['Gwen John' [Gladys Jones], dramatist.] Two Autograph Letters Signed (both 'Gwen John') and three corrected copies of her published play 'The Prince'; Typed Letter Signed from Victor Gollancz to H. F. Rubinstein, copies of two letters by Rubinstein.

Gladys Jones ('Gwen John') lived with her sister the suffragette Winifred Jones in Lincoln's Inn. Her play 'The Prince' - three corrected copies of which are in the present collection as Items Three to Five - was retitled 'Gloriana' [= Elizabeth I] when performed at the Adelphi Theatre in London in December 1925, with a youthful John Gielgud in the role of Sir John Harrington. Items One, Six and Seven below relate to the volume 'Plays of Innocence' by 'Gwen John', published in 1925 by Ernest Benn (by whom Victor Gollancz was then employed). Jones was also author of the biography 'Queen Elizabeth' (1924), and together with her sister and Millicent Fawcett and her sister Agnes Garrett she paid for the restoration of a statue of the monarch now in a niche on the facade of St Dunstan in the West. The present collection consists of eight items, and is in good overall condition, with the letters lightly-aged and worn, and holes to one corner where they were attached to one another. ONE: ALS from Jones to Rubinstein. 11 January 1925. 2pp., 12mo. She begins by asking Rubinstein to return 'the mss. of three very slight sketches' by her, which he did not 'think worth sending on to Mr. Gollancz'. 'Mr Gollancz likes On the Road and A Peakland Wakes - and does not dislike A Tale that is Told very much - so I have sent him a fourth "folk" play, which would make a volume in all. I wish he would do them, but I have my doubts. He does not think that the other plays blend with the peasant ones - and I don't think he likes those others at all!' Rubinstein's answer to this letter is Item Eight below. TWO: ALS from Jones to Rubinstein. 1 May 1927. 1p., 12mo. She has sent him a play, and asks him to read it and 'pass it on to Messrs. Benn. If you don't like it I shall understand. I'm not sure that I should like it.' THREE to FIVE: Three copies of the play 'The Prince' by 'Gwen John', published by Blackwell as his 'British Drama League Library of Modern British Drama No. 6'. Each xv + 94 + [4]pp., 12mo, with frontispiece, and in brown printed boards. Each with ownership inscription by Jones, either to the same address in Lincoln's Inn as on the letters, or to Asthall, Burford, Oxford. All three copies are in fair condition, in heavily worn wraps, with taped repair to the spine of one copy. In two of the copies the title is amended in autograph (one on front cover and one on title page) to 'Gloriana'. Each of the three carries autograph emendations. In one copy - marked on cover 'Author's Copy. Corrected & cut.' - these changes are copious, and inserted into that copy are also three typed 12mo pages of additional text, two of them before p.1 and one tipped in onto p.62. In the other two copies the changes are slight, but in one of them Jones writes among the prelims: 'The cast can be cut down considerably doubling & trebling on lesser parts; as was done at the Little Theatre (Adelphi) & also when produced at the Maddermarket, Norwich.' SIX: TLS from Gollancz to Rubinstein ('Dear Harold'). 1p., 4to. He lists ten 'plays by Gwen John' which he is sending to Rubinstein. 'She particularly requested that you should have an opportunity of reading these'. SEVEN and EIGHT: Carbon copies of two letters [from Rubinstein] to 'Miss Gwen John', 31 July 1924 and 12 January 1925. Both 1p., 4to. With slight creasing to extremities. He begins the first letter by stating 'how much I enjoyed reading your little plays which were sent to me from Benn'. He has 'recommended them to publish six or seven', and gives the titles of those he has 'excluded'. 'I don't know how the idea appeals to you. In any case I must warn you that Victor Gollancz and I don't always agree in our opinion of plays. I shall be very angry with him if he does not like at any rate the dialect plays!' In the second letter he informs her that he has 'passed all your Plays on to Mr. Gollancz', and explains how 'the three sketches' which he did not recommend have become 'detached from the others'. 'I am so glad that he liked the folk plays. I had a talk with him about them over the weekend, and I think you may rest assured that he will publish at any rate the three you originally submitted.' NOTE: The author 'Gwen John' is not to be confused with the painter Gwen John (1876-1939).