POET

An 11 x 8.5 cm piece of paper, cut from a letter for an autograph hunter. In fair condition, lightly aged, and laid down on a piece of card which has chipped at the corners. The paper and its backing have a vertical crease through them. Reads ‘Excuse a very hurried letter & believe me / Very truly yours / Robina F. Hardy’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged with patch of light sunning. Folded once. The recipient is not named. Reads: ‘Dear Madam / Forgive me for my delay in answering your letter. I have been laid up for a week or two with influenza & my correspondence has suffered in consequence. / And please believe that your words have given us sincere pleasure & that I am / Yours very faithfully / A. T. Quiller-Couch’. The hyphen in the signature is almost imperceptible. See image.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB, which does not accord her name a hyphen, although she does in this letter. 2pp, 12mo. On grey-paper bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Signed ‘M Bethan-Edwards’ and addressed to ‘Dear Miss Birkett’. She apologises for having to decline her kind invitation: ‘I never can lunch out being busy till 1 pm’. Since ‘the afternoons are now so very short’, and she does not like ‘climbing the hill in the dark’, she proposes calling on her at 4pm. ‘It will then give me much pleasure to see you.’

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. Sixteen lines of text. In fair condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Stylized signature: ‘L A G Strong.’ He replies to her letter by saying that he is ‘delighted’ that she enjoys reading his books, ‘and I very much appreciate your kindness in taking the trouble to write and tell me so’. He hopes that she will continue to read his work, and that it will ‘never disappoint’ her. ‘Nothing is more encouraging to a writer than to know that he has numbers of friends, whom he has never seen, but who are following what he does with interest and pleasure.’

The present item gives the text of the poem described by Byron as 'the most perfect ode in the English language' before its first publication in the Newry Telegraph in April 1817. See Wolfe’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The source of the present item is unclear. It is a photographic facsimile, many decades old, on both sides of a 4to leaf. In fair condition, slightly creased on browned paper, with negligible loss to margin at head. With five creases from folding. Addressed to ‘John Taylor Esqe / at the Revd Mr. Armstrong’s / Clonoully / Cashel’.

See Hopkins’s entry in the Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. His papers are in the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas. The obituary of the recipient Andrew Block (1892-1987) in ‘The Private Library’ was subtitled ‘the doyen of booksellers’; his business was established in 1911. Printed on one side of a foolscap 8vo leaf. A tasteful piece of provincial printing. Worn, creased and dog-eared, with closed tears at head. Inscribed at bottom-right: ‘for Andrew Block / Kenneth Hopkins’. Titled ‘THREE SONNETS’ and signed in type ‘KENNETH HOPKINS’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. In good condition, lightly aged. In the following transcript, the parts in Masefield’s autograph are in square brackets, and the first printed sentence (‘I [...] letter.’) has been scored through: ‘PINBURY PARK, / CIRENCESTER. / Dear [Sirs,] / I thank you for you letter. / [I shall be obliged if you will send me No 98 of your list / Du Maurier. Trilby / London, 1895.] / With all good wishes, / Yours sincerely, / John Masefield.’ (Note that this ‘signature’ is printed.) See image.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On one side of irregular sheet of blue-grey paper, roughly landscape 12mo, evidently used as a cover to a package. In fair condition, lightly aged and creased. In Montomery’s untidy hand, at foot, with a fragment of a red wax seal: ‘With J Montgomerys respects / and a Volume of the / Sheffd Register & the / 1793-4 / Oct. 27. 1821 [seal]’. Above this, neatly, in another hand: ‘Mr. John Holland / Sheffield Park. / To the care of Mr. James Montgomery, / Hawkshead, Sheffield / Paid.’

See Belloc’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient is Colonel Frederick Hugh Langston Oldham (1876-1965), D.S.O., D.L., of Overley Hall near Wellington. The three items are in good condition, lightly aged. ONE: ALS, 5 October 1922. 1p, 4to. With mourning border. Folded twice. Giving details of the train from Paddington he is proposing to take to Wellington for ‘[t]he lecture’ on 13 October. ‘It is most kind of you to have asked me to stay with you & I am much looking forward to it.’ TWO: TL, 11 October 1922. 1p, 8vo. Folded twice. The signature ‘H.

See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. ‘Many many thanks, my dear Ellis, for the kind present of your book, which, as soon as I am released from a torment of which you have had some experience, - correcting the press, I promise myself much pleasure and instruction in perusing. /As soon as my doggerel is printed, you may rely on having a copy. My best remembrance if you please to Lady Georgiana / Ever faithfully Yours / Henry Luttrell.’ Which of Luttrell’s or Ellis’s books are referred to here is unclear.

Plain 11.5 x 7.5 cm card, with letterhead in red. The card reads: ‘Dear Herman Hart / I can barely write even today with rheumaticky right hand. I have written to Thring to say that I propose you & have known you for years. It gives me great pleasure to do so / Yrs sincerely / Douglas Sladen’. On reverse, in contemporary hand, ‘Author of Japanese Marriage.’

1p, landscape 8vo. In fair condition; a little creased. Folded twice. Nicholson’s signature is a stylized squiggle, and there are a few minor autograph corrections to the typescript. The letter begins: ‘Dear Eric / I think the correspondent is probably right and that it is Windermere and not Coniston Water which can be seen from near Stickle Tarn.’ Nicholson cannot speak from experience, ‘as the tarn is metres above the level my legs would take me, but the map does seem to confirm what the two correspondents say’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. At the time of writing he was Professor of English Language and Literature at Leeds. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Reads: ‘Mr Lascelles Abercrombie regrets his inability to attend the Annual Meeting of the Friends of the Bodleian in the Divinity School on June 22nd. / June 10th. 1926’.

Each of the two items attributed to Wright in pencil note on reverse. Both in good condition, lightly aged. ONE: On 11 x 17.5 cm piece of paper. At head: ‘Book Plate of Morrall A[?] vox stellarum vox Dei’. At foot: ‘M. J. Morrall’. (Unlikely to be the Brooklyn architect of this name active at this time.) Up left-hand margin: ‘Mr. Edward Morrall / Mayor 1885-6’. Down right-hand margin: ‘Presented to Mr Edward Morrall Quay House Bridgnorth’. Full achievement, from crest to motto, with colours indicated. TWO: On back of 9 x 11 cm printed ‘at Home’ card.

Postal Envelope Front, 11.5 x 9.5, black-bordered, postmark partially obscured by minor damage, good condition. See image

See David Gaskin’s obituary of Vanson, Independent, 27 July 1993, and Fry’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The material is in good condition, lightly aged, with one leaf of poetry typescript creased. Vanson’s eight Autograph Letters Signed date from between 29 December 1983 and 12 January 1993. total 11pp, 8vo, and 2pp, 12mo. One of the letters is lacking all but the last (signed) page; the others are complete. Vanson’s Typed Letter Signed is 1p, 8vo. It is undated, but dated by Fry to 14 August (no year, but from the context written in 1992). The nine letters are all signed ‘Frederic’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On 16 x 10 cm rectangle cut from leaf of an autograph album. In good condition, on wove paper, lightly aged and creased. Nothing on the leaf apart from the signature ‘John Herman Merivale’, with the helpful addition ‘(Dead)’ in a near-contemporary hand beside it.

See Tony Lopez's obituary in the Guardian, 11 April 2021.The letter was sent, with Items One and Two at least, while Guest was Lecturer in English at Yokohama National University, 1966-1972. All four items are neatly written in black ink in a close hand. The first three items are in good condition; Item Four is in fair condition, on aged paper and with wear to the outer edges. The parallel drafts of ‘Climbing a Volcano’ in Item One present an excellent example of the working process of a poet in the pre-digital age. ONE: Autograph Manuscript (2pp, folio) on one leaf.

See Procter’s entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium with mourning border. In good condition on lightly-aged paper. 85 lines of closely- and neatly-written text. He begins by thanking Sutton for ‘the welcome portrait of Sir Edward Lugden’. He gives an example of Lugden’s ‘happy election repartee’(a joke about ‘Lather’ and ‘the present price of “Soap”’), for which, if no other reason, he ‘deserves a niche in my tonsorial gallery’.

172pp., 8vo, rebound in modern grey boards and eps, substantially unopened, small closed tear on original endpaper, long tears pp.9-10 and 103-4 repaired (page obviously turned too vigorously not taking unopenedness into account), p.172 (the last) and adjacent ep sl. marked, text ow clear and good. Very scarce. Copies apparently held by the BL, National Trust Libraries, and four world libraries incl. University College, Dublin. The author also published Thoughts on the Moral Order of Nature and The fairies, and other poems, and others.

Paper, 8 x 3cm, clipped from letter, sl. stain at top not affecting text, good condition. See image.

1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, with stub from mount adhering along one edge. From the celebrated manuscript collection of Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton). In 1787 Didot published Florian's 'Mélanges de poésie et de littérature'. A courtly and characteristic response to a request for information, reading: 'Mr. de florian a l'honneur de souhaiter le bon jour a monsieur Firmin. [a contemporary hand glosses this as 'Didot'] il arrive de la Campagne, et ne peut lui donner aucun détail sur cequ'il [sic] demande. demain il s'en informera, ou priera qu'on s'en informe.

Four pages, cr. 8vo, bifolium, good condition. Text in Greville's hand introduced by words Crompton Loquitur and Told by Thomas Moore at Roehampton Nov 1829 - & written down by Charles Greville in Greville's hand, printed in Greville's Diary, Chap.6, 12 Nov. 1829: [Text from Greville's Diary as follows} 'Some years ago I was present at a duel that was fought between a young man of the name of MacLoughlin and another Irishman. MacL. was desperately wounded; his second ran up to him, and thought to console him with the intelligence that his antagonist had also fallen.

Scarce: the only copy located on WorldCat and COPAC at the Tate Library, London. Unpaginated stapled and duplicated pamphlet: 16pp, 4to. Cover illustration by John Graham. No wraps called for. In good condition, lightly aged and creased. In Vanson's autograph, at top right of cover: 'For Christopher - | affectionately | Frederic | 3.

Full Signature, on possibly flyleaf of a book, 14.5 x 20cm, one edge rough (as removerd from book, ow good condition. See image.

One page, folio, signs of extraction from album (left margin has residue of separation), good condition, in her calligraphic writing, good condition. She begins by quoting St Mark's Gospel, Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of, for a memorial fo her.

[8]pp. including card covers, 12mo, some damp- staining not interfering with text, faint foxing. Verso of front cover signed: Stephen Spender and Wystan Auden, with the signatures of seven others (presumably the undergraduate members whose guests Auden and Spender were).

One page, 8vo, prominent fold mark but ow good. Would you mind giving me some details about Captain Christmas' work. I think it would be better for me to be able to speak of it with more knowledge than I have at present, when I mention it to my niece. I was so glad to see you again & to meet your son, covered with glory! - How nice for you! Note: Presumably referring to the Danish author : Walter Christmas (born Walter Christmas-Dirckinck-Holmfeld) [...] Danish author who is best known for his children's books.

Paper, 20 x 11.5cm, punch-hole (one only, the other having been cut off (as stated above) - perhaps filed formerly). Text: My name may perhaps be known to you as that of a well-known Scottish poet and essayist, author of a number of books on Scottish literary, historical, sociological, economic and political matters. I enclose a leaflet giving some information about my work. | I will be glad to write and submit an article along the above lines immediiately if I hear from you that you are willing to consider this.

Album Page (extracted), 20.5 x 16cm, very good condition. Text: Courage can always better. Let the fatalist | Cry, I have done. | Every poet in his degree is an optimist. | 'The star to its appointed height.' But man's strange spirit - | What seer dares to froeshadow worlds it may inherit? | The spirit's measure is its hoping. May none twist | The poet's wild directions! If his dream persist, | ll can be won. Note: Googlebooks directs me to The Fox's Covert - Page cxxi, hence published (1935).