[Philip Youngman Carter, Assistant Editor of The Tatler and husband of Margery Allingham.] Eight Signed Letters (three in Autograph, five Typed) to E. V. Knox, regarding reviewing, with galley proof of one of Knox's reviews.

According to the Oxford DNB entry on Carter's wife the crime writer Margery Allingham (whose book jackets were among those he designed): 'Their amiable, childless marriage was funded by Allingham's increasingly successful fiction. And, although Youngman Carter assisted his wife as a sounding board for plot design, and by producing covers and illustrations for her work, he found it difficult to sell his art. Allingham supported his increasingly expensive tastes until after the Second World War, when Pip came into his own writing society columns for The Tatler, which he edited from 1954.' For the letters' recipient E. V. Knox, editor of Punch from 1932 to 1949, see his entry in the Oxford DNB. The letters are in good condition, lightly aged; the galley proof is on the usual cheap paper, discoloured and chipping. (The first two of the four books reviewed by Knox in the proof are crime novels: quite appropriately considering Carter's wife and Knox's brother Ronald, author of the celebrated 'Ten Commandments' of detective fiction.) All eight letters signed 'Youngman Carter'. Three of the eight letters are in autograph: two from 1953 and the other undated. The letters are businesslike, exclusively concerned with the practicalities of reviewing (the sending of copy, 'wordage', deadlines, arrangements for a holiday 'deputy'. On one occasion he asks Knox to send 'an article concerning itself with recommended reading for the Festival [of Britain]', on another he asks him to review H. E. Bates's 'The Face of England', as its illustrator, an 'artist called Kirsting' has 'himself been very kind and unassuming to us in other directions'. On 14 May 1953 he asks Knox to review 'The Christs Hospital Book', of which Carter is 'the most insignificant of the editors'. He explains that he is drawing Knox's attention to 'its existence because the subject is naturally very near my heart, although I think it can stand on its own legs. It is a labour of love by one and all concerned: if you can think it worth a line or so I would be deeply grateful'. The galley proof ('Book Reviews | By E. V. Knox | Holiday Amusements') is headed 'B?20-7?TATLER?July 29 Book Review?1 9-pt. Baskerville'. It can be dated to 1953 from the publication dates of the four books reviewed: 'Post Mortem' by Guy Cullingford ('I rank Mr. Guy Cullingford's Gilbert Worth very high among murderees.'); 'Symphony in Murder' by Amelia R. Long ('And who fired the pistol, and how? If you can discover before the last chapter, in which the whole orchestra is brought into the house for a demonstration by the Homicide Bureau, you deserve a free ticket for the Festival Hall.'); 'Things I Don't Remember' by Jeanne de Casalis (the author 'has a charming way of confusing reminiscence with fiction'); and 'Regional Books' published by Robert Hale. There are three proof corrections by Knox. From the E. V. Knox papers.