HANNEN

[Hannen Swaffer, Fleet Street journalist and spiritualist.] Typed Letter Signed to theatre historian W. Macqueen-Pope, with carbon of the reply, regarding the music hall artiste Belle Bilton, who became Lady Dunlo.

Author: 
Hannen Swaffer [Frederic Charles Hannen Swaffer] (1879-1962), Fleet Street journalist and spiritualist [Walter James Macqueen-Pope, theatre historian; Belle Bilton, music hall artiste [Lady Dunlo]]
Publication details: 
Swaffer’s letter: 9 May 1951; 8 St Martin’s Place, Trafalgar Square, WC2 [London]. Carbon of Macqueen-Pope’s letter: 11 May 1951; 359 Strand, WC2 [London].
£45.00

See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. From the Macqueen-Pope papers. Each item in good condition, lightly aged, with creasing and rust staining to one corner from a paperclip. ONE: Swaffer to MP. TLS, signed ‘Swaff’. 1p, 4to. ‘Dear Popey, / Do you know anything about this woman? [From the context he is sending MP an enquiry he has received from ‘Mr. Le Poer Trench’] I presume she was a legitimate actress.

[ London Press Club and James Nicol Dunn.] Presentation volume on Dunn's departure for South Africa during the Boer War, in luxury leather binding, with full-page calligraphic address by 'L.J.S.', signed by more than 150 Fleet Street figures.

Author: 
London Press Club [ James Nicol Dunn (1856-1919), editor of Morning Post; Harry Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham (1862-1933), Fleet Street press baron; Harry Lawson, Lord Burnham; Hannen Swaffer ]
Publication details: 
[ The London Press Club. 1911. ]
£320.00

In a luxury binding: navy-blue straight-grain morocco covers, watered silk endpapers, internal gilt dentelles and leather hinges. Initial calligraphic address by 'L.J.S.' mounted in card frame, followed by 14pp.of signatures (numbering in excess of 150), on the rectos of 14 pieces of gilt-edged card. In good condition, with slight wear to corners and at head and tail of spine.

[Hannen Swaffer and Walter Macqueen-Pope.] Collection relating to an abortive collaborative attempt at a 'biography' of Swaffer for Odhams Press, with drafts of chapters (with anecdotes on Churchill, H. G. Wells, Lloyd George) and original letters.

Author: 
Hannen Swaffer (1879-1962), doyen of English journalists, known as 'The Pope of Fleet Street'; Walter Macqueen-Pope (1888-1960), theatre manager and historian [Odhams Press; Maurice Barbanell]
Publication details: 
[London: 1955.]
£1,650.00

In very good condition, on aged paper, in a brown card folder. The material in this collection relates to a book that was never published, and included here are copies of two typed letters from WMP to HS, casting light on the nature of this doomed collaborative project. In WMP's first letter, dated 26 July 1955, he writes to 'Dear Swaff' to 'finalise the manner in which your book is to be written'. Presaging future problems he urges him: 'I do entreat you to remember the fact that a book is different to a series of paragraphs. It must have cohesion.

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