[Eden Phillpotts, novelist.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Eden Phill<...>') [to A. G. Gardiner, editor of the Daily News], complaining of a review of his book 'Green Alleys', 'the great cause of the natural born child' and the 'Bastardy Laws'.

In poor condition, on aged and brittle paper, with significant chipping to edges involving loss of text, including the end of Philpott's signature. Undated, but written in 1916, the year of publication of Phillpotts' 'The Green Alleys'. Headed in blue pencil 'Mr Lynd' (i.e for the attention of Daily News columnist Robert Lynd). The letter reads: 'Dear Sir | I must record that the opportunity I gave you to do a little in the great cause of the natural born child was not done; & it is a source of deep regret to me that, after I had told you of the matter in story, "Green Alleys', you allowed a critic to dismiss the subject in that manner. You, who stand for democracy, might well have been looked to, to help to redress this wrong & call attention to a wicked enactment & a crying scandal. That your critic sneers at it in a spirit one has not until now associated with "The Daily News". If it is conceivable t you approve theh Bastardy Laws, one <...> course no more to say, except let d<...> know it. I am most truly yo<...> | Eden Phill<...>'. Postscript: 'One expected reactionary papers tto slight me - but not you among liberal journals & in the forefront of thought.' Philpotts has attached (with a now-rusted staple) a cutting of a review of the book by C. E. Lawrence in the Daily Chronicle, praising him for being 'plucky' in having 'put a problem before readers in these exacting days'.