[Philip Webb [Philip Speakman Webb], Arts and Crafts architect and Pre-Raphaelite.] Autograph Letter Signed (or draft?) to J. R. Holliday, discussing the difficulties of bookplate design.

An interesting letter, in which Webb sets out his approach to bookplate design. According to his entry in the Oxford DNB, ‘By 1899 Webb was in poor health and losing money. His meagre savings were insufficient to build a cottage, so he accepted Caxtons, a four-bedroom sixteenth-century yeoman's house at Worth, near Crawley, Sussex, offered at a selflessly low rental by his friend William Scawen Blunt.’ For the context of the present letter, see the letter from Webb to Sydney Cockerell, 1 September 1902, in volume 3 of John Apin’s edition of Webb’s letters. The present item is 1p, landscape 8vo, and consists of eighteen lines written in a tiny hand in pencil, with a number of ink additions that raise the possibility that it may be a draft. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Holliday’ and signed ‘Ph: W.’ In fair condition, on worn paper with a block of sunning. Folded into three equal sections by two vertical creases. He begins by stating that on 16 August Sydney Cockerel sent him [in a letter now in the British Library] an extract of one of Holliday’s letters to him, beginning ‘I suppose we are getting nearer to the time when Philip Webb will be at liberty to think about my book plate’. Webb’s reply is: ‘Now, & at this time, I can only answer with your word ‘nearer’ - for there is one in hand (or rather in rough idea) which has to be done before yours, on the principle of “first come, first served”.’ On the wider question he writes: ‘I need scarcely add, that to do anything for you - which I thought passably fit to let go, would please me much; & therefore, I write the following with that not too forlorn hope. Cannot you think of something in your life, or of belongings, or fancy, or fact, which would be a hook on which to hang my [last word underlined] “fancy”? You see - or wd. guess, that I do not like to make such a design which has not some sufficient significance in it - great or small, - as the case may be - and for motive: when I have this it tethers me to some positive instead of a negative course; though I might add to or deduct from my brief according to the demands of decorative art - or my own wilfulness?’ He turns to the ‘third to be served’ with a bookplate, John Feeney, proprietor of the Birmingham Daily Post. In that case ‘the spirit is willing but the time and aptitude are but small. There is always a load on my spirit of things undone, when undoing to get into bed 365 nights in the year, so that I long to unship my pack of sin as Bunyan’s “Christian” did his. What fellows these Cockerells & Walkers are for getting me into this “slough of despond”!’ A postscript refers to ‘Catterson Smith & the mace’ (explained in John Apin’s edition of Webb’s letters). See Image.