[Evelyn Lake, playwright and children’s author.] Typed Letter Signed to theatre historian W. J. Macqueen-Pope, regarding a play she has written and is offering to ‘Mr Tom Arnold’. With accompanying printed poem by her.

See the recipient’s entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. Signed ‘Evelyn Lake’. In good condition, lightly aged, with minor traces of paperclip. Folded once. She enjoyed his ‘article in yesterday’s Reynolds News’, and thinks it is ‘Lovely to be able to make people laugh spontaneously. Hence the little verses enclosed.’ (Accompanying the letter, printed on a small square of paper, is a sixteen-line poem in four stanzas, with first line ‘Sweet laughter is beloved of kings -’, signed in type ‘EVELYN LAKE.’) She thanks him for replying to her letter despite being ‘so busy’: ‘I am taking your advice and writing Mr Tom Arnold to ask if he will look at my play.’ She is ‘still in touch with children’ and tries ‘to avoid boring them. I believe I can still interest them, though the moderns are tough, lots of them.’ She will be in London shortly ‘and will entrust my play to Mr Arnold if he will consent to read it, but I want to try every source I can, get my rejection quickly if it has to be that!’