OLIVIA

See her entry in Encyclopedia Britannica. 1p, 8vo. In fair condition, lightly aged, with some grubbiness around the top-left corner. The text of the letter and the stylish and assured signature are unaffected. Reads: ‘Dear Neil Hurst, / Thank you very much for your letter. I’m delighted to know that you have enjoyed my work, and it was kind of you to write. / I have pleasure in sending you a signed photograph, with my best wishes. / Yours sincerely, / Judi Dench’. Dench terminates the signature with a diagonal dash through a widely-spaced colon.

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’.

Pound was related to the Busha family through the marriage of his first cousin once removed Ida Lillian Pound (1858-1949) to Charles Thomas Busha (see 'Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity, 1945-1946, ed. Omar Pound and Robert Spoo, 1999). The two letters are each 2pp., 4to. Both in fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Both closely typed on both sides, with a few autograph emendations; the second letter with an autograph postscript. 'Tommy', who at the time of the first letter is serving with the United States armed forces, is also referred to by his nickname 'Toppie'.

10pp., 4to. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper. An accompanying entry from a French manuscripts catalogue states that the letter was sent to the magazine 'The Age', but not printed.

23pp., foolscap 8vo. On six bifoliums of laid paper with 1833 Britannia watermark of Gilling & Alllford. Good, on lightly aged and worn paper. Folded into the customary packet, and docketed on reverse of last leaf 'Copy Letter to the King from the Princess Olive'. The document was written shortly before Serres' death, and does not appear to have been published.