ENGLISH

Both letters annotated in pencil in contemporary hand 'To Townsend Warner Historian'. (Warner was a history master and head of the ‘modern side’ at Harrow School, and co-editor of one of the most popular British history textbooks of the period. His only child was the novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner.) Both letters in good condition, each with pin hole from former attachment.

1p, landscape 12mo In good condition, with glue stain to one corner. Folded once. 'Mrs Belloc Lowndes regrets, on the score of ill health, that she cannot have the pleasure of accepting Lord [Treghre?]'s kind invitation.'

2pp, 12mo. On aged and creased paper, with two torn spike holes resulting in loss of a few letters of text. Date stamp on reverse. The recipient is not named, but is presumably the BBC producer Terence Dudley (1919-1988). Writing three months before his death, Strong begins the letter: 'My dear Terence, | How very kind of you! I [d]on't have any dignity in such matters! and I'd love to have a go, whether live or recorded.

On reverse of 11.25 x 8.25 cm card carrying a black and white print of the autograph score of Coates's second 'phantasy', 'The Three Bears' (1926). In good condition, lightly aged. Reads: 'To May Hirst | with best wishes | from | Eric Coates | Photograph of | Original Full Score of | The Three Bears'.

9pp, 12mo. On twi bifoliums and a single leaf, only the first of the bifoliums carrying the letterhead. In good condition, on aged paper. Folded once and in an envelope with 'Whist for 2. | Rules by Miss Stanton.' on cover. The letterhead has the feel of the 1920s, but the handwriting is Victorian, and presumably that of an old spinster. The first bifolium carries a separate set of instructions over four pages, headed 'Whist for two', and concluding: 'Hope you can read it excuse blots for I cant see what I have written'.

72pp, 8vo. Tight copy on lightly-aged paper, in original blue cloth binding with dulled gilt on spine, panels of sunning to front board, and slight wear at head of spine. Ownership inscription on front free endpaper: 'Christopher Fry'. Auden, along with Eliot, was an inspiration to Fry, one of the foremost twentieth-century English practitioners of verse drama.

120pp, 12mo. No dustwrapper. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, tight in lightly-worn green cloth with dulled gilt. Inscribed by Williams in pencil on front free endpaper: 'For Michal'. A collection of around fifty poems, including five addressed to the author's wife: 'To Michal: After a Vigil'. 'To Michal: On Forgiveness', 'To Michal: On Brushing her Hair', 'To Michal meditating a new Costume', 'To Michal: On Disputing outside Church'. Accompanying the volume is an Autograph Letter Signed from 'Neil' to 'Dear Christopher and Dear Phyl', i.e. Christopher Fry and his wife Phyllis.

xv + 179pp, 8vo. Good tight copy in brown cloth, in worn printed dustwrapper. Frontispiece portrait of Fry. Inscribed on front free endpaper: 'To Christopher Fry | from | Glenda Leeming | with love'. In her preface Leeming notes Fry's 'patience and tolerance, as well as his helpful explanations of his plays, his intentions, and their realization'. The volume contains pencil annotations between pp.43 and 73, mostly relating to 'The Lady's not for Burning'. All are marginal indications of passages with vertical lines, apart from two annotations suggesting a degree of impatience with the text.

[6] + viii + 266pp, 8vo. With four-page 'Select Bibliography' and three two-page lists of errata tipped-in at the rear. In plain brown cloth, with green printed dustwrapper glued-down (by publisher) onto the endpapers by the flaps. In good condition, lightly-aged, in lightly-worn dustrapper with closed tear at rear. Inscribed on the front free endpaper: 'To | Mr. Christopher Fry, | With best compliments | from the Author, | S. n. Ray | 7.4.98'. Fry makes around fifty autograph corrections to the text, giving a list of them over the rear endpapers.

9pp, 8vo. Complete carbon typescript. On nine leaves, stapled together. Title at head of first page: 'THE BOAT THAT MOOED.' Fry's signature in blue ink at top left of first page: 'Christopher Fry:'. Fry has cut down the story by deleting and removing a passage. The lower part of the leaf carrying the sixth page of the story has been cut away, and the original seventh page has been removed, hence the typescript pagination 1-6, 8-10 has been amended in manuscript to 1-9. A lighthearted faux-naive story, replete with symbolism. Begins: 'Tom Crunch lived on a boat. All round the boat was water.

3pp, 4to, each page on a separate leaf. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded once. There is no indication that either item was published, nor even that the poem is connected to the 'programme'. (If unpublished the poem may have found its way into Fry's papers from Hassall's.) The 'programme' - with no title or heading - is two pages long (with slight damage from a small staple to corners of both leaves) and complete, being divided into six numbered sections.

The two items are from the playwright's own papers. FIRST EDITION: [8] + 113pp, 8vo. A good tight copy in lightly-aged brown cloth and price-clipped cream dustwrapper with attractive design by Edward Blakeney in brown and black on front cover, and slight chipping to bottom edge at back. Label with English price on back of dustwrapper. No autograph interpolations. PROOFS: 96pp, 8vo. Duplicated printed pages, each page on a separate leaf. Paginated 1-96.

1p, 8vo. In fair condition, lightly aged. On Croxley Script cartridge paper. Folded three times. Typed at top left: 'For Andrew Young'. From the Fry papers, with the playwright apparently stating that he found the typescript in a copy of Robert Frost's poems. Hassall's poem is apparently unpublished (but see below). It is divided into two sonnets, numbered I ('Yours is the Wildern World beyond my door') and II ('Speak for us to the earth, interpreter -').

A multi-talented figure, Denis Johnston was a protégé of W. B. Yeats and Bernard Shaw, and had a stormy friendship with Seán O'Casey. Jonathan Swift was a preoccupation of Johnston's (see his 1959 book 'In Search of Swift'), and his play about him, 'The Dreaming Dust', was first produced at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, in 1940. It was published in collections of Johnston's plays in 1954, 1960, 1977 and 1983. This 1988 version remains unpublished. Both typescript and letter in fair condition, lightly aged.

6pp, 12mo. Paginated [1]-6. Lightly aged and a bit grubby. Folded twice. On six leaves of paper, which Herford has made up by tearing in half the 4to leaves of one of his students' essays. Complete, and signed at the end 'C H Herford'. Written in a close hand, with numerous deletions and emendations. He begins by describing how Shelley met his death, and his final writing, before dismissing the suggestion that he committed suicide: 'we may dismiss the utterly uncalled for suggestion that his own hand lifted the veil'.

2pp, 16mo. In fair condition, on aged paper with ruckling caused by glue from mount, traces of the paper from which adhere to blank reverses of both leaves. In a crabbed difficult hand, addressed to 'Mrs [Pugh?]', regarding his forthcoming book 'Sophia', a copy of which he will be sending the recipient, with reference to his wife, 'anxiety', and something 'characteristic'.

2pp, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded several times. Small slip of paper with printed biographical entry on Pollock laid down at top left of first page. With several corrections giving the appearance of a draft, but from the papers of the recipient, the Austrian-born biologist Maurice Ernest (1872-1955). An interesting discussion of the question of arms control by a leading jurist in the years preceding the First World War. He begins by stating: 'Limitation of armaments is, as you rightly suggest, the only practical term.

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Having found among her correspondence an unanswered letter from her cousin she apologises for the apparent rudeness, before accepting her 'kind invitation to luncheon when next we are in your neighbourhood'. She hopes that they 'may be in the Forest some time in the summer'. She ends by stating that she is enclosing an autograph for her cousin's friend.

1p, 12mo. In good condition, on lightly aged paper. Folded twice, resulting in offset ink smudging. Reads: 'Dear Rylands, | I am writing to you in case Noel is away. I have asked Mr Greene to show you my letter to Noel, if this is should [sic] be so. Anything you could do to help, would be kind and good, I think.

2pp, 16mo. In fair condition, on aged paper with ruckling caused by glue from mount, traces of the paper from which adhere to blank reverses of both leaves. In a crabbed difficult hand, addressed to 'Mrs [Pugh?]', regarding his forthcoming book 'Sophia', a copy of which he will be sending the recipient, with reference to his wife, 'anxiety', and something 'characteristic'.

2pp, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded several times. Small slip of paper with printed biographical entry on Pollock laid down at top left of first page. With several corrections giving the appearance of a draft, but from the papers of the recipient, the Austrian-born biologist Maurice Ernest (1872-1955). An interesting discussion of the question of arms control by a leading jurist in the years preceding the First World War. He begins by stating: 'Limitation of armaments is, as you rightly suggest, the only practical term.

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Having found among her correspondence an unanswered letter from her cousin she apologises for the apparent rudeness, before accepting her 'kind invitation to luncheon when next we are in your neighbourhood'. She hopes that they 'may be in the Forest some time in the summer'. She ends by stating that she is enclosing an autograph for her cousin's friend.

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with two smudges on second page. Folded once. With reference to her letter 'to Mr. Somerset of March 11th. re the portrait of Charles II (as Prince) in academic robes', he has had the picture by William Dobson photographed and encloses a copy (not present). He discusses Charles's dress in the picture in some detail, adding that 'The portrait (27 x 28 1/2 inches) has been in my possession since 1918 when it was bought at Christie's Nov. 29 lot.

On one side of a slip of laid paper cut from the end of a letter: roughly 4 x 17 cm, the reverse being blank. In good condition, lightly aged. Good neat signature to the valediction of a letter. Reads: 'I am my d [Phippen?] | (in great haste | Yours very truly | Jos: S: Munden'. Munden eas the subject of one of the "Essays of Elia" (Charles Lamb).

3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Fifty-one lines of text in a close neat hand, the last page written lengthwise. In good condition, lightly aged, with traces of white paper mount adhering to blank reverse of second leaf. Folded once. The letter is signed 'Barry Pain'. The recipient is not named, but is James Payn, editor of the Cornhill Magazine, who had just published the story that made Pain's name, 'The Hundred Gates'.

Stanford's study of Fry in the British Council's 'Writers and their Work' series was re-published several times, and the early letters in the present collection refer to the preparation of the fourth edition, published by Longmans in 1971 (the bibliography to which Stanford refers as 'CHRISTOPHER STATE PAPERS'). A total of twenty-six items. The material in good condition, lightly aged. Stanford's nineteen letters total 65pp, 12mo. In an undisciplined hand, in different-coloured ink, on different-coloured paper. Stanford's 19 letters between 17 February 1970 and 31 October 1978.

See the appreciative obituary of Lowbury by Christopher Hawtree, Guardian, 15 October 2007. Nineteen items, five of which are accompanied by envelopes addressed to Fry at his home The Toft, East Dean, Chichester, Sussex. The material is in good condition, lightly aged. ONE: Edward Lowbury's ten ALsS and one ACS, 1972-1989, with one undated Christmas card. A total of 17pp, 12mo.

Tiller's entry in the Oxford DNB explains the background to this poem. In 1939 he 'went to Cairo to teach English literature and history at Fuad I University. During the Second World War he became closely associated with the group surrounding Personal Landscape, a review in the Middle East that had been founded and was edited by Lawrence Durrell, Robin Fedden, and Bernard Spencer'. Two items, both in good condition, lightly aged. ONE: Autograph Draft of the poem, in pencil, with numerous deletions, emendations and rubbings-out. 1p, folio.

See Anna Gurney's entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient and her husband had spent some time in Rome in 1842, and in 1838 had befriended the Alpinist Henriette d'Angeville at Geneva. 4pp, 4to. Bifolium with mourning border and watermark year 1840. In good condition, lightly aged, with minor traces of glue from label on outsides of gutter. The letter begins: 'My dear Lady Cullum | I think You & Sir Thomas may be home by this time & I must wish to enquire how you both are after your long wanderings.

70pp, on thirty-six leaves of a worn 16.5 x 10.5 late-Victorian album, bound in black cloth. An additional seven pages at the end of the volume carry an index, divided into 'China', 'Furniture' and 'Silver Pages'. In fair condition, aged and worn. The compiler is unidentified. The first nineteen pages of the volume carry a total of thirty-six 5.5 x 3.5 cm silk labels, each with a coloured illustration of an item of porcelain (from 'Astbury' to 'Zurich'), with the manufacturer's name and marks beneath, each accompanied by a strip of paper carrying a caption printed in blue.