MARE

[Eleanor Farjeon, children's writer.] Typed chatty retelling of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, under the title 'The Simple Facts', and ending 'don't believe a word I say'. Signed by Farjeon 'From E. F.', with her address.

Author: 
Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965), noted children's writer, several of whose works were illustrated by Edward Ardizzone
Publication details: 
No date. 20 Perrin's Walk, N.W.3. [London]
£180.00

1p, 4to. Typescript with a couple of minor autograph corrections. Unpublished, but perhaps relating to her 1945 book 'Ariadne and the Bull'. At foot, in Farjeon's autograph: 'From E. F. | 20 Perrin's Walk | N.W.3.' In fair condition, on aged and worn paper, with nicking and loss at edges. A chatty and entertaining retelling of the story. As an example of the tone, early on Farjeon writes: 'The Minotaur was a monster with the gigantic body of a man topped by a bull's head; his father was a bull and his mother was Pasiphae, Minos's Queen.

[Walter de la Mare answers the question 'What does "The Listeners" mean?'] Typed Letter Signed ('Walter de la Mare') to Sonia Drynan, explaining, with a quotation from Lewis Carroll, his position on the meaning of the poem.

Author: 
Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), poet and short story writer
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Hill House, Taplow, Buckinghamshire. 21 December 1936.
£400.00

De la Mare's definitive answer to the oft-asked question regarding the meaning of his best-known poem - and also one of the most celebrated English poems of the twentieth century - 'The Listeners'. 1p, 4to, in good condition, lightly aged, folded twice. After thanking her for her 'kind letter', he adds: 'I am afraid you may not find my answer to your question a very satisfactory one.

[John Moore of Tewkesbury, writer, naturalist and conservationist.] Autograph Letter Signed ('John C Moore') to Edward Thomas's friend R. N. Green-Armytage, asking for personal recollections of Thomas, and the loan of letters, for his biography.

Author: 
John Moore [John Cecil Moore] (1907-1967) of Tewkesbury, author and conservationist [Robert North Green-Armytage, friend of Edward Thomas]
Publication details: 
On his letterhead, 11, The Gastons, Gloucester Road, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. 17 January 1936.
£100.00

2pp., 4to. In fair condition, lightly aged and creased. Addressed to 'Dear Mr Green-Armytage', corrected from 'Armitage'. The letter begins: 'You may have heard that a Committee, of which Walter De la Mare is chairman, is considering the question of putting up some sort of memorial to Edward Thomas. At the same time I am beginning work on a Life and Letters of Edward Thomas, which has Mrs Thomas' approval, and is intended to be something in the nature of a memorial edition.' He will 'shortly be issuing an appeal in the press for the loan of letters etc in the possession of E.

Typed Letter Signed from John Papworth to Mrs Ena Driberg, wife of the Labour MP Tom Driberg

Author: 
John Papworth (b.1921), English economist and activist, personal adviser to the President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda [Ena Mary Binfield, née Lyttelton, wife of Tom Driberg of Bradwell Lodge, Essex]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the British Asian and Overseas Socialist Fellowship (London Branch). 15 November 1957.
£36.00

1p., 4to. Fair, on aged paper, with one small burn-hole to margin. Addressed to 'Mrs. T. Driberg, | Bradwell Lodge, | Bradwell juxta Mare, | nr. Southminster, | Essex.' He thanks her for receiving 'an African boy from Northern Rhodesia and some members of my family', and 'showing us the details of your charming house so unhesitatingly'. He discusses the 'astonishing contrast the house is to the landscape around it.

Autograph Letter Signed ('John Freeman'), with envelope, to Hodgson at 20 Bromley Common, Bromley, Kent.

Author: 
John Freeman [John Frederick Freeman] (1880-1929), English Georgian poet [Sidney Hodgson, book auctioneer of Hodgson's, Chancery Lane, London]
Publication details: 
7 April [no year]; on embossed letterhead of 29 Weighton Road, Anerley, [London,] S.E.
£56.00

8vo: 1 p. 7 lines. Good, but with some foxing, and with a corner of the blank reverse tipped in onto a card mount on which the envelope is laid down. He thanks him 'for the catalogue containing the Moore item'. Would be 'very glad' if Hodgson 'could call here on Thursday next & join us in a meal at 7 o'clock [...] I suggest Thursday because then we shall not be alone, nor dull'. Hodgson was the author, in 1927, of 'Brief notes on the history of the hamlet of Penge with Anerley'.

Steel engraving by de Mare, after drawing by Rochussen, printed by Brugman, of 'Eene Dames Kunstbeschouwing in de Kunstzaal der Maatschappij: "Arti et Amicitiae."

Author: 
Charles Rochussen (1814-94), Dutch painter; Johannes de Mare, Dutch engraver; J. F. Brugman, Dutch printer
Publication details: 
[Amsterdam: circa 1880?]
£75.00

Paper dimensions roughly ten and a half inches by eleven and a half; print dimensions eight and a half inches by ten and a half. Aged and with three inch strip, roughly half an inch wide, torn away from surface of print in top left-hand corner. Depicts a crowded and rather grand hall, containing a long horseshoe-shaped table around which are crowded connoisseurs of both sexes contemplating engravings and illustrated books or engaged in discussion. Arti et Amicitiae is an Amsterdam society of artists and art lovers, founded in 1839.

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