[Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Chief of Clan Moncreiffe.] Typed and Signed ?Letter to the Editor of books & bookmen? regarding the deceased P. G. Wodehouse, with personal recollection, extract from a Wodehouse letter, and genealogical information.

A very nice piece of Wodehousiana, with Moncreiffe using his genealogical expertise to delve into Wodehouse's pedigree (See Moncreiffe's entry in the Oxford DNB.) From the archives of Philip Dosse, 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. Headed, with red underlining, ?Letter to the Editor of books & bookmen?, and it was certainly published in ?Books and Bookmen? in the weeks following P. G. Wodehouse?s death on 14 February 1975. 5pp, 4to, on three letterheads. The letter is signed: ?Bung-ho, / from: / Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk.? (this is not reproduced in the published version. In good condition, lightly aged, with small slightly rusty staple attaching the three leaves. Folded once for postage. With four deletions, including one of three lines. Moncreiffe begins the letter with a personal recollection of another fine English writer: ?When I was at Stowe our English tutor was that remarkable falconer-pacifist-huntsman T H White, who wrote The Sword in the Stone and The Ill-Made Knight. One morning, Tim White came into our beautiful Georgian classroom and announced: ?G K Chesterton died yesterday. P G Wodehouse is now the greatest living master of the English language?. He then read out a number of passages to shew the skill with which Wodehouse could ?turn a phrase?, as he put it, ?better than any other writer?.? Moncreiffe continues with praise of the ?light of joyous kindly fun? which ?radiated from P G W?s inimitable works?: ?They were worth myriad hours yawning in a pew, playing the sermon-game to pass devout time, as a voice from some pulpit tried to tell us what he could tell us better. For his works were truly parables, though he was too modest to notice it. With him, the nominally inferior wise upheld and protected the apparently superior weak (instead of ?taking them down a peg? or ?wiping the smile off their faces?): like Jeeves with Bertie Wooster, in a world where all is good-humour and everybody is happy in the end. Above all, he was an un-selfconscious influence for Good in this Age of Envy, an evil feeling feeding upon itself that was so alien he could never really believe it existed.? He discusses Wodehouse?s ?saintly jester personality?, recalling that although the two men never met, Moncreiffe ?had occasion to correspond [with Wodehouse] some years ago?. He gives a twelve-line extract from a letter of Wodehouse?s, beginning with a reference to Seymour Hicks? wife Ellaline Terries (?I had a job at their theatre writing lyrics and encore verses and we became great friends [...] . She is celebrating her hundredth birthday on April 13 and wants me to be there. I certainly intend to come, if I am fit enough.?), before reporting: ?Last night I finished a new Jeeves novel, and it looks pretty good, though as usual with my stuff a bit on the short side. I have now got to go through it and try to lengthen some of the scenes?. The concluding two-and-a-half pages of the letter discuss Wodehouse?s antecedants, including ?king Alfred the Great (born 849 & still going strong in folk cake-lore)?. This part of the letter begins with Moncreiffe?s recollection of acting as ?an usher at the wedding in St George?s Chapel at Windsor Castle of the head of his family, Sir John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley, 6th Lord Wodehouse & 11th Baronet?. He notes that it is ?no accident that the late Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was like a ?very perfect gentle knight? out of the Age of Chivalry?. The letter ends with a conceit, ?did Wodehouse write Bacon??, noting that ?the great Sir Francis Bacon? was Wodehouse?s ?ancestral uncle?: ?Perhaps, however, the question should really be, did the ghost of uncle Bacon have a hand in typing Wodehouse??