STANFORD

[Dannie Abse, Welsh poet.] Autograph Letter Signed thanking Derek Stanford for a review.

Author: 
Dannie Abse [Daniel Abse] (1923-2014), Welsh poet of Jewish extraction, brother of politician Leo Abse and psychologist Wilfrid Abse [Derek Stanford (1918-2008), critic and poet]
Publication details: 
‘85, Hodford Road, / London N.W.11 / Oct 74’.
£50.00

See his entry, and that of his brother Leo, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, landscape 12mo. The top half of a small 4to leaf of grey paper. In good condition, lightly aged. The recipient’s name is not well written, but he is the critic Derek Stanford (1918-2008), who also has an entry in the Oxford DNB. Reads: ‘Dear Derek, / Thanks for send me a copy of your review. And thanks too for writing it! It is as generous as I would expect you to be. I do hope we may meet up somewhere soon. Our brief meetings over the years are punctuated - as far as I’m concerned - by intervals much too long.

[Percy Nash, pioneering British film director rewrites Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops to Conquer’.] File of related material, including a typescript of Nash’s version, and letters from theatre impressario Jack Gladwyn and Stanford Robinson of BBC.

Author: 
Percy Nash (1869-1958), film producer and director, key figure in the creation of Elstree Studios; Jack Gladwyn, theatre impressario; Stanford Robinson of the BBC; Gladys Ripley; Oliver Goldsmith]
Publication details: 
Material dating from 1949 and 1950. Nash’s letterhead of 2 Bristol Court West, Marine Parade, Brighton. Robinson on letterhead of Broadcasting House, London. Gladwyn on his letterhead, Cecil House, 41 Charing Cross Road, London.
£500.00

Ten items relating to Percy Nash’s unsuccessful attempt to turn Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ into a musical, casting light on English theatre production practices in the immediate postwar period. Despite interest from the theatre impressario Jack Gladwyn, the project stalls. Percy Nash (1868-1958), who made around 70 films between 1912 and 1927, was a key figure in the creation of Elstree Studios. His career as a film maker was effectively ended following the screening of his 1921 film 'How Kitchener was betrayed'.

[Derek Stanford, biographer, essayist and poet, to playwright Christopher Fry.] 19 Autograph Letters Signed ('Derek S.' and 'Derek'), Autograph Card Signed, and carbons of three reviews. With 2 [copy?] letters to Stanford from Fry, and Stanford's CV.

Author: 
Derek Stanford (1918-2008), biographer, essayist and poet, supporter of Muriel Spark and Dylan Thomas [Christopher Fry, playwright]
Publication details: 
Stanford's 19 letters between 17 February 1970 and 31 October 1978. Early letters from 1 St Catherine's Court, Bedford Park, W4 [London]; later letters from 5 Cricketfield Court, Cricketfield Road, Seaford, Sussex. Postcard from Worthing, 1997.
£450.00

Stanford's study of Fry in the British Council's 'Writers and their Work' series was re-published several times, and the early letters in the present collection refer to the preparation of the fourth edition, published by Longmans in 1971 (the bibliography to which Stanford refers as 'CHRISTOPHER STATE PAPERS'). A total of twenty-six items. The material in good condition, lightly aged. Stanford's nineteen letters total 65pp, 12mo. In an undisciplined hand, in different-coloured ink, on different-coloured paper. Stanford's 19 letters between 17 February 1970 and 31 October 1978.

[William Bedell Stanford, Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College Dublin.] Typed Poem titled 'Undertone' (first line: 'When the landfolk of Galway converse with a stranger,'), with Autograph Signature 'W B. Stanford | Trinity College | Dublin'.

Author: 
W. B. Stanford [William Bedell Stanford] (1910-1984), Irish classical scholar and Senator, Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College Dublin, 1940-1980; Chancellor of the University, 1982-1984
Publication details: 
No date or place.
£180.00

1p, 4to. In good condition, with slight creasing to extremities, on a leaf of 'Onion Skin' paper. A sixteen line poem in three stanzas, beneath which is written, boldly and in pencil: 'W B. Stanford | Trinity College | Dublin'. The poem is one of Stanford's best and best-known, and features in Donagh MacDonagh's 'Poems from Ireland' (1944) and Brendan Kennelly's 'Penguin Book of Irish Verse' (1970). The present version exhibits no variations from the text printed by Kennelly.

[Printed pamphlet in the form of a poetical dialogue regarding a parliamentary bill to legalise marriage to a deceased wife's sister.] Sisters-in-Law. A Conversation between two Peers.

Author: 
Anon. [Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Bill, 1871] [women's suffrage; Victorian feminism]
Publication details: 
'London: R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, Printers, Bread Street Hill'. Undated [London: Edward Stanford, 1871].
£60.00

15 + [1]pp., 8vo. Drophead title. In good condition, lightly-aged, no wraps, disbound. Poetic dialogue in Tennysonian blank verse, beginning: 'First Peer. - This measure, every session comes to pass | By large majorities the Lower House; | And every year, of course, we throw it out, | But only by a bare majority.

[Trelawney Saunders, cartographer and map seller.] First part of long Autograph Letter to Commander James Mangles, RN, discussing his 'Illustrated Geography & Hydrography' and other works, and his desire for a London 'depot' for the sale of maps.

Author: 
Trelawney William Saunders (1821-1910), FRGS, book and map seller, 6 Charing Cross, London; Geographical Assistant, India Office; cartographer [Captain James Mangles (1786-1867); Edward Stanford]
Publication details: 
6 Charing Cross [London]. 14 May 1846.
£650.00

Four pages, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, on aged paper, with small pinholes to both leaves and slight loss at the head of the second. Substantial first part of long letter, and hence lacking the signature. BBTI has Trelawny [for Trelawney] William Saunders at 6 Charing Cross between 1846 and 1853, and Edward Stanford's entry in the Oxford DNB records that he was an apprentice there, returning as partner in 1852 ('The partnership was dissolved by mutual consent in July 1853.'), and that it was Saunders who proposed Stanford for membership of the Royal Geographical Society.

Typed Letter Signed from the Anglo-Jewish novelist Emanuel Litvinoff, thanking Derek Stanford for a review, and discussing the novelist Angus Wilson ('one of the few writers to whom I've written a fan letter') and short story writing.

Author: 
Emanuel Litvinoff (19150-2011), Anglo-Jewish novelist [Derek Stanford (1918-2008), Anglo-Jewish author and critic; Angus Wilson (1913-1991), English novelist]
Publication details: 
36 Byron Court, Mecklenburgh Square, London. 2 July 1973.
£165.00

1p., 4to. He thanks Stanford for sending 'the carbon' of his 'warm review' of Litvinoff's novel ('A Death out of Season'). He missed the article and the note Stanford wrote 'about my autobiographical sequence' in the Scotsman, but is now iinterested to see from the review that Stanford is 'nursing the idea of a 'Forties memoir. Amazingly, few of us have written about the decade. I shall be getting around to it one day also, I hope.

Four Typed Letters Signed and two Autograph Cards Signed from the Hampstead poet Frederick Grubb (one in full, four 'Fredk G' and one 'Comrade G') to the critic Derek Stanford, including a virulent attack, and with two other items signed by Grubb.

Author: 
Fred Grubb [Frederick Grubb] (born 1930), English poet [Derek Stanford (1918-2008), English writer; 1960s Hampstead coterie]
Fred Grubb [Frederick Grubb] (born 1930), English poet
Publication details: 
1973 and 1974; most from 243 Haverstock Hill, Hampstead.
£320.00
Fred Grubb [Frederick Grubb] (born 1930), English poet

All items clear and complete, on aged paper. Letters totaling: 4to, 1 p; landscape 8vo, 5 pp. The two cards carry long messages, written in red ink in Grubb's close, neat hand; one is standard size, the other 27 x 13.5 cm. Five envelopes are stapled to their letters. Grubb ('one of the last survivors of the famous 1960s Hampstead coterie of writers, actors and critics') writes entertainingly in an emphatic, energetic manner marvellously evocative of the 1970s London literary scene.

Inadvertencies collected from the works of several eminent authors.

Author: 
E. G-H.' [i.e. Edward Gathorne-Hardy], editor [The Mill House Press]
Publication details: 
Stanford Dingley: The Mill House Press, 1963.
£105.00

Number 174 of 'Two hundred numbered copies [...] printed by hand on mould-made paper.' 8vo: [ii] + 9 pp. Stitched pamphlet of twelve leaves, with four vignettes giving it a distinct chap-book feel. COPAC only lists copies at the British Library and Oxford. Prefatory note by 'E. G-H.' [Eddie Gathorne-Hardy].

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