Typed Letter Signed (1943) and three Typed Notes Signed to J.G. Wilson, Chairman of Messrs J & E. Bumpus

Author: 
Humphrey Milford.
Publication details: 
OUP, 4 & 11 Oct. 1929, 26 May 1932, and 16 March 1943.
£120.00
SKU: 2002

Publisher, Oxford University Press. One page each, 8vo (2) and 4to (2), one grubby, fold marks, minor defects, but texts clear and complete. Two are goodhumoured, brief, and concerning social trivia. The one sent in 1932 goes: "This is to introduce Sir Wallis Budge. I have told him you are the best bookseller in London, and would be able to get him all he wanted." (one ms. correction and one ms. addition). The letter dated 1943 discusses the works of Mark Rutherford: "I remember in very old days you were a devoted admirer of my late brother-in-law, Mark Rutherofrd. The Oxford University Press editioln of the Novels is the only edition I think now in existence, but our annual sales are miserable; most of them barely reach double figures." He asks if Wilson would give his opinion, before he arranged for existing stocks to be pulped, on whether Rutherford was likely to come back into fashion. "I should be very loath to let Mark Rutherford, for whose works I still have a great admiration, drop out of circulation, but I cannot keep my congested warehouse groaning under six unsaleable books indefinitely." Frank Mumby describes Wilson as "one of the outstanding booksellers of the day" (1956 ed., p.235). Four items,