[‘One like me who spends half his life wandering about’: Hilaire Belloc, poet and author.] Two Autograph Letters Signed and one Typed Letter signed in his name, to Col. Oldham of Wellington, regarding his stay with him while giving a lecture.

See Belloc’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient is Colonel Frederick Hugh Langston Oldham (1876-1965), D.S.O., D.L., of Overley Hall near Wellington. The three items are in good condition, lightly aged. ONE: ALS, 5 October 1922. 1p, 4to. With mourning border. Folded twice. Giving details of the train from Paddington he is proposing to take to Wellington for ‘[t]he lecture’ on 13 October. ‘It is most kind of you to have asked me to stay with you & I am much looking forward to it.’ TWO: TL, 11 October 1922. 1p, 8vo. Folded twice. The signature ‘H. Belloc’ is certainly not in Belloc’s hand. He writes that he has an apology to make with regard to his clothes. ‘I had come up to London counting on picking up my evening clothes from a flat which I share with a friend and so bringing them up north, but I find on arrival to my great annoyance that this suit which I sent to be pressed and relined has not returned as it should have done, so I am without dress clothes for the moment.’ He asks to be excused for having to appear ‘in morning dress at your house during the evening I am there, [...] It looks discourteous but it is unavoidable.’ He has ‘written to the Lecture people at Wellington to the same effect’. In a postscript he explains that he has ‘to go latish on Saturday into Lancashire. I have just received the order. I cannot I fear avoid this journey though I should have been most grateful to have accepted your extended, kind and hospitable offer to keep me until Sunday morning’. THREE: ALS, 15 October 1922. 2pp, 12mo. On bifiolium. Folded once. Begins: ‘How kind it was of you to give me hospitality during my too brief stay at Wellington! Such an invitation makes all the difference to one like me who spends half his life wandering about, & I look back with so much pleasure to the few hours, from which many work in Lancashire called me away so quickly’. He ends with an expression of thanks. See image (5 Oct. 1922).