GYPSY

On one side of 15 x 10 cm grey-blue card, with facsimile of her signature at the head. Addressed to ?Dear Kenneth?, and with bold stylish signature at bottom right. The subject of the letter is the Piccadilly Theatre production of ?Gypsy?, which had opened a few days before on 29 May 1973. She thanks him for his ?kind letter?, adding ?Thank god you were right about the show and it has turned into more of a success than I could have ever hoped for.? She is sorry he couldn?t attend the first night, as ?it was a good show and I know you would have enjoyed it?.

Fourteen items, including three letters from Starkie and seven letters from the Oxford University Press – five of them from Geoffrey Cumberlege and two from G. W. S. Hopkins – and copies of two letters from Cumberlege to Fry's agent Emanuel Wax, and a copy of a letter from the OUP to Starkie. All dating from 1955. The collection is in fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The three Starkie letters are all in autograph, and total 7pp. The first two are written from Madrid, and the last from the Athenaeum in Pall Mall.

In very good condition, on 12mo leaf, with light horizontal folds above and below the signature. Clearly written in response to a request for an autograph. Excellent underlined signature, firm and bold, centred on the page, and reading: 'Matthew Arnold. | February 1st, 1868.' Arnold is one of the great Victorian poets, author of 'Dover Beach' and 'The Scholar Gypsy'.

The Gypsy Lore Society was founded in 1888, and one of its prime movers was John Sampson, friend of Augustus John (for many years President of the Gypsy Lore Society) and the subject of the book 'The Scholar Gypsy' (1997), written by his grandson Anthony Sampson. According to a review in The Times, 17 May 1997, Sampson was 'a Victorian autodidact and philologist, who spent most of his life running the Liverpool University Library.

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. On aged paper, with a patch of damp staining across both leaves. He should be happy to accept the 'kind invitation', 'if it were not that I believe I am to be the Guest of your Honorary Secretary Dr. Rice Oxley on this occasion'. He hopes that 'Gipsy Hall will be the proper to come to in either case'. He requires 'certain particulars', and will be writing to Oxley regarding 'the ability of the lantern man to obtain fine definition - linear definition I mean'.