[‘Pray destroy this letter.’ Hall Caine, English novelist, regarding his war work for the B.ritish Government.] Long ‘Strictly Private’ Autograph Letter Signed to Douglas Sladen, also assessing the position of the man of letters in his England.

An excellent letter, in which Caine evaluates his wartime activities, criticises those of others, and gives his opinion of the the standing of the man of letters in the England of his time. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. A long letter: forty-two lines in Caine’s distinctive close hand, with the first two pages on the rectos of the leaves, and the third page written lengthwise on the verso of the first leaf. Signed ‘Hall Caine’ and addressed to ‘My dear Sladen’. This long letter is headed ‘Private’, and its postscript ‘Strictly Private’. He begins by apologising for having to give an ‘unfavourable reply’ to Sladen’s letter: ‘if I could talk in your ear, what I cannot write, of my activies on behalf of our country since the war began (my own work has been stopped for 2 1/2 years & I have devoted myself almost entirely to natural work) & what I have attempted to do (sometimes privately, sometimes publicly) on great international affairs you would be the first to say that I am not indicated for the work you give me’. He has no doubt the men and women Sladen mentions ‘do splendidly’, but knowing some of them for some years, he is ‘far from standing in awe of their present positions & achievements, & certainly would not from choice adopt the character of their [public?] megaphone’. He has been ‘asked by the French Government to go to the Front very shortly to advice upon a new scheme of propaganda which (at their request) I suggested to them’. He congratulates Sladen on his son’s ‘most brilliant progress in the Army. As far back as our days together in Italy [amended from ‘Egypt’] I realised he was a born soldier’. He ends with news of three ‘male kinsmen’, including his elest son, who ‘has 5 large munition factories, & is in the sole charge’. The ‘Strictly Private’ seven-line postscript ends ‘Pray destroy this letter. Only a friend ought to see what I wrote for a friend alone.’ In the postscript he writes: ‘Looking at your letter again I see you say our Committee would be asked to revise etc a number of leaflets drafted by some other committee perhaps of the men & women you mention. My God think of it! We who have spent 30 or more years of our lives learning the great art of speaking to the public being asked to advise on & revise the grammar & style of the people who haven’t a child’s knowledge of the craft! In no other country in the world does the man of letters stand so low as in Gt Britain. But it is not our fault. We allow these people of no consequence to stand above us.’