NOVELIST

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient Philip Dosse was 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. The present item is 1p, small 4to. In good condition, lightly aged and creased. Folded.. Signed ‘Marghanita Laski’. She had no fears about the cheque for £50 he has sent: ‘I knew it would turn up.’ She thanks him for offering her ‘some reviewing.

Anne Williamson, author of two books on Henry Williamson and of his entry in the Oxford DNB, was married to his youngest son Richard (1935-2022). The present typewritten material (88pp, 8vo) consists of several drafts and duplicates of material intended for circulation to production companies she hoped to interest in a television documentary on Williamson. It is in good condition, with each page printed on a separate leaf of A4 cartridge paper.

Not only an unusually intimate letter for a member of royalty to write, but also an interesting communication from a poet to her mentor.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. According to Anne Williamson’s 1995 biography, Williamson decided on the spot to purchase the farm at Bank House, Botesdale, Suffolk, when his car broke down across the road from it in July 1945. The purchase price was £1700. Five years later he decided that the farm ‘could be honourably sold and he could become a full-time writer again’. It was sold in September 1950 for £2,600, although, as Anne Williamson notes, and the present item makes clear, a higher price had previously been considered. The present item is a 3pp, 4to.

Asee image of[339]See Williamson’s entry by his daughter-in-law Anne Williamson in the Oxford DNB, together with her 1995 biography of him. The present tranche of material gives a marvellous insight into the working processes of a fine - perhaps even a great - English writer, in addition to showing the gestation of one of the finest novels of the First World War.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice for postage. Reads: ‘Dear Miss Cond, / I have pleasure in sending you my signature. As you will see, it is quite an ordinary one. / Yours very truly / William Plomer’. The signature is in fact rather stylish in an understated way, and the underlining has two small curls in it. In ink on otherwise-blank reverse, by someone who misread the signature: 'William Ploms'. See Image.

For information about Angela and her sister Jean, one must turn to Michael Williams, ‘The Three du Maurier Sisters’ (2012), as neither are even named in their father’s and sister’s entries in the Oxford DNB. The recipient Eileen Margaret Cond (1911-1984), was an enthusiastic autograph collector. The two items are in good condition, lightly aged and creased. On light-blue paper with the same design of letterhead. Both addressed to ‘Dear Miss Cond’ and both signed ‘Angela du Maurier’. ONE (5 March): 2pp, 4to.

Excessively scarce, with no copy listed on either WorldCat or JISC LHD, and absent from Parrish (1940). Not only a desideratum of a leading Victorian author (at his height only equalled in financial success by Dickens, George Eliot and Wilkie Collins), but also a fine example of eccentric Victorian zeal pushed almost to the point of insanity. The earnestness of the present item suggests that it is satirical in intent, but this is not the case.

From the Williamson family papers. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The material is in fair condition, lightly aged and creased. In a card folder on which is written by Williamson’s son Richard ‘PLANS for House for Ox’s Cross - DENNIS (builder) 1973 / Plans of Cottage. / See Schwabe’s original plans.’ ONE: Typed Letter Signed from A. J. Dennis to Williamson at 4 Capstone Place, Ilfracombe. 2pp, 4to. Headed in brown felt-tip ‘Copy’, but certainly with Dennis’s genuine signature. Much of the text underlined in red felt-tip.

From the Macqueen-Pope papers. (See his entry, and those of Foyle and Mackenzie, in the Oxford DNB.) Apart from damage and rust staining from paperclips, the seven items are in good condition. The correspondence mainly concerns a Foyles Literary Lunch for Macqueen-Pope, which Mackenzie was unable to chair because of an attack of bronchitis. All items 1p, 8vo. Mackenzie’s two letters signed ‘Compton Mackenzie’ and Foyle’s signed ‘Christina Foyle’. ONE: Foyle to MP, 26 February 1951. She is forwarding a letter from Mackenzie.

From the Macqueen-Pope papers. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Three items: a page with a quotation from Dickens, and list of characters in MP’s autograph; and two copies of the speech. Text entirely legible throughout, but on worn and creased paper MP is not named as the author, but the item is undoubtedly his work: one of the two copies has autograph emendations in pencil. ONE: Typed Notes for ‘Dickens Fellowship Speech’. 2pp, 4to. Begins: ‘Comment on previous speaker’s points. / Dickens the great Englishman - more than that the great man of the Middle Classes.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, landscape 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Signed ‘Marie Belloc Lowndes’ and addressed to ‘My dear Mrs Doubleday’. Begins: ‘This is only a line of very very grateful thanks for our delightful stay with you and the Great Effendi!’ They ‘enjoyed every minute’ of their visit, and she wants the recipient to have their ‘London address and telephone no. so that we may meet at once when next you are in England!’ She will write if she has ‘any authentic news as to Lord Grays book’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Signed ‘W Harrison Ainsworth’. Signed ‘W Harrison Ainsworth’ and reads: ‘Dear Mrs Barlow / My Daughters return on the 30th. May[.] I therefore hope to have the pleasure of seeing you and Mr. Barlow at Dinner at a quarter after 9 o’clock on Saturday, 30th?’ See image.

Four pages, 8vo, foxed but text clear and complete. I am so forgetful for I have no recollection of saying I would send for Mapp & Lucia. But here it comes to you, with many regrets that I did not send it before. I hope it may amuse you (this is the American edition) and I haven't got an English one). Anyhow our minds must have been moving (like all great ones0 in parallel lines, for I too am being as patriotic as you, & am trying to get together money which I shall devote to helping to pay off the National Debt & to balance the budget.

2pp, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged, fold marks. Twenty-nine lines of text in Kipling's neat and close hand. Text: Many thanks for your letter & enclosed slip. As you say, your competition is the First step in the right way: next comes the unknown range for the disappearing man. I am afraid you will find [masses?] of opposition from the 'crack' shots &c to whom the solemn ritual of [?] paint-box and all the rest of it has all the dignity of a 'sport'. Also the meagre scores will not 'look well in the papers'.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In very good condition. Folded twice. Clear and neat signature beneath slightly-smudged text. Written on the verge of his removal from the House of Commons to the House of Lords. Reads ‘[Admiral Buser?] to Gallery of H of C / Tuesday May 8th. 1866 / E B Lytton’. See image.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB, which does not accord her name a hyphen, although she does in this letter. 2pp, 12mo. On grey-paper bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Signed ‘M Bethan-Edwards’ and addressed to ‘Dear Miss Birkett’. She apologises for having to decline her kind invitation: ‘I never can lunch out being busy till 1 pm’. Since ‘the afternoons are now so very short’, and she does not like ‘climbing the hill in the dark’, she proposes calling on her at 4pm. ‘It will then give me much pleasure to see you.’

Weyman was, as his entry in the Oxford DNB states, ‘one of the most popular and skilled of the historical romance novelists of the cloak and dagger school’. Oscar Wilde recommended his novels as reading for convicts. The present item is on an 11 x 9 cm piece of watermarked laid paper. In good condition. A neat attractive two-line inscription for an autograph collector, underlined and sloping upwards. Reads: ‘Stanley J. Weyman | Nov. 2. 1899’. See image.

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’.

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 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.” ’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On rectangular slip of paper, roughly 11 x 3 cm, cut from the end of a letter. In fair condition, lightly aged, slightly spotted and laid down along one edge on thicker piece of paper. In an elegant calligraphic hand he writes: ‘Believe me / Yours truly / Geo du Maurier / Apr. 26, 83’. The ‘eo’ of the ‘Geo’ of the signature is presented as a stylish squiggle, looking a little like a ‘W’. See image.

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.

An evocative artefact of the interesting connection between Powys and the man who supplied him with the books for his translation of Rabelais. Writing on 24 September 1940, in 'Letters to Sea-Eagle', Powys gives a lengthy account of 'Our Jew Book-Pedlar' and the bombing by the Germans of his Russell Street address.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. Both letter and invitation have been repaired with archival tape after being torn in half; otherwise in good condition, lightly aged. ONE: Letter of 11 March 1904. 2pp, 12mo. She has ‘heard from Mr. Tierny’ that Miss Parker and her sisters ‘have very kindly offered to sing in the Anthem on the occasion of my daughter’s wedding. It is most kind of you to give your time in this way, and we are sure that the music will be a very great addition to the service.’ She hopes that the sisters will see her ‘in the Library after the service’.

See Ashton’s entry in the Oxford DNB. Both items in good condition, lightly aged, with evidence of mount to blank reverse of photograph. ONE: TLS. 17 January 1922. 1p, 12mo. Folded once. Signed ‘Clemence Dane’. Addressed to G. Railton Barnard, 6 The Crescent, York. She thanks him for his ‘interesting letter’: ‘If the same question had not already crept up once or twice, I should not have thought it possible for anyone so to misunderstand Legend, but I know people do, clear as I thought I had made it.’ Barnard is ‘absolutely right’: ‘Madala Grey is head over ears in love with her husband.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On 16 x 10 cm rectangle cut from leaf of an autograph album. On lightly aged wove paper, with crease to one corner avoiding the writing. Boldly written: ‘W. Harrison Ainsworth / Dunsnow. / July 19th. 1855.’ Nothing else written on either side of the leaf. See image.

For information on Cook see his biography in the Oxford DNB, which points out that the subtlety of his later fiction was lost on his contemporaries, being written in a style that ‘was not sufficiently sensational’ for the period. The present item is the complete text of the last thing Cook ever wrote: a story which appeared in the weeks following his death, in Hood’s Comic Annual for 1884 (London, 1883).

2pp, 12mo. Bifolium with mourning border (her mother had died the previous December). In good condition, lightly aged, with traces of paper to which the item was glued still adhering to reverse of second leaf. Having been informed by her sister ‘Miss Kingsley’ (her elder sister Rose) that Combe is ‘kind enough to wish for my autograph’, she has ‘much pleasure in sending it you - but I wish my pen was a better one, more befitting this serious occasion!’

LETTER: 3pp, 4to. Bifolium addressed on reverse of second leaf, with Saint Quentin postmark, 'A Monsieur | Monsieur Mathias | pour inspecteur des Douanes.' in good condition, neatly written, with repair to corner cut off in breaking of the wafer, and with stub from mount adhering. 43 lines of closely-written text. A warm letter of good length, addressed to 'mon cher Camarade'. The handwriting is difficult.