TOLKIEN

Williams, who has an entry in the Oxford DNB, became a close friend of Spalding and her sister Anne after lodging with their parents during the Second World War. The present item is a transcription, made and printed out around the 1980s, of the 1961 radio programme, on one side each of 34 numbered pieces of A4 paper, loosely gathered by a black plastic spine.

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.

The letters are in fair condition, lightly aged; the card is discoloured and stained. Loosely inserted in a copy of Williams's 'Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury', 75 + [1]pp, 8vo, with the ownership signature 'Christopher Fry' on the front free endpaper, in worn binding with fraying at head of spine. Delightful and revealing letters, mixing personal and business (Williams worked for the Oxford University Press and Fry was published by them). ONE: ALS from Southfield House, 17 December 1941. 2pp, 12mo. Thirty lines of closely-written text, on a leaf of ruled paper torn from a notebook.

115pp, 12mo. In good condition: sound and tight, on browning War Economy paper, in green cloth with slight bloom, and in slightly worn and chipped browning dustwrapper. (The subtitle 'A Play in Three Acts' features on the dustwrapper, but not on the title-page.) Fry's ownership inscription 'Christopher Fry' is in blue ink at the top right-hand corner of the recto of the front free endpaper. A verse drama from the library of the leading twentieth-century English exponent of the genre, after T. S. Eliot.

55pp, 8vo. In fair condition, internally tight and sound, on browning paper, in lightly-worn blue cloth binding. No dustwrapper. Slight dink at head of spine. Ownership inscription 'Christopher Fry' in blue ink at top right-hand corner of recto of front free endpaper. Fry and Williams were on cordial terms, the latter working for Oxford University Press and the former being published by them.

[8] + 200pp, 8vo. In light-brown wraps with title repeated on front cover. Worn, on aged paper, with the upper back few leaves dogeared, and spotting at foot of first few leaves. The present proof must in some regard differ from the published version, whose various listings on COPAC give it 200pp, rather than the 199pp here. Lewis's two-page 'Introductory' concludes with a vivid picture of the Inklings: 'The first two chapters had been read aloud by the author to Professor Tolkien and myself.

4to (leaf dimensions 20.5 x 16.5 cm): 63 pp. In original grey-green printed wraps. Tight and generally good, but with damp-staining to a few leaves, some wear to corners and creasing and grubbiness to the last three leaves. Wraps worn and grubby. Embossed bookseller's stamp to rear wrap: 'W. H. Smith & Son. 186 Strand, London.' Scarce: COPAC only lists copies at the Bodleian, the National Library of Scotland and the British Library (the last being attributed to 'MARSHALL, Charles, Traveller'). The beginning is reminiscent of Tolkien's 'Hobbit': 'POOR Glum-glum!

Three pages, octavo. Very good on lightly aged paper. Kenyon's paper was 'much enjoyed' when read on Saturday, and there was 'a good attendance'. '[T]he pleasantries were not missed': '1. the confusion of the inexhaustible emender; 2. the thrift of the canny Odysseus in his role of wooer; 3. Burne Jones's Law.' 'At the end some interesting questiosn were asked', for example, 'why second-rate Greek annalists shd. seemingly have been preferred to Herodotus & Thucydides'.