ENGLISH

Small piece of paper, 6.5 x 1.5cm, good condition, clipped from something (perhaps the end of a letter) with a clear signature.

[8]pp. including card covers, 12mo, some damp- staining not interfering with text, faint foxing. Verso of front cover signed: Stephen Spender and Wystan Auden, with the signatures of seven others (presumably the undergraduate members whose guests Auden and Spender were).

Three pages, 12mo, bifolium, good condition, docketed on p.[4] 1852 | C R Leslie RA. He extends an invitiation for Mrs Gardiner to visit before two oclock when he will with pleasure give her such information and assistance as I can respecting models. He continues with insights into his own works: My faces & figures are sometimes painted from firends, sometimes from members of my own family but [some?] often from hired models, who do not, however, supply [dresses?]. These I make up as I can, & sometimes borrow them from Nathan in [?] Street [theatrical costumier?].

Four pages, 4to, fold marks, good condition, closely written, pages joined at top. He thanks Davis for writing at such length. But as you still attribute to me ideas wh[ich] I repudiate, you must put up with a rejoinder.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On one side of a 12 x 11 cm piece of paper. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Reads: 'Lincoln's Inn Fields | 23d. June 1829 | Sir Wm. Grant will have the honor of joining the Old Fish Dinner party on Saty. the 27th. of June.'

Alistair Sooke, on the BBC website, makes the case that 'Meredith Frampton is the forgotten genius of British art'. See Frampton's entry in the Oxford DNB, and also those of Codner and of Frampton's father Sir George Frampton, who executed the celebrated statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (not modelled on his son, who was eighteen when it was made). 1p, 4to, in fair condition, aged and worn. Folded once. Writing to 'My dear Codner', he apologises for 'keeping you up till such a late hour last night'.

1p, 8vo. In good condition, on lightly aged paper. Folded once. Salutation ('My dear Popey -') and valediction ('My love to you both - | Anna.') in her autograph; the rest typed. Good bold signature. Reads: 'It was so very kind of you to think of me on Saturday.

See Knox's entry in the Oxford DNB, along with those of his father and three brothers. 8pp, 4to. Paginated and complete; on eight leaves held together with a rusting paperclip. In fair condition, aged and creased. A fair copy, with occasional emendations. There is no indication that this essay was published. A polished piece of writing by an accomplished essayist, lightly humorous but with serious intent, Knox's aim being to put forward the view that modern childhood is more self-indulgent than that of previous generations, and results is the self-deceit of adults who have never grown up.

256pp., 12mo. With frontispiece engraving and vignette on title. In original brown cloth binding, with blind-stamped decorative pattern on the boards, and title and design on the spine. Ownership inscription of 'Arthur Baxter | Runcorn | 1861' on piece of paper laid down on front pastedown. A tight copy, on stained paper (particularly the last few leaves) and aged paper, in worn binding with gilt almost dulled. An interesting production, reminiscent of previous Minerva Press publications, and looking ahead to the yellow-back.

Both items in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. ONE (13 January 1934): 1p., landscape 12mo. The 'proposed article sounds the sort of thing', but Strangeways cannot accept it until he sees it. TWO (3 February 1934): 2pp., landscape 12mo. He thanks him for sending the article, regarding which he writes: 'if the musicians mentioned in it had been more important or there had been more about them, it wd. have been worth printing; but as it is I am afraid it is not of sufficient interest.' The writer's reference to 'Ranzini' is, Strangeways points out, 'almost certainly' a mistake for 'V.

Both letters annotated in pencil in contemporary hand 'To Townsend Warner Historian'. (Warner was a history master and head of the ‘modern side’ at Harrow School, and co-editor of one of the most popular British history textbooks of the period. His only child was the novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner.) Both letters in good condition, each with pin hole from former attachment.

1p, landscape 12mo In good condition, with glue stain to one corner. Folded once. 'Mrs Belloc Lowndes regrets, on the score of ill health, that she cannot have the pleasure of accepting Lord [Treghre?]'s kind invitation.'

2pp, 12mo. On aged and creased paper, with two torn spike holes resulting in loss of a few letters of text. Date stamp on reverse. The recipient is not named, but is presumably the BBC producer Terence Dudley (1919-1988). Writing three months before his death, Strong begins the letter: 'My dear Terence, | How very kind of you! I [d]on't have any dignity in such matters! and I'd love to have a go, whether live or recorded.

On reverse of 11.25 x 8.25 cm card carrying a black and white print of the autograph score of Coates's second 'phantasy', 'The Three Bears' (1926). In good condition, lightly aged. Reads: 'To May Hirst | with best wishes | from | Eric Coates | Photograph of | Original Full Score of | The Three Bears'.

9pp, 12mo. On twi bifoliums and a single leaf, only the first of the bifoliums carrying the letterhead. In good condition, on aged paper. Folded once and in an envelope with 'Whist for 2. | Rules by Miss Stanton.' on cover. The letterhead has the feel of the 1920s, but the handwriting is Victorian, and presumably that of an old spinster. The first bifolium carries a separate set of instructions over four pages, headed 'Whist for two', and concluding: 'Hope you can read it excuse blots for I cant see what I have written'.

72pp, 8vo. Tight copy on lightly-aged paper, in original blue cloth binding with dulled gilt on spine, panels of sunning to front board, and slight wear at head of spine. Ownership inscription on front free endpaper: 'Christopher Fry'. Auden, along with Eliot, was an inspiration to Fry, one of the foremost twentieth-century English practitioners of verse drama.

xv + 179pp, 8vo. Good tight copy in brown cloth, in worn printed dustwrapper. Frontispiece portrait of Fry. Inscribed on front free endpaper: 'To Christopher Fry | from | Glenda Leeming | with love'. In her preface Leeming notes Fry's 'patience and tolerance, as well as his helpful explanations of his plays, his intentions, and their realization'. The volume contains pencil annotations between pp.43 and 73, mostly relating to 'The Lady's not for Burning'. All are marginal indications of passages with vertical lines, apart from two annotations suggesting a degree of impatience with the text.

[6] + viii + 266pp, 8vo. With four-page 'Select Bibliography' and three two-page lists of errata tipped-in at the rear. In plain brown cloth, with green printed dustwrapper glued-down (by publisher) onto the endpapers by the flaps. In good condition, lightly-aged, in lightly-worn dustrapper with closed tear at rear. Inscribed on the front free endpaper: 'To | Mr. Christopher Fry, | With best compliments | from the Author, | S. n. Ray | 7.4.98'. Fry makes around fifty autograph corrections to the text, giving a list of them over the rear endpapers.

120pp, 12mo. No dustwrapper. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, tight in lightly-worn green cloth with dulled gilt. Inscribed by Williams in pencil on front free endpaper: 'For Michal'. A collection of around fifty poems, including five addressed to the author's wife: 'To Michal: After a Vigil'. 'To Michal: On Forgiveness', 'To Michal: On Brushing her Hair', 'To Michal meditating a new Costume', 'To Michal: On Disputing outside Church'. Accompanying the volume is an Autograph Letter Signed from 'Neil' to 'Dear Christopher and Dear Phyl', i.e. Christopher Fry and his wife Phyllis.

9pp, 8vo. Complete carbon typescript. On nine leaves, stapled together. Title at head of first page: 'THE BOAT THAT MOOED.' Fry's signature in blue ink at top left of first page: 'Christopher Fry:'. Fry has cut down the story by deleting and removing a passage. The lower part of the leaf carrying the sixth page of the story has been cut away, and the original seventh page has been removed, hence the typescript pagination 1-6, 8-10 has been amended in manuscript to 1-9. A lighthearted faux-naive story, replete with symbolism. Begins: 'Tom Crunch lived on a boat. All round the boat was water.

3pp, 4to, each page on a separate leaf. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded once. There is no indication that either item was published, nor even that the poem is connected to the 'programme'. (If unpublished the poem may have found its way into Fry's papers from Hassall's.) The 'programme' - with no title or heading - is two pages long (with slight damage from a small staple to corners of both leaves) and complete, being divided into six numbered sections.

1p, 8vo. In fair condition, lightly aged. On Croxley Script cartridge paper. Folded three times. Typed at top left: 'For Andrew Young'. From the Fry papers, with the playwright apparently stating that he found the typescript in a copy of Robert Frost's poems. Hassall's poem is apparently unpublished (but see below). It is divided into two sonnets, numbered I ('Yours is the Wildern World beyond my door') and II ('Speak for us to the earth, interpreter -').

6pp, 12mo. Paginated [1]-6. Lightly aged and a bit grubby. Folded twice. On six leaves of paper, which Herford has made up by tearing in half the 4to leaves of one of his students' essays. Complete, and signed at the end 'C H Herford'. Written in a close hand, with numerous deletions and emendations. He begins by describing how Shelley met his death, and his final writing, before dismissing the suggestion that he committed suicide: 'we may dismiss the utterly uncalled for suggestion that his own hand lifted the veil'.

2pp, 16mo. In fair condition, on aged paper with ruckling caused by glue from mount, traces of the paper from which adhere to blank reverses of both leaves. In a crabbed difficult hand, addressed to 'Mrs [Pugh?]', regarding his forthcoming book 'Sophia', a copy of which he will be sending the recipient, with reference to his wife, 'anxiety', and something 'characteristic'.

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Having found among her correspondence an unanswered letter from her cousin she apologises for the apparent rudeness, before accepting her 'kind invitation to luncheon when next we are in your neighbourhood'. She hopes that they 'may be in the Forest some time in the summer'. She ends by stating that she is enclosing an autograph for her cousin's friend.

1p, 12mo. In good condition, on lightly aged paper. Folded twice, resulting in offset ink smudging. Reads: 'Dear Rylands, | I am writing to you in case Noel is away. I have asked Mr Greene to show you my letter to Noel, if this is should [sic] be so. Anything you could do to help, would be kind and good, I think.

2pp, 16mo. In fair condition, on aged paper with ruckling caused by glue from mount, traces of the paper from which adhere to blank reverses of both leaves. In a crabbed difficult hand, addressed to 'Mrs [Pugh?]', regarding his forthcoming book 'Sophia', a copy of which he will be sending the recipient, with reference to his wife, 'anxiety', and something 'characteristic'.

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Having found among her correspondence an unanswered letter from her cousin she apologises for the apparent rudeness, before accepting her 'kind invitation to luncheon when next we are in your neighbourhood'. She hopes that they 'may be in the Forest some time in the summer'. She ends by stating that she is enclosing an autograph for her cousin's friend.

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with two smudges on second page. Folded once. With reference to her letter 'to Mr. Somerset of March 11th. re the portrait of Charles II (as Prince) in academic robes', he has had the picture by William Dobson photographed and encloses a copy (not present). He discusses Charles's dress in the picture in some detail, adding that 'The portrait (27 x 28 1/2 inches) has been in my possession since 1918 when it was bought at Christie's Nov. 29 lot.

On one side of a slip of laid paper cut from the end of a letter: roughly 4 x 17 cm, the reverse being blank. In good condition, lightly aged. Good neat signature to the valediction of a letter. Reads: 'I am my d [Phippen?] | (in great haste | Yours very truly | Jos: S: Munden'. Munden eas the subject of one of the "Essays of Elia" (Charles Lamb).