[John Rudge Harding, actor.] Fifteen Autograph Letters Signed ('J. Rudge Harding' and 'Rudge') to actor 'Anmer Hall' [Alderson Burrell Horne]

Author: 
John Rudge Harding (1862-1932), English actor [Alderson Burrell Horne ['Anmer Hall'] (1863-1953), actor-manager and owner of the Westminster Theatre]
Publication details: 
Most from 34 Elm Park Mansions, Park Walk, Chelsea. Three on letterheads of the British Red Cross Society, 83 Pall Mall. Two on letterhead of the Green Room Club, 49 Leicester Square. Undated (one from 1917 and the rest from around the same time).
£350.00
SKU: 15948

The fifteen items are in good condition, lightly aged and worn. Totalling 19pp., 12mo; 4pp., 8vo; 1p., 4to. Eleven signed 'Rudge', three 'J. Rudge Harding', and one 'J. Rudge H.' Ten addressed to 'My dear Alderson', four to 'My dear Horne', and one to 'My dear Alderson Horne'. A friendly, chatty correspondence. Topics include: the war (Horne joined the 8th East Surrey Regiment in 1914, and was invalided out the following year), a funeral in Wiltshire ('What a horrid mummery it all is - I loathe the black hat & the black coat - (I won't wear black gloves)'), an article he has written (at the behest of 'Miss Ashwell') for 'The Three Arts Club Magazine', Lady Dudley, his state of 'nervous irritability', a play he is in at the Little Theatre, 'the Lincoln performance', the actor Hubert Harben and his wife Mary Jerrold being 'out of an engagement', a play in which 'Mary Jerrold was superb & Leon Quartermain excellent also', the address of the actor P. Perceval-Clark, 'Field-Marshal David' (on one occasion he writes: 'Good luck to the gallant David - May Goliath go down before him as of old.'), dinner engagements, Edmund Gosse's life of Swinburne, O. Henry, a 'cutting from "The Lady's Pictorial"'), whether '"Penelope" is the incomparable Miss Parker, an article by George Street. On 8 November [1917] he writes on the death of the actor-manager William Hunter Kendal (1843-1917) that he is 'bidden to Mr. Kendal's funeral tomorrow - & must go of course, out of respect for my old manager & real liking for a man who was on the whole extremely kind & just - & whom I regret.' Onn 21 July: 'I am waiting for a wire from the volatile Seymour Hicks fixing the day for my start to Glasgow to rehearsals. Tomorrow, most probably. I confess to feeling rather anxious about the job. I expect it will be difficult.' On 13 April: 'I actually went to a play the other night - a first night of a thing called "Betty at Bay" at the Strand. I see your friend Milne has written a play, which seems to be very good. Morrison, of the "Morning Post" whom I met at the Strand Theatre, praised it. [...] This Flanders fight seems to be a deadly serious business. I suppose our people are facing the possibility of a breakthrough. I devoutly hope and believe that will never happen, though, but it could be devilish awkward for you all <...> if it did!'