[ Lady Margaret Sackville, poet and children's author, mistress of Ramsay MacDonald. ] Nine Autograph Letters Signed and two Autograph Card Signed (all 'Margaret Sackville') to her agent C. F. Cazenove, regarding manuscripts of fairy tales and poems.

Author: 
Lady Margaret Sackville (1881-1963), poet and children’s author, daughter of Earl De La Warr, second-cousin of Vita Sackville-West, mistress of Ramsay MacDonald [ C. F. Cazenove, literary agent ]
Publication details: 
One from Lupton, Churston, Devon. The other ten on letterheads: Inchmery, Exbury, Southampton (6); 2 Magdala Place, Edinburgh (2); Old Lodge, Ashdown Forest, Nutley, Sussex; Copthorne, Fawley, Southampton. Between 1905 and 1907.
£500.00
SKU: 20517

Written (perhaps appropriately) in a somewhat childish hand. Simple and straightforward communications, responding to requests for 'short poems' (she has none by her but encloses 'a Nonsense Story which might do for one of the Christmas Numbers') and 'fairy-tales' (the only ones she has are 'already with a publisher', but she can write 'others on different lines'), enquiring after date of publication, sending a 'specimen story' ('I can write as many more “adventures[”] as may be required'), supplying information about previous publication, requesting a contract ('I am getting a little anxious.'), asking after 'Mr. George Allan', requesting the return of a manuscript ('I want it for something.'), stating that she wishes 'to revise the fairy tales before I attempt to do anything further with them', rejecting 'Mr. Matthews' conditions', i.e. the publisher Elkin Mathews, who in 1905 published her 'A hymn to Dionysus and Other Poems' (the only other book by her during the period was 'The Travelling Companions' published in London by Alston Rivers in 1906). On 29 July [1906] she writes from Inchmery: 'Could “The Princess and the Shepherd” be included in the book of fairy tales? It might take the place of “The Goblin and the Rabbit Hutch?”'