ENGLISH

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Fifteen lines. In good condition. Folded once. Address to ‘Mr. de Winton’ and signed ‘Cross’. He finds that de Winton’s ‘last letter certainly makes a very considerable difference’, but ‘the obvious answer’ to his mind is, as de Winton only proposes ‘to reduce the York House from 112 to 110, it is hardly worth stirring up the waters at all. And especially so, as the population is increasing so rapidly that the next Census will probably alter the whole state of things.’

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. Sixteen lines of text. In fair condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Stylized signature: ‘L A G Strong.’ He replies to her letter by saying that he is ‘delighted’ that she enjoys reading his books, ‘and I very much appreciate your kindness in taking the trouble to write and tell me so’. He hopes that she will continue to read his work, and that it will ‘never disappoint’ her. ‘Nothing is more encouraging to a writer than to know that he has numbers of friends, whom he has never seen, but who are following what he does with interest and pleasure.’

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. On watermarked wove paper. In good condition, folded once. Centred on the page, and clearly written for an autograph hunter. Reads: ‘with kind regards from / G. Colman / 21st. July. 1828. / Brompton Square.’

See his entry, and that of his brother, in the Oxford DNB. The recipient Clifford Musgrave (d.1993), Borough Librarian, was instrumental in the saving and renovation of the Brighton Pavilion. Both items in good condition, lightly aged. Both written in an elegant close calligraphic hand. The first is misaddressed to ‘Mr Muspratt’, and the second to ‘Mr. Musgrave’. Both signed ‘Clifford Bax’. ONE (14 February 1945): 2pp, 16mo. Nineteen lines. Regarding the arrangements for a lecture he is going to give, he has been asked by ‘Eric’ to communicate with him about his ‘Brighton visit’.

The present item gives the text of the poem described by Byron as 'the most perfect ode in the English language' before its first publication in the Newry Telegraph in April 1817. See Wolfe’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The source of the present item is unclear. It is a photographic facsimile, many decades old, on both sides of a 4to leaf. In fair condition, slightly creased on browned paper, with negligible loss to margin at head. With five creases from folding. Addressed to ‘John Taylor Esqe / at the Revd Mr. Armstrong’s / Clonoully / Cashel’.

Nash made around 70 films between 1912 and 1927, and was a key figure in the creation of Elstree Studios. His career as a film maker was effectively ended following the screening of his 1921 film 'How Kitchener was betrayed'. See Bernard Ince, ' “For the Love of the Art”: The Life and Work of Percy Nash, Film Producer and Director of the Silent Era’, ‘Film History’, September 2007. See also Macqueen-Pope’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The collection of eleven items is in fair overall condition, with minor creasing and aging to some items.

See Hopkins’s entry in the Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. His papers are in the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas. The obituary of the recipient Andrew Block (1892-1987) in ‘The Private Library’ was subtitled ‘the doyen of booksellers’; his business was established in 1911. Printed on one side of a foolscap 8vo leaf. A tasteful piece of provincial printing. Worn, creased and dog-eared, with closed tears at head. Inscribed at bottom-right: ‘for Andrew Block / Kenneth Hopkins’. Titled ‘THREE SONNETS’ and signed in type ‘KENNETH HOPKINS’.

The present autographs were taken within a few years of the quartet’s formation in 1931. Accompanying the item is an 11 x 9 cm newspaper cutting of a photograph of the youthful members of ‘THE FAMOUS GRILLER QUARTET - often heard over the wireless - which created a very favourable impression last night at the first concert for the season of the Aberdeen Chamber Music Club.’ The autographs are on one side of a 16 x 11 cm leaf with rounded edges, extracted from an autograph album. The signatures are one above the other, with Sidney Griller’s large and bold.

See the entries for Long, Forbes and Burgess in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, with traces of tape from mount along one edge. Signed ‘Edwin Long’. Begins: ‘Dear Sir Richard / I have just had a chat about your kind enquiry with my friend Burgess, who knows everybody’. While Burgess ‘says Stanhope Forbes is the best man coming on & that he has painted some very good portraits’, from what Long himself remembers of his work, it seems ‘very black’. He concludes: ‘Why not give it to Burgess? he is painting capitally just now & I know he would be very pleased.’

The present item is producer Hugh Burnett's own copy, from his papers, of the transcript of John Freeman's interview with Harding, broadcast in the groundbreaking BBC television series 'Face to Face' on 18 September 1960, a few weeks before Harding’s death on 16 November 1960. Harding’s entry in the Oxford DNB states that, ‘in radio programmes such as The Brains Trust and Twenty Questions, and on television in What's my Line?, Harding became a great popular figure, especially of television in which he was probably the best-known performer in the country.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. Clearly written in response to a request for an autograph. On 11.5 x 5.5 piece of wove paper, cut from an album. In good condition. Reads: ‘Yours very truly / Ada Ellen Bayly / “Edna Lyall.” ’.

Hook’s entry in the Oxford DNB descibes his novel ‘Gilbert Gurney’ (1836) and its sequel ‘Gurney Married’ (1838) as made up of ‘thinly disguised portraits and a string of anecdotes from real life’. 1p, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, folded twice. On wove paper with C. Ansell watermark of 1834. The signature ‘Theo E Hook’ does indeed have a strange ‘hook’ on the end of it, which has led to a pencil note on the blank second leaf: ‘try Thos. E. Boot / Booth / author of “Gilbert Gurney”’.

See the entries for Warner and Macqueen-Pope in the Oxford DNB. Such was the popularity of Warner’s portrayal of George Dixon, that the Queen told him it had become part of ‘the British way of life’, and he was carried to his grave by six real officers from Paddington Green Police Station. LETTER: 1p, 4to. Folded twice. In good condition, lightly aged. Signature ‘Jack.’ and salutation to ‘My dear Popie’ in Warner’s hand; the rest typed. Letterhead with his name. He is sending ‘the long promised photos’, delayed because he ‘had to get some new prints of the “pipe” one.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. In good condition, lightly aged. In the following transcript, the parts in Masefield’s autograph are in square brackets, and the first printed sentence (‘I [...] letter.’) has been scored through: ‘PINBURY PARK, / CIRENCESTER. / Dear [Sirs,] / I thank you for you letter. / [I shall be obliged if you will send me No 98 of your list / Du Maurier. Trilby / London, 1895.] / With all good wishes, / Yours sincerely, / John Masefield.’ (Note that this ‘signature’ is printed.) See image.

The obituary of the recipient Andrew Block (1892-1987) in ‘The Private Library’ was subtitled ‘the doyen of booksellers’; his business was established in 1911. Both addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Block’. LETTER: 1p, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Signed ‘Helen D. Willard’. She is hoping to be able to see him in London the following month. ‘I called in you [sic] briefly last year, then got swept up into many activities that kept me from returning to browse.’ She has a very pleasant memory of their conversation.

See the recipient's entry in the Oxford DNB. Both letters signed ‘Elsa’. ONE (7 December 1951): 1p, 8vo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded three times. Thirty-eight lines of text. She received his letter while wishing to contact him, and wonders if this is a coincidence. ‘And my wanting to write you grew out of an intense yearning to be in London again’.

See the recipient’s entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. Signed ‘Evelyn Lake’. In good condition, lightly aged, with minor traces of paperclip. Folded once. She enjoyed his ‘article in yesterday’s Reynolds News’, and thinks it is ‘Lovely to be able to make people laugh spontaneously.

This poem is said to be an earlier work by ‘A Tommy’, the pseudonymous author of the collection ‘If I Goes West’, published in London by Harrap in 1918. WorldCat has no entries to support a second claim: that the present poem was published in 1917, with the subtitle ‘Verses written by a “Tommy” who has fought, suffered and triumphed in Mesopotamia, and is still on active service there’.

Dating from what his entry in the Oxford DNB describes as Askey’s ‘prime professional days’: ‘In 1938 Askey joined Powis Pinder's Sunshine concert party at Shanklin, Isle of Wight, where he performed successfully for the next eight years. In 1938 the BBC also engaged him for a new radio show called Band Waggon, in which his partner was Richard Murdoch. The show, first broadcast in January 1938, was an enormous success and its innovative style was perhaps Askey's greatest contribution to the entertainment business.’ On one side of a 12.5 x 8.5 cm piece of light-green card.

See the account of his life in the entry for his father the serjeant-at-law John Humffreys Parry (1816-1880) in the Oxford DNB. Signed ‘faithfully yours / Edward Parry / April . 1930’, across the headline of a 22 x 21 cm. cutting of a newspaper article, with text in three columns, the headline reading: ‘BREACH OF PROMISE / THE LAW, THE LADY, AND SEX EQUALITY/ By His Honour SIR EDWARD PARRY’. In good condition, on browning high-acidity paper. Folded once and with one crease. Begins: ‘Marriage is not the gilt-edged security that it was. Its stock is not rising.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. The valediction reads ‘Yours alway faithfully / Arthur W. Pinero’, and it is written with quite a flourish: the ‘y’ of ‘faithfully’ hooks downwards in a long squiggle, exrending downwards past the right of the termination of Pinero’s signature, which rises upwards, being dotted above and below the signature’s underlining. He feels that her ‘kind letter is all the more welcome inasmuch as it gives signs’ that she is recovering from her recent illness.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On brittle, discoloured paper, cropped at foot. Signed (‘J. Oxenford’). The recipient is not named, but is clearly the editor of the Athenaeum. Reads: ‘Sir/- / In the name of Mr. C. A. Feiling and myself, I beg leave to thank you for the very handsome and prominent notice of our “German Tales” which appeared in the Athenaeum of the 30th. ult. - You will confer a further obligation by letting the gentleman who wrote the article [know] how much we feel indebted to his kindness.’

See Belloc’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient is Colonel Frederick Hugh Langston Oldham (1876-1965), D.S.O., D.L., of Overley Hall near Wellington. The three items are in good condition, lightly aged. ONE: ALS, 5 October 1922. 1p, 4to. With mourning border. Folded twice. Giving details of the train from Paddington he is proposing to take to Wellington for ‘[t]he lecture’ on 13 October. ‘It is most kind of you to have asked me to stay with you & I am much looking forward to it.’ TWO: TL, 11 October 1922. 1p, 8vo. Folded twice. The signature ‘H.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB, and that of his brothers the architect Leonard Scott Stokes and the inventor of the ‘Stokes Gun’ Sir Wilfred Scott Stokes. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Signed ‘Adrian Stokes’. He has added the word ‘at’ above the letterhead, indicating that the residence is not his (it is in fact the house that his brother Leonard designed for himself).

Note to be confused with the Kew curator William Watson (1858-1925). Both cards are plain: the first with a self-printed stamp and the second with stamp affixed. Both in fair condition, lightly aged. ONE (to Grinling): He identifies the fungi he sent, adding a comment on bacteoles of mallow. Ends in the hope of attending ‘the Epping Forest foray this year’. TWO (to Whitaker). The previous Saturday he noted ‘Pyrus torminalis in the old rough lane between fences nearly opposite the Bull Inn on Shooters Hill (? Jack Wood Lane)’.

Pritchett’s ‘The Gentle Barbarian: The Life and Work of Turgenev’ appeared in 1977; the present letter is clearly addressed to his editor at the book’s publishers Chatto & Windus. Pritchett’s entry in the Oxford DNB describes his handwriting as ‘legendarily ugly and difficult to decipher’, but the present example is no worse than an average hand. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Two fold lines. He is sending his ‘Turgenev’, and explains: ‘As you will see I have marked passages from the book in purple crayon, and my own summary bridges in green.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. The recipient is named as ‘J. Pendred Broadhurst Esq’. Boughton begins by thanking him for his ‘kind note’. He is ‘quite out of photos for the moment - there has been such “a run on” me’. His portrait is not ‘in commerce’. He is enclosing ‘a Menu Card (of a dinner given me by Messrs Harper in New York)’, which has ‘a portrait by Mr L. Alma Tadema R.A. which I think is a little out of the Common. There is also an illustration from our book - (E. A.

Plain 11.5 x 7.5 cm card, with letterhead in red. The card reads: ‘Dear Herman Hart / I can barely write even today with rheumaticky right hand. I have written to Thring to say that I propose you & have known you for years. It gives me great pleasure to do so / Yrs sincerely / Douglas Sladen’. On reverse, in contemporary hand, ‘Author of Japanese Marriage.’

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On 9.5 x 11.5 cm leaf of blue paper, with rounded outer corners, torn from an autograph album. In good condition, lightly aged, with spotting on reverse. Reads: ‘Best Wishes / Tom Walls.’ Good bold writing, with stylistic flourish linking the cross-stroke of the T in ‘Tom’ with the S of ‘wishes’, and two small vertical strokes at the centre of the underlining of the signature. See image

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In fair condition, lightly aged, with slight spotting to margin. Folded three times. Good signature: ‘Peter Scott.’ Addressing himself to ‘Dear Squirrel’, he writes: ‘Yes, of course I will try to advise you on the right type of field glasses. I have used Ross 12 by 50 Stepsun for many years and have found it a very good glass for ornithological and also general use. I would strongly recommend it.