Nine Typed Letters Signed, one Typed Note Signed and one Autograph Card Signed (all eleven 'Nicolette') from the author and artist Nicolette Devas to the military historian Antony Brett-James.

Apart from the card (12mo, 1 p), totalling 4to, 10 pp; 12mo, 2 pp. All items in good condition, with text clear and complete, on lightly-aged paper. All post-1960. Two of the eleven (20 January and 13 June 1974) are fully dated by Devas; another four have day and month. The card from 1960 is the earliest item; the three from Wetherby Gardens date from between this point and Devas's second marriage to Rupert Shephard in 1965, and the seven from Limerston Street from after the marriage. A good-natured correspondence, written in a chatty style. (At the end of one letter she writes: 'I must stop now and get on with chapter 6, A note to myself on the desk reads "Dont fiddle with the detail"'.). Mainly concerning her writing activities (Brett-James had worked with the publishers Chatto & Windus and Cassell), but leavened with references reflecting Devas's 'great gift for friendship and conversation' (Oxford DNB). The card concerns a dinner date with Daphne Charlton: 'Her husband is a teacher at the Slade, and she was a student there with me - Hope you survive her!' From Wetherby Gardens she announces a new work ('I am thinking of calling it Macnamara Shop') and reports a 'wonderful stroke of luck', the selling of the film rights to her novel 'Bonfire' (1958) for £4,000. From Limerston Street she requests his editorial help over a book being published by Collins: 'I think of you every day, as I correct this book and leave all the historical material for you to criticise'. She has 'absolute trust in your judgement - poor Collins rates rather low in that way'. She mentions a television series 'on this last war', for which her husband's son Ben 'has done a lot of the research and actually produced the Anzio-Cassino instalment'. In 1966 she announces the forthcoming publication of her classic biography 'Two Flamboyant Fathers': 'It has taken me three years to write and I find it hard to adjust to life without a writing stint in the morning. However I have promised myself NOT to write until August'. In the same letter she congratulates him on one of this books: 'I have the strong impression that I read circa three RAVE notices on 1812, Congratulations on re-printing, very encouraging.' The last two letters, from 1974, are the longest of the lot (both 4to, 2 pp), and concern her worries over the writing of her book 'Susanna's Nightingales' (not published until 1978), including references to two individuals at Collins following the death of James Fisher ('not only a faithful friend, but very influential'): Adrian House ('it was he who persuaded me to write Flamboyant, but he does his best to remove the guts out of anything I write, in other words he does not accept my type of writing and a lot of haggling goes on') and Philip Ziegler ('I have heard from another writer that he is a very perceptive man, and I shall try and wangle it tactfully (?) so that he reads it too').