Typed Letter Signed ('Juliette') to 'Dick' [Frank Richard Cowell, b.1897], together with carbon of typed reply.

Juliette Huxley's letter is 4to: 2 pp. Good, though lightly creased and attached to the other items by a paperclip. The correspondence mainly concerns a book by Cowell's eventually published under the title 'The garden as a fine art: from antiquity to modern times' (1978). She begins by describing Mary Wellesley: 'quite a character [...] lives in a small house off St. James's Palace, and entertains by candlelight. Her uncle is the Duke of Wellesley [...] She has acquired a forest, and soon after went to various forestry meetings and school, to learn all about it.' 'About your gardens: have you quoted Song Solomon I 14 (I think it is)'. Discusses henna and Engeddi ('a beautiful oasis, with several springs flowing from high cliffs, and nourishing what otherwise would be a salty hellish desert [...]. Also 'Herod's palace at Massada' 'Of course, your book will be accepted for publication; have you tried Weidenfeld and Nicholson? [the eventual publishers] I am thinking of going to him with MY Israel book. And of course, those flower photos would be available to you for illustration.' The Huxleys hope to return to Israel that March 'to see the spring flowers' and she would 'inquire further' if they did. The unsigned copy of Cowell's reply is 4to: 3 pp. On typing paper, creased and worn at extremities. Begins 'You have always been at a high altitude in the hierarchy of angels but now, if there is any further step to take, you may be regarded as having made it by your splendid letter of the 27th.' 'Lilian' is grateful 'for Miss Wellesley's story', and he is urging her 'to lure her down one fine day when the daffodils are in full song with other floral excitements to match [...] She would be a splendid counsellor on such bits of timber and planting as we have on our modest five acres.' Discusses their neighbour, 'Mrs. Frederick Balfour, now rising 85 I believe', who 'helped her late husband in perilous journeys on horseback in the Rockies of Oregon to discover some of the splendid things that now flourish there'. Discusses the biblical passage quoted by Huxley, and is sending 'a carbon of my stuff on the gardens of the Holy Land' [present as the last page of the letter]. Mentions a few scholars in the field. 'Walter Neurath [founder of the publishers Thames and Hudson] has gone rather sour on the book. He seems to have imported one of those rewrite men from America whose activities have been the subject of such splendid denunciation in the T.L.S. and this young man offered to rewrite some of my stuff. (I should like to hear the explosion if any such trick were tried on Julian or Ric Mortimer Wheeler). I expect they were all trained in 'Creative Writing' in some Mid-West college.' Discusses Weidenfeld as an option. He wishes Julian Huxley to know that he has received 'a splendid letter from Roger Saydoux from New York two days ago picking up and returning my nostalgia for those grand early days'.