RUTH

[Ruth Draper, American actress and dramatist, whose monologues influence Joyce Grenfell and others.] Autograph Letter Signed to ?Sir David [Ross]?, going into great detail about her eating arrangements while performing at Oxford.

Author: 
Ruth Draper (1884-1956), American actress and dramatist, whose monologues influenced many including Joyce Grenfell [Sir David Ross [W. D. Ross], Provost of Oriel, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University]
Publication details: 
5 April [no year but presumably between 1941 and 1944]. Cambridge.
£56.00

Draper inspired characters in two of Agatha Christie?s books. Among others impressed by her work were Bernard Shaw, Thornton Wilder, John Gielgud, Katharine Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier, Henry James, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton, Joyce Grenfell, Emma Thompson, David Mamet and Maureen Lipman. See Ross?s entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo, on bifolium of light-grey paper. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Addressed to ?Dear Sir David? and signed ?Ruth Draper.? Presumably written during Ross?s Vice-Chancellorship, 1941-1944.

[Ruth Mercier, nineteenth-century Franco-Swiss artist.] Autograph Note Signed (in her name and on behalf of Rozalia de Jackowska), in French, to ‘Monsieur et Madam Earle’. Incorporating an original ink drawing by her of a walking stick

Author: 
Ruth Mercier (fl.1880-1915), nineteenth-century Franco-Swiss landscape artist who painted Venice [her friend Rozalia de Jackowska]
Mercier
Publication details: 
25 December 1889.
£220.00
Mercier

1p, 16. On the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium of grey paper, with simple drawing in the same ink as the text of a straight plain walking stick stuck in the ground and running up the left-hand margin, with the handle hooked to the right at the top with the dating to its right. In good condition, lightly aged. Reads: ‘le 25 Decembre 89.

[Charles Williams, with C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien one of the ‘Inklings’.] Typescript of Ruth Spalding’s BBC radio programme ‘Portrait of Charles Williams’, produced by Terence Tiller and featuring T. S. Eliot, Christopher Fry and others.

Author: 
Charles Williams [Charles Walter Stansby Williams] (1886-1945), poet and author, member with C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien of Oxford group ‘The Inklings’ [Ruth Spalding (1913-2009), author on BBC]
Publication details: 
Later (1980s) transcription of BBC radio feature on 'Third Programme 13.9.61 [13 September 1961]'.
£180.00

Williams, who has an entry in the Oxford DNB, became a close friend of Spalding and her sister Anne after lodging with their parents during the Second World War. The present item is a transcription, made and printed out around the 1980s, of the 1961 radio programme, on one side each of 34 numbered pieces of A4 paper, loosely gathered by a black plastic spine.

[Ken Rosewall and Darlene Hard, celebrated tennis players.] Autograph Signatures.

Author: 
Ken Rosewall [Kenneth Robert Rosewall] (b.1934), Australian lawn tennis player; Darlene Hard [Darlene Ruth Hard] (b. 1936), American tennis player who won three open championships
Publication details: 
No date or place, but dated in another hand '1956'.
£45.00

In blue ink on a 9 x 6 cm rectangle of laid paper. In good condition. Hard signs first ('Darlene | Hard') with Rosewall's signature ('Ken Rosewall') curving upwards beneath hers. Between the two, in another hand is the date 1956, and beneath Rosewall's signature, in the same hand, is '(Rosewall)'. In 1956 Rosewall was on the verge of turning professional. In that year he won the US Open, beating fellow-Australian Lew Hoad. It was one of eight Grand Slam finals he played in as an amateur, winning three. In 1956 Hard was nearing her peak.

[Cecil Harmsworth King, newspaper proprietor.] 103 Autograph Letters Signed and 22 Autograph Cards Signed to Philip Dossé, editor of 'Books and Bookmen', regarding his reviewing and other subjects. With a batch of letters from King's wife Ruth King.

Author: 
Cecil King [Cecil Harmsworth King] (1901-1987), chairman of Daily Mirror Newspapers and International Publishing Corporation; Dame Ruth Railton (1915–2001) [Philip Dossé, editor of Books and Bookmen]
Publication details: 
All but one of the 115 letters either from The Pavilion, Hampton Court, East Molesey, Surrey, or The Pavilion, Greenfield Park, Dublin. A few of the letters dated from between 1971 and 1979; the others from the same period.
£1,500.00

King's letters total 135pp., 12mo; 10pp., 4to. The earlier letters (mainly from East Molesey) all addressed to 'Mr Dossé'; 37 of the later letters (all from Dublin) addressed to 'Dear Philip'. The collection also contains the holograph of King's review of Graham Cleverley's 1976 book 'The Fleet Street Disaster' (6pp, foolscap 8vo), and 11 Autograph Letters Signed and three Autograph Cards Signed to Dossé from King's wife Ruth (neé Railton), dating from between 1971 and 1979. These are written in a chatty style, the letters totalling 25pp., 12mo; 2pp., 4to.

[ Ruth Ellis Messenger, hymnologist. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('Ruth E. Messenger') to 'Mr. Wilshire' [ Frederick Allen Wilshire ], thanking him for providing her with an 'open sesame' to the Inns of Court in London.

Author: 
Ruth E. Messenger [ Ruth Ellis Messenger ] (1896-1993), American hymnologist [ Frederick Allan Wilshire (1868-1944), Recorder of Bridgwater ]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch, London W1. Undated, but marked as 'Rec[eive]d 17 . 7. 39. [ 17 July 1939 ]'
£120.00

4pp., 12mo. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, with minor rust marking from a paperclip. She writes that she and her sister have that day 'worshipped at the Temple Church and enjoyed to the full all the delights that were spread before us, in that rare environment'. His cards have 'proved an "open sesame" wherever we went', and they have 'enoyed the Hall with its associations, and indeed, every bit of the section. Just to look at the courts and walls was an experience not to be forgotten'.

[ Nisim Aloni, Israeli playwright. ] Typescript, in French, of 'La Princesse Americaine de Nissim Aloni. Traduit par Ruth Koppel-Debel'.

Author: 
Nisim Aloni [ Nissim Aloni ] (1926-1998), Israeli playwright and translator, born in Bulgaria [ Ruth Koppel-Debel, translator ]
Publication details: 
[ Israel, circa 1963. ]
£350.00

74pp., 8vo. Stapled duplicated typescript, with pages on rectos only. In fair condition, with moderate signs of age and wear. Light staining at head, and discoloured title-leaf detaching. A few minor manuscript emendations, and '-Debel' added in manuscript to the translator's name. 'La Princesse Americaine' was first performed in 1963, and like Aloni's other early work was influenced by the European Theatre of the Absurd. An English translation of the play appeared in 1980, but OCLC WorldCat has no record of the publication of a French translation.

Typed Letter Signed ('Ruth Knowles'), a reference for her 'ship-keeper' William Stilwell. With four photographs of her barquentine 'Friendship' ('Emma Ernest'), moored at Charing Cross, and typed reports, with newspaper cuttings, by Stilwell's son.

Author: 
Ruth Mitchell [Knowles] (c.1888-1969) [Chetniks; Yugoslavia; Brigantine 'Emma Ernest'; Charing Cross Pier; World Explorers Friendship Clubs; The Yellow Rolls Royce (film, 1964); ]
Publication details: 
Letter dated 21 May 1932; on 'World Explorers' letterhead. The two reports from 1988, with one dated 'JS [James Stilwell] Oct 88'.
£220.00

An interesting collection of material relating to an extraordinary woman whose exploits deserve recognition. According to one obituary Mitchell (sister of American General 'Billy' Mitchell) was 'he only foreign woman to serve with the Chetniks', for whom she acted as a dispatch rider. Captured by the Gestapo while swimming at Dubrovnik, 'still in her bathing suit, and with papers on her that would have caused her to be executed without trial, she turned to the agents and asked: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to change my trousers?" They agreed.

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