmkorf, Stefl, Steinberg, and Martin Walser (along with a wealth of individual letters) portray Schmidt as an author who, from a self-chosen marginal position, knew very well how to navigate the mechanisms of the literary world in his own way. The detailed commentary by the Cologne literary scholar Gregor Strick makes this clear.