[Elie Halevy, French historian.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Elie Halévy'), in English, responding to 'objections' of 'professor Davis', giving his assessment of 'the Edwardian years', and contrasting his 'spirit' with that of Lytton Strachey.

8pp, 12mo. On two attached bifoliums. In good condition, lightly aged, with slight damage to margin of first leaf. Folded once. A long letter, closely and neatly written in English, responding to 'objections' to his 'Épilogue 1. Les impérialistes au pouvoir: 1895-1914' (1926), giving his evaluation of 'the Edwardian years' in English history, and contrasting his 'spirit' in the study Victorian England with that of Lytton Strachey. He begins by thanking Davis for 'so many laudatory adjectives, showered upon my last volume', before proceeding to attempt to 'answer one or two of your (very gentle indeed) objections'. He quotes David as saying that he does not 'as a patriotic Frenchman […] altogether realise how many difficulties, not all of them due to British prejudices or ambitions, made a rapprochement to France and Russia seem even more chimerical than a pan-Teutonic league, in the years 1897-1902'. In response he explains that he has done his best 'to view things, if not from an English, at all events not from a French, but from an European point of view'. He continues on the same matter with regard to specifics. Turning to his 'preface on “Decadence”' he explains: 'my diffidence is not “courteous” but simply “conscious”'. He explains that his 'prejudices' are 'those of an historian who, having made Victorian England the study of his life, and having studied it in a spirit which has nothing to do with the Strachey spirit – could not avoid seeing the Edwardian years as being years of decay of something which had be great. Nothing more. Even thus, it is not surprising that those years should have been years of furious thinking. There is a certain self-complacency in great [egos?] which is perhaps not wholly favourable to “furious thinking”'. He makes a 'minor point' regarding the 'Anglo-French entente of 1904'. He concludes with thanks for a 'useful observation about Brandenberg', and an undertaking to go back to the book 'before the English translation of my volume goes to the press, so that my English readers may reap the benefit of your criticism'.