[Shirley Brooks, editor of Punch.] Autograph Letter Signed to Leitch Ritchie, regarding contributions to Chambers's Journal. With the first part ONLY of Brooks's 'Sooner or Later', and note from G. E. S. Chambers describing its 'extreme rarity'.

ONE: Brooks's letter to Leitch Ritchie: 4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. He thanks him for his 'kind and courteous communication', and is pleased that 'the article I sent seems to you adapted to the purpose'. Brooks has, he explains, 'availed myself of your suggestions in reference to the additions'. He continues with references to Vauxhall and 'The Highland Lamp'. 'I need hardly say, however, that I trust you will, by excision or any other process, render this, or any other article of mine you may accept, what is most desirable in a business point of view - a few years of managing and being managed teaches one that, after all, that is the point, though before attaining that piece of prosaic wisdom ones vanity gets fearfully scraped.' TWO: 'No. 1' of Brooks's novel 'Sooner or Later'. 48pp., 8vo. Frontispiece by George Du Maurier. In original pink printed wraps. Advertisement leaf, with specimen pages, for 'Thorley's Illustrated Farmers Almanack' tipped in at rear. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, in chipped and worn wraps with spine repaired with tape. THREE: Two Autograph Notes Signed by G. E. S. Chambers. 1p., 8vo. On letterhead of W. & R. Chambers, Limited, Publishers, Edinburgh and London. The first note, dated from Edinburgh in July 1923, reads 'This copy of Shirley Brooks' Sooner or Later, in original parts, came from the library of the late Mr R. Y. Naismith, Edinburgh, & was acquired by me, with others of his books, from his executors. This is the only copy in parts that I have ever met with, and is of extreme rarity. | G. E. S. Chambers'. Beneath this, on the same page, is the second note, dated 25 March 1932. It reads: 'The enclosed letter from Shirley Brooks to Leitch Ritchie was written in 1849, and refers to certain contributions to Chambers's Journal. It was found by me among papers & M.S.S. belonging to the above year, & must have been written some time before Shirley Brooks became a regular contributor to Punch. | G.E.S.C.'