His 58th book, it recounts in the form of stories plucked from five generations of the Carnochan clan. Having come from Scotland to establish an American branch of the family thread business, the Carnochans triumph in the dynastic alliance-making of Old New York Society - much as did the author's own.

Perhaps our most erudite man of letters, Auchincloss in person is unpretentious, humorous and friendly. He spoke with The Post at his comfortably elegant apartment on Park Avenue, within blocks of the East 91st Street townhouse where he grew up.

How did you manage to get through Yale in three years while making Phi Beta Kappa?

I spent three years at Yale but never had a degree. Junior year I wrote a novel which I thought was the American "Madame Bovary." I sent it to Scribner's and got back a terribly nice letter saying they'd like to see my next book. But I took this very hard, in the violent way of 19-year-olds. I told father that I would give up this writing business and go to law school right away. Poor father, he was so nice. He said, "Well, you do what you want, but you know you'll spend the rest of your life explaining why you haven't got a degree from Yale - I wish you'd finish up." "No, I can't do that," I said. I went to the University of Virginia - it was the best law school in the country that would take you on the basis of three years without a degree.

Were you ever able to recast the first novel that Scribner's turned down?

I did put parts of it together - some of the ideas - years later in a novel called "The Lady of Situations." There was hardly any of the old novel in it.

Under whose influence were you when you wrote your first novel?

I think influences are very overdone. For example, I'm a tremendous admirer of Henry James - I've written about him, I collect him and I've read everything he's written - but I don't think he's influenced me at all.

How did you manage to combine a full-time law career with such extraordinary productivity as a writer?

What I learned to do was use bits and slices of time. If you learn that you can cover an enormous amount of ground. I'd go to Surrogate's Court and listen to the calendar being called for a particular case - it might come up in 10 minutes or in an hour - I thought, look, I could write then. Lots of writers think you need rest and calm, your slippers and a cigar, and all that. That's all very well if you can have those things, but you don't need them. So I picked up a great deal of time that way. If you have a notebook, you can fill that in constantly.

Wasn't a film version of "The Rector of Justin" once in the works?

MGM bought it and the script was written by the man who wrote "The Pleasure of His Company" [Samuel Taylor, who also wrote "Sabrina"]. They paid him twice as much as they paid me. He was quite good and he wrote an OK script. But Walter Wanger, the great man who was going to make the film - he was married to Joan Bennett and he shot her lover - didn't like the script and he asked for another. And they said, "No, no, we paid $250,000" - or whatever, which was money in those days - "that's it." And he said "Oh, well" - so the whole thing fell through.

Have any of your other novels been made into films?

No! And I thought when the thing fell through, "Well, why do I care, because I was paid my money and it probably would have made a bad movie, so what the hell." But my agent, Jim Brandt, said, "You'll find out why you'll care - they're very superstitious in Hollywood. The word goes out 'he doesn't film,' and you'll never sell another one." He was right.

Whit Stillman is a film director and author of "The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards."