Five Letters, most signed "C.S." [Clifford Sharp, editor,, New Statesman] to Robert Lynd, essayist.

Author: 
Clifford Sharp, (1883-1935), editor of the New Statesman.
Publication details: 
1923-1933.
£180.00
SKU: 12756

3 ALsS, ANS and TNS, three on New Statesman letterheads, one on letterhead of 127 Willifield Way, Golders Green; 27 July 1923, 19 June 1924, and 5 January and 23 March 1933, 8pp., 8vo and 12mo.An undated note, on New Statesman letterhead, reads 'These fruits of abstinence are not for me. If you got in that bottle of whiskey you spoke of for God's sake drink it.' (MG notes that this was written 'evidently on one of his cures for alcoholism'. The first dated item, again on New Statesman letterhead, encloses the 'postscript' to 'Green's letter', which Sharp 'left out on account of its length', concerning gambling and prostitution. On 19 June 1924 Sharp writes: 'We never meet nowadays. Mightn't you make a habit - an always breakable habit - of looking in here on Tuesday evenings between 5.30 & 7? Such a habit would have a major & a minor advantage. The major one is that it would enable us to have a drink - a small whiskey - together - the minor one is that we might sometimes talk about your article. I don't mean that I am ever in the slightest degree dissatisfied with Y.Y. - very much the contrary (his price by the way has this month risen from 5 to 6 guineas as a very inadequate but well-meant recognition of his value) but there is something to be said for occasional preliminary discussion with a devil's advocate - at least I think that is what I should want if I were Y.Y. Besides there would be the drink.' The letter of 5 January 1933 refers to a New Year's pact between RL and Sharp to abstain from alcohol: 'I owe Sylvia 1/-. | This the first day upon which it has been possible for me to get on entirely without a drink. | As a matter of fact when we met on New Year's Eve I knew perfectly well that I could not possibly keep the pact for as much as 24 hours as it was only because I knew your sentimental attachment to particular dates that I did not insist on a few day's postponement. | On New Year's Day when the maid had left at 10.30. a.m. I was completely alone in the house for the rest of the day & was quite incapable of getting myself even so much as a cup of tea. My hands wouldn't hold anything. At 7 p.m. (greatly daring) I managed (with only one rather nasty fall on the way) to get down to the pub. I couldn't have a drink there because I couldn't have lifted the glass, but I have managed to get home safely with two ¼ bottles. One of these enabled to get myself some supper. The other I kept for Monday's emergencies, which in some ways, owing to the return of my sister for a couple of hours in a more or less hysterical state over my father's apparently dying condition, were even more serious than Sunday's.' The letter of 23 March 1933 continues the description of Sharp's struggles with drink.