1890S

Typed Letter Signed ('Compton Mackenzie') from the Anglo-Scottish author Sir Compton Mackenzie to the theatre historian W. J. MacQueen-Pope, discussing famous London actors and pantomimes of the 1890s, with a carbon copy of the typed reply.

Author: 
Sir Compton Mackenzie [Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie] (1883-1972) [W. J. MacQueen-Pope [Walter James MacQueen-Pope] (1888-1960)]
Publication details: 
Mackenzie's letter on letterhead of Denchworth Manor, by Wantage, Berkshire. 1 January 1951. Copy of MacQueen-Pope's reply dated 5 January 1951, with place not stated.
£120.00

Mackenzie's letter is 1p., landscape 12mo. 16 lines. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with a crease to one corner. He thanks MP for his 'encouraging letter' and discusses his own 'silly slip about the Faery Queen's entrance' in a radio broadcast: 'I was so much concerned with giving listeners the difference between the O.P. and the Prompt side that it became a question of physician heal thyself.' He continues: 'I wasn't sure of the year Mille Le Garde [sic] sang that song. Probably '97. Rose Dering was the Aladdin. She was second boy. Ted Young was the Widow Twankey.

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[Finely-printed anonymous handbill poem, with headpiece attributed to Walter Crane - pencil note.] Impromptu. Rumbling Bridge, September 17, 1892.

Author: 
Anonymous [Walter Crane; Rumbling Bridge, Perth and Kinross, Scotland; Marlee House, Blairgowrie; Kinloch Manse (now the Old Pastorie)]
Publication details: 
Printed not stated. [1892.]
£220.00

4pp., 12mo. Printed in brown on cream laid paper. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. 58 lines in 13 stanzas. Headpiece attributed to Crane in pencil at head of first page, and clearly his (central figure of Diana, with reapers on either side). The first stanza reads: 'I'll rede ye a lay of a goodly band | That gathered from near and far | To a broad fair Strath of Bonnie Scotland | 'Mid the woods and waters rare.' Second stanza: 'O!

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Two Autograph Letters Signed from the Oxford Professor of Fine Arts, Selwyn Image, to 'My dear Barnard' [Rev. P. M. Barnard?], regarding funghi and moths.

Author: 
Selwyn Image (1849-1930), Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University [Rev. Percy Mordaunt Barnard (1868-1941) of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, antiquarian bookseller]
Publication details: 
Both from 20 Fitzroy Street, W.; 12 and 17 August 1908.
£175.00

Both items good, on aged paper. Written in Image's distinctive calligraphic hand. Letter One (12 August 1908): 1 p, 12mo. The 'Galatheas' arrived the previous evening 'quite safe'. 'Fancy your being at The Warren as well as at Deal! The Warren [Folkestone] is famous for being stocked with good things. You are indeed in the very heart of the richest entomological country in England.' Letter Two (17 August 1908): 2 pp, 12mo. He is delighted with 'these beautiful ochroleuca, which arrived this afternoon quite safely'.

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Three Autograph Letters Signed (two 'Eric Broad. | Frederic E Wright.' and one 'Frederic E Wright | Eric Broad.') to W. Kineton Parkes (1865-1938), assistant editor of the journal of the Ruskin Reading Guild, 'Igdrasil'

Author: 
Eric Broad' (Frederic E. Wright), English poet [W. Kineton Parkes; John Ruskin; William Marwick; the Ruskin Reading Guild]
Publication details: 
20 and 22 January and 3 March 1890; all from Scarsdale, Great Malvern.
£100.00

All three items in very good condition. Interesting series of letters by an obscure 1890s poet. Letter One (12mo, 7 pp): Although he realises that some are 'rather poor', he is sending, through his brother (possibly the artist Alan Wright, 1864-1959), 'all the lyrics I have by me': 'I have not had time to "weed" yet, being veryy busily engaged writing lyrics for a Comedy-Opera ['Ethelinda, or a Philanthropic Fad' (1890), on which he collaborated with Hamilton O. Wylde] - & a libretto for Operetta; also been trying my hand at very sensational prose'.

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