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[‘Heinemann do not hope to make a lot of money out of me’: Olivia Manning, novelist.] Two Autograph Letters Signed to ‘Mr. Degenhardt’, regarding his review of her second novel, and approaching the BBC regarding his work on Goethe.

Author: 
Olivia Manning [married name Olivia Mary Smith] (1908-1980), English novelist [A. H. Degenhardt]
Manning
Publication details: 
15 and 22 May 1949; the first from 106 Baker Street, W1 [London], the second from the Unicorn Hotel, Stow-in-the-Wold, Gloucestershire.
£250.00
Manning

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. The letters concern Manning’s second novel, ‘Artist among the Missing’ (1949). Both in fair condition, on lightly aged and spotted paper. Both 2pp, 12mo, and both signed ‘Olivia Manning’. ONE (15 May 1949): Twenty-four lines of text. She thanks him for his review of her book in the Hendford Herald: ‘I feel you have understood the point & purpose of the book a great deal more deeply than most of the regular reviewers who dealt with it for the literary weeklies’.

[ Freya Stark ] Autograph Note Signed "Freya Stark" on reverse of Christmas Card.

Author: 
Freya Stark, traveller [Lucy Moorehead, biographer]
Publication details: 
"Euphrates 1977" [in Stark's hand below image of raft on river]
£80.00

Christmas Card, 2 leaves, bifolium, 17 x 12cm, good condition. Photograph of manned raft on Euphrates, 13 x 9cm, good condition. Stark has written "Euphrates 1977" beneath photograph and the following brief note on the verso of the second leaf: "Thank you so much about the 'letter' news. | I thought you might like to see one Raft! | All good wishes from | Freya Stark". The card was found in a copy of the "Letters", vol. four (London, 1977), edited by Lucy Moorehead who could well be the recipient of this card.

[ Freya Stark ] Autograph Note Signed "Freya Stark" on reverse of Christmas Card.

Author: 
Freya Stark, traveller [Lucy Moorehead, biographer]
Publication details: 
"Euphrates 1977" [in Stark's hand below image of raft on river]
£80.00

Christmas Card, 2 leaves, bifolium, 17 x 12cm, good condition. Photograph of manned raft on Euphrates, 13 x 9cm, good condition. Stark has written "Euphrates 1977" beneath photograph and the following brief note on the verso of the second leaf: "Thank you so much about the 'letter' news. | I thought you might like to see one Raft! | All good wishes from | Freya Stark". The card was found in a copy of the "Letters", vol. four (London, 1977), edited by Lucy Moorehead who could well be the recipient of this card.

Eleven Autograph Letters Signed from the diplomat Sir William Alexander Smart to Ernest Frederick Gye of the Foreign Office, from New York, Saloncia, Beirut, Damascus, and five from Paris, with references to James Joyce, Sylvia Beach and Proust.

Author: 
Sir William Alexander Smart (1883-1962), British diplomat in the Levant and Egypt [Ernest Frederick Gye (1879-1955), diplomat; Sylvia Beach; James Joyce; Marcel Proust]
Publication details: 
Dating from between 1917 and 1926. One from New York (1917); one from Salonica (1919); five from Paris (one undated, the other four 1922); one from Beirut (1923); three from Damascus (1924, 1925 and 1926).
£650.00

Totalling 68 pp, comprising 50 pp, 12mo; 18 pp, 4to. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Two signed 'W. A. Smart' and the others 'WAS.' All addressed to 'My dear Ernest'. Written in a spirited, chatty, and (for a diplomat) surprisingly indiscreet style, of which the beginning of the second letter (Salonica; 19 August 1919), concerning the appointment of Victor Vincent Cusden (1893-1980), gives a good example: 'Were you not content with condemning me to physical and financial ruin in this death-trap? Why, to add to my afflictions, did you send me this pathetic shop-boy?

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