Autograph Letter Signed ('R. Garnett') from Richard Garnett, Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum, to 'Mr. Colles', regarding a 'disagreeable' letter from the Italian librarian Guido Biagi concerning the writer Helen Zimmern.

2pp., 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper, stamped as received 31 October 1900, with a '6' in blue pencil. Garnett considers 'Signor Biagi's letter [...] indeed most disagreeable', but cannot see how it can be 'kept from Miss Zimmern's knowledge', as 'she has a right to know what he says of her'. 'Fortunately, however, I have by the same post a letter from her saying that she is coming to London to deliver lectures, and will [be] at 45 Porchester Terrace on Nov. 10'. Garnett advises that Colles defers 'communicating the letter' until she calls on him, 'as the matter can be much more successfully and satisfactorily gone into by word of mouth than in writing'.