Handbill headed 'Souvenir. Street Library Book Fund.', consisting of a monologue entitled 'Lord Beaconsfield speaks before the curtain'.

One one side of a piece of laid paper, 26.5 x 21 cms. Aged and creased, with chipping to extremities and staining on reverse from repair to one of two closed tears. Thirty-six lines, with facsimile of Housman's signature at foot. An appeal for 'money for the Library - your Library'. Somewhat poignant, considering the present neglected state of the British library service. '[...] The question is - do you want to give money to your Library? [...] But, for my own part, I ask - why, why Libraries? What are they for? What there do you read? [...] Today your Librarian wants to buy for you a hundred of today's best books. That requires only Twenty Pounds. [...] keep your sixpences in your pockets, for sixpence will no longer buy a book; and you are here to give books to your Library.' Concludes with an eight-line poem beginning 'A Library a kingdom is, | That crowns the common need. | A double recompense is his | Who gives that all may read.' As of 2004 the Laurence Housman Collection was housed in the Crispin Hall, but with the Hall's future under threat due to lack of funding.