TWAIN

See Knox’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The two items are in fair condition, lightly aged and creased, each with a couple of lightly-rusted pin holes. Clemens’s plain card, with stamps and postmarks, is addressed to ‘E. V. Knox Esq / c/o Punch / London, England.’, and is signed ‘faithfully / C C Clemens’. The message reads: ‘Dear E.V. Knox / We hope the life of President Truman reached you safely? / The Society is arranging a symposium on democracy You may care to send your definition of democracy and a few comments.

Part of leaf from exercise book (it seems), 12.5 x 11.5cm, laid down on paper slightly larger, good condition. Dear Sir: I comply with your request very willingly, and subscribe myself Yours autographically | and truly | B.P. Chillaber | for sef and | Mrs Partington.

8.5 x 14 envelope. In fair condition, aged and creased. Torn open, with slight loss to flap. A nice Mark Twain artefact, and something of a puzzle, as he does not appear to have been in England at the time. There does not appear to be any connection between Twain and William Amhurst Tyssen-Amherst (1835-1909), 1st Baron Amherst of Hackney, whose London address was 88 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square.

2pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with minor traces of glue on reverse of blank second leaf. He thanks him for his 'kind remembrance', and undertakes to 'come with much pleasure to Clarence House, a little before the time of Inspection and bring two friends'. The letter concludes: 'Meantime we must not forget that you and I are going to set apart some afternoon to make a sentimental pilgrimage into the Past in some corner of old London!'

On two leaves. The illustrations on both are undamaged, but both leages are aged and worn, with chipping and closed tears to extremities. Fragile. ONE: Steel engraving: 'Photo. by Beniczky. | Engd by R. O'Brien.' Captioned with a facsimile of Cutter's signature, with 'THE LONG ISLAND FARMER POET' beneath it. 30 x 24 cm. On thickish wove paper. Head and shoulders image of a middle-aged Cutter, with goatee beard, smartly dressed with bow tie, waistcoat and jacket. TWO: Two small wood engravings on a 31 x 24 cm leaf of wove paper (thinner stock than Item One).

ONE: Typed Letter Signed from Clemens to Pitt. In good condition, with light signs of age and wear. Expansive signature in blue ink. Letterhead with printed quotations from President Ford, Carl Van Doren, William Faulkener, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Message reads: 'Dear Barrie Pitt | In recognition of your outstanding contribution to Biography, you have been unanimously elected, in succession to the late Captain Basil Liddell Hart | A KNIGHT | of | MARK TWAIN'. TWO: Photocopy of letter from Churchill to Clemens.

ALS, on his presidential letterhead; 14 July 1932, 2pp., 8vo, good condition, with enclosure. His 'Little Visits to the Great' is 'almost ready to go to press, but we are holding things up for the Chapter on "Robert and Sylvia Lynd." If you and Mrs Lynd could glance it over and scratch out any thing that I remembered inaccurately, [...]'. With a mimeographed typewritten copy (1 p, fol.), transcribing three 1937 letters to Clemens, two from Douglas Hyde and the last from W. B. Yeats.

The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in 1906, funded by Andrew Carnegie, and counted Mark Twain and President Theodore Roosevelt, and the English lexicographers James A. H. Murray, Walter W. Skeat and Joseph Wright among its members. The present collection of the Board's Circulars consists of 25 uniform items, all unbound and stapled. The collection is in fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, with occasional wear. Stamps, shelfmarks and labels of the Board of Education Reference Library, London.

Printed in black and sepia on both sides of a leaf of watermarked wove paper, 45 x 30 cm. On lightly-aged paper with one vertical and two horizontal fold lines. The seven sample pages feature a total of six illustrations, in a variety of styles, two by Herb Roth. The arrangement is as follows. Recto: Title ('Specimen Pages from Books made at the Walpole Printing Office in New Rochelle, N.Y. 1929-1932') with vignette of Walpole. Specimen One, titled 'Piratical Barbarity, &c.', with illustration of pirate ship by Roth. Specimen Two, title-page of T. S. Eliot's 'John Dryden. The Poet.