[‘I don’t much like the idea of sniping at my fellow writers’: Peter Quennell, biographer and historian.] Autograph Letter Signed to Philip Dosse, publisher of ‘Books and Bookmen’, declining to ‘co-operate’ with his ‘questionnaire’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient Philip Dosse was proprietor of Hansom Books, publisher of a stable of seven arts magazines including Books and Bookmen and Plays and Players. See ‘Death of a Bookman’ by the novelist Sally Emerson (editor of ‘Books and Bookmen’ at the time of Dosse’s suicide), in Standpoint magazine, October 2018. The present item is 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and creased. Folded once for postage. Signed ‘Peter Quennell’. He ‘can’t co-operate’ with the questionnaire that Dosse has sent him. ‘In the first place, I’m rather too busy just now; & filling it up wld require a good deal of thought. Secondly, I don’t much like the idea of sniping at my fellow writers without explaining my criticisms - ‘overpraised’, ‘unreadable’, ‘silliest’ etc - at some length.’ He ends by reminding Dosse that he owes him a cheque ‘for my Boswell-Thrale review, which I hope will arrive before Christmas’.