 Many important biographical details shared with him by other writers could only with the greatest difficulty, if at all, find their way into conventional studies and biographies, and remain hidden from public view (such as, for example, Thomas Mann's verbal confession, made to Heller, concerning the circumstances attending upon the destruction, by his own hand, of his early diaries [their homosexual content was the immediate cause], or another concerning his reading and re-reading of Xenophon's "Symposium" 'nine times' before writing his own narrative on love's vicissitudes, "Der Tod in Venedig").Erich Heller's vivid intellect made him on occasion a principled controversialist, as evidenced by his long-running –– and sometimes acrimonious –– public exchanges with another prominent British Germanist, T. J. Reed, in the weekly pages of the "Times Literary Supplement" in the 1970s.Heller was a lifelong bachelor who cultivated several meaningful intellectual friendships, including with the Chicago writer Joseph Epstein.