[W. G. Wills [William Gorman Wills], Irish playwright and painter.] Autograph Letter Signed to Tom Taylor, fellow-playwright and ‘Punch’ editor, recommending Walter John Knewstub, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s assistant.

See his entry and Taylor’s in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. Sixteen lines of closely-written text. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Begins: ‘My dear Mr. Taylor / Would you allow me to introduce a friend of mine Mr. Knewstube to you. He is a friend of Rossetti’s [sic] and a former pupil.’ It ‘occurred to’ Wills that if Taylor ‘liked them’ [sic], he ‘might perhaps help him to a market for his pictures (watercolor) should you know a likely buyer - as I am sorry to say he has a large young family and has had a long & sad struggle - That his pictures have real merits may be indicated by the fact that one of his heads is on the line in the Academy & another well placed’ (meaning that Knewstub has a well-placed picture in the Royal Academy summer exhibition). Knewstub has been ‘several times so lucky in this particular, his pictures do not seem to sell even fairly’.