[Lord Devlin, British judge and jurist.] Three Typed Letters Signed to Philip Dosse, publisher of ‘Books and Bookmen’, regarding possible reviewers (of his book 'Too Proud to Fight'), and an invitation for him to review.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient Philip Dosse was proprietor of Hansom Books, publisher of a stable of seven arts magazines including Books and Bookmen and Plays and Players. See ‘Death of a Bookman’ by the novelist Sally Emerson (editor of ‘Books and Bookmen’ at the time of Dosse’s suicide), in Standpoint magazine, October 2018. The three items are in fair condition, lightly aged and creased (the last in particular, being on airmail paper), and folded for postage. All three signed 'Devlin'. ONE: 27 October 1974. 1p, foolscap 8vo. The letter is a response to a query from Dosse regarding possible reviewers of Devlin’s book ‘Too Proud to Fight’. Devlin begins by stating that he has been receiving copies of ‘Books and Bookmen’ and wondered where they were ‘coming from’. ‘I have been enjoying it very much and it is only laziness that has prevented me from taking out a subscription. I should be most grateful if you would do it for me and send me the bill. / I am afraid that I have no ideas of my own about reviewers. The subject is off my usual beat and I do not know who the experts are. But Miss Elizabeth Knight in the O.U.P., who are the publishers, is very likely to have some good ideas. / On your list there is Michael Howard [the Conservative politician] who would be superb if he would do it; failing him, H. V. Hodson might be interested in theory.’ In a postscript he writes that he has received Dosse’s second letter, and is ‘delighted that Anthony West is doing it’. TWO: 13 November 1974. 1p, landscape 12mo. It would give him ‘great pleasure to review books from time to time for “books and bookmen”’. He gives details of his agent. ‘The Eliza Armstrong book you mention sounds very interesting. But I am going to be out of the country for four or five months after Christmas; and I have got so many jobs before then that I must finish, that I would be unwise to take it on. Perhaps something else later.’ At the head of the letter, in pencil, ‘re Cecil Kings 2nd Diary’. THREE: 17 January 1975. ‘Thank you so much for sending me an advance copy of Anthony West’s review of my book and for inviting me to review Cecil King’s new volume.’ He does not think it ‘wise’ for him to accept Dosse’s ‘kind invitation’ regarding the King book, as he will be ‘snowed under with things’ he has already undertaken to do when he returns to England in May.