[Violet Eleanor Scott-James, wife of Rolfe Arnold Scott-James, editor of the 'New Weekly'.] Long Autograph Letter Signed ('V. E. S. J.') [to the Irish journalist Robert Lynd], with reference to Wyndham Lewis, Charlotte Mew, Ivy Low and Mary Crosbie.

Author: 
Violet Eleanor Scott-James [née Brooks] (c.1886-1942), wife of Rolfe Arnold Scott-James (1878-1959), editor of the New Weekly [Robert Lynd (1879-1949); Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957)]
Publication details: 
Addressed from 'Dunedin', Lower Rock Garden, Brighton, on letterhead of 4 Colville Square [London], W. 15 July 1914.
£120.00
SKU: 15779

4pp., 4to. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, with short closed tears at heads of both leaves. The recipient is not named, but the letter is from the Lynd family papers. Robert Lynd was in St Ives at the time of writing, and the letter begins: 'I'm so glad you are in such a nice place & that the children can join you there. They will love it. London gets so odious by the 15th of July. I came her e last week as I was very tired, & sick of the stuffy feeling of everything. The children enjoy it all thoroughly.' She describes her daughter Anne (for whom see the Oxford DNB) as 'a fat object now with a brick-red nose so is not so attractive to the casual observer, but to my anxious mind quite ideal from the health point of view.' She is sending Lynd's 'picture show card to [her husband] Rolfe', whose holiday plans she explains. The rest of the letter contains references to 'Raspberries & cream', 'Ivy Low' (Anglo-Russian author and translator Ivy Therese Low Litvinov), Wyndham Lewis (who 'came to tea with me after the party though, & I liked him. He is great fun.'), 'MIss Charlotte Mew' ('who, I believe, used to write for the Yellow Book, but no one took any notice of her'. She would like to show Lynd her 'part of Dorset [...] near Sturminster Newton. An old house with secret passages & a secret room in the chimney where a skeleto was found!' She announces that they are 'going to have an orgy at Rottingdean on Ssunday to celebrate [her other daughter] Marie's Eighth birthday!' She concludes with a reference to a novel, adding: 'Will you read Mary Crosbie's new one? Aren't vicarage teas awful!' In a postscript she writes: 'The Editor & Proprietor of the N[ew]. W[eekly]. do not like Ivy Low; but the latter said Mrs. Lynd [the writer Sylvia Lynd] had one of the nicest faces he had seen for ages! I don't know why Ivy Low seems to rouse so much antagonism. I think one can't forgive her for being such friends with W. L[loyd] George!'