[Richard Blake Brown, gay writer] A massive archive of his works (nearly 200 times, mainly manuscript, much unpublished).

‘Quite a singular person’: The ‘delicate improprieties’ of Richard Blake BrownLiterary Papers, 1916-1968The present collection of the literary papers of gay writer Richard Blake Brown – novels, plays, poetry, travel writing and memoirs – consists of nearly 200 items, including:50 notebooks of autograph manuscripts;38 volumes of bound typescripts;39 unbound typescripts;2 autograph booklets;one unbound autograph manuscript;with around 60 miscellaneous items and seven of Brown’s published novels (five with annotations and extra material inserted).Richard Blake Brown (1902-1968) – hereafter RBB – is an unfairly neglected figure in the British literary scene of the interwar years: a remarkable man and an exceptional writer whose novels have been dismissed by individuals who have not taken the trouble to read them. Blake Brown’s open homosexuality was a source of puzzlement even to fellow gay writer Denton Welch, who was moved on receipt of a particularly camp letter in 1946 to exclaim: ‘Is this exhibitionism or vanity or what?’ (see below).The collection contains a number of references to the Queen’s dressmaker Norman Hartnell, a lifelong friend and prominent homosexual, and RBB’s own gayness permeates the whole of the present collection, from The Remarkable History of Hilden Abbey – Blake Brown’s teenage memoir of dressing up with his brother Lincoln and his Tonbridge schoolfellow Rupert Croft-Cooke (1903-1979, imprisoned for homosexual activities in 1953) as monks and abbots – to a number misogynistic limericks written in the late 1960s, and in titles such as My Aunt in Pink and The Gaiety of God. However such honesty was received at the time, it now looks courageous in the light of the sort of punishment meted out to Croft-Cooke in 1953. Whatever view the authorities may have taken, it does appear that RBB was indulged by his friends: a copy of Graham Greene’s 1958 play The Potting Shed survives (not in this collection), inscribed to: ‘My dear Richard, Many thanks for your letter which has broken a long silence. I am glad you liked the play. What have you been doing with yourself? Any more books on the way? I heard rumours of you at the wedding and how you eclipsed every other male there. Affectionately, Graham’. A useful account of RBB’s life up to 1947 is laid down at the beginning of his unpublished autobiography A Life in the Shade (section 4 below):‘Mr. Richard Blake Brown was born in January, 1902, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., of American parents who brought him to England later in the same year, because his father had invented a system of power-signalling in connection with the electrification of London’s Underground Railways. | He was educated at Tonbridge and Berkhamsted (without being expelled from either of these public schools) and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, taking his degree in English and History in 1923. He then joined the Old Vic Company for a season of Shakespeare as a student-actor, uncertain as to whether the Stage or the Church should be his profession. Having decided on the latter (believing that the Church of England desperately needed "brightening up"), he studied theology at St. Stephen’s House, Oxford, the most cheerful theological College in England at that time. He became one of the twelve curates of the famous parish of St. Mary’s Portsea, but voluntarily resigned his Orders three years later, disillusioned as to the chances of helping to make "Churchianity" more like the Christianity of the Gospels. | After his first twelve books had been published in the ’thirties (including The Apology of a Young Ex-Parson, a volume of extracts from his diaries of the first three years as an Anglican clergyman), he returned, equally voluntarily, to the exercise of his Ministry with the approval of the then Archbishop of Canterbury (Doctor Cosmo Gordon Lang) and went to work in a mining village in Derbyshire. | For six years he was a temporary Chaplain R.N.V.R., being Chaplain of the Flagship Renown during the sinking of the Bismarck episode. When the Second World War was over, Mr. Blake Brown, now in seventh year as Chaplain of one of our prisons. | First and foremost, he writes books for his own personal entertainment and refreshment, and is only too glad if there are others who can share in his sense of fun and his good-natured satire.’Fourteen of RBB’s novels appeared in print, twelve of them, as he points out above, in the 1930s. As the following list shows, five of the books bear the imprint of the vanity publishers the Fortune Press, the other eight were handled by established commercial publishers:Miss Higgs and her Silver Flamingo (Duckworth, 1931)Yellow Brimstone (Duckworth, 1931)The Apology of a Young Ex-Parson (Duckworth, 1932)A Broth of a Boy (Fortune Press, 1934)The Blank Cheque (Fortune Press, 1934)Joy in Jeopardy (Fortune Press, 1935)Rococo Coffin (Fortune Press, 1936)My Aunt in Pink (Martin Secker, 1936)Spinsters, awake! (Martin Secker, 1937)Bicycle Belle (Fortune Press, 1937)God by Lamplight (Skeffington, 1938)Mr. Prune on Cotswold (Martin Secker, 1938)Yet Trouble came (Cassell, 1957)Bright Glades (Cassell, 1959)Throughout his life RBB was an inveterate writer, and while typescripts and manuscripts of some of these books feature in the present collection, they form only a fraction of the mass of unpublished novels, volumes of poetry, plays, short stories and memoirs it contains. While still in his teens RBB could compile a list of 36 ‘Unpublished Works of the Author which have been, for the most part, consigned to a Tate-Sugar box’.An assessment of such a large body of published and unpublished work is difficult, but a writer praised by Vera Brittan for his ‘scintillating phrases’ and ‘conscious brilliance’ (see below) deserves to be taken seriously. Not even his contemporaries, however, appear to have known what to make of him. On 21 September 1946 Denton Welch recorded in his diary the receipt of ‘a letter of appreciation from a naval chaplain written in three different coloured inks, in enormous letters on two different coloured papers with different stamped headings (violet, green and scarlet) and little whimsy pieces, such as: "No telephone on purpose." A photograph enclosed too. Is this exhibitionism or vanity or what?’ (The Journals of Denton Welch, 1984 ed.) Subsequent references to the ‘peculiar parson’ (whom Welch met at least once) are written in the same tone of amused puzzlement.The cataloguer of his correspondence at Cornell University dismisses RBB as an ‘Anglican priest and sub-Firbankian gay novelist’. The comparison is facile and unfair, and was dealt with by Brown himself in 1951: ‘I grow so weary of being told that my books have been strongly influenced by Ronald Firbank, of whom few people in these days would ever had heard but for his "Valmouth" being turned into a modern musical a few years ago. [...] I admit I enjoyed several of Firbank’s short novels as "Lent Reading" in 1929; but I possess far too vivid an imagination of my own’. Blake Brown was certainly possessed of a fertile imagination, as the blurb to his last published novel, Bright Glades (Cassell, 1957, but written in 1945), demonstrates:‘A weird tapestry of The Last Judgement woven at her home in Gloucestershire by Minnie Boyland, the daughter of a war crimes investigator, incorporates the evil faces of those once concerned with running the notorious Dourmonck concentration camp. Dickie Beckoner, a jovial young man accustomed to driving about the countryside in a custard-and-scarlet motor-car, is the "Pied Piper" who brings together again the characters portrayed in the tapestry and others once connected in some way with Dourmonck, some for revenge and justice and others to meet their long-deferred deserts. | But they find that Dourmonck is not the only link between them, and as the tangled threads of their past and present are unravelled Minnie, Colonel Ponderstorm, Professor Boyland, the child Cynthia and the sinister Baroness von Tulpermann, find that there are other and sometimes more disturbing ties which must play a part in the pattern of their future.’From the above it is clear that Bright Glades is not your average gay novel, and RBB’s writing is always unusual and idisyncratic. Several of the novels (Yellow Brimstone; Yet Trouble Came; Thunder, 1970) are set in the future, and although the influence of Firbank and E. F. Benson is apparent (RBB was in awe of his brother A. C. Benson while an undergraduate at Magdalene), so is that of Anthony Trollope and Thomas Love Peacock. One of the most extraordinary items in the collection is the spoof Works of Count Ivor Telmarckle. With an appreciation by Denis Basil Gray, produced by RBB while still an undergraduate, in which RBB demonstrates his thespian skills by posing for photographs in the character of the Count. (This book and five others have been placed in fine leather bindings by the London booksellers Bumpus, who appear to have done all of RBB’s binding work.)Turning from Blake Brown’s last published novel to one of his first – Yellow Brimstone (Duckworth, 1931) – we can see that the consternation with which it was greeted was not unmixed with admiration. In a review of 15 October 1931 the Times Literary Supplement explained that the book was set ‘about sixty years in the future, when Richard IV. is on the throne, and there are pistols reproducing spontaneous combustion’. It was, the reviewer opined, ‘an incongruous affair [...] the writing is curiously uneven, evidences of an inquiring mind, which has explored widely among foreign literature, being followed by callow observations.’ The novelist Vera Brittan, writing in the News Chronicle, was far more positive: ‘The author, whose delicate improprieties are subtly reminiscent of Mr. James Branch Cabell, undoubtedly regards himself – by no means without justification – as a very clever young man. He is not yet, however, sufficiently aware that the New Morality which his scintillating phrases embody has been stated before; though never, perhaps, with such conscious brilliance.’ The following year, on the publication by Blake Brown of a precocious autobiography titled The Apology of a Young Ex-Parson, another novelist, Norman Collins, commented in the News Chronicle that it hard to believe that Blake Brown was not ‘strenuously parodying himself’ in ‘this unbelievable diary’: ‘Anyone who reads this book will agree with the author when he says of himself; "I am quite a singular person." An orthodox churchman – one of the kind that the author hates – might even see evidence of benevolent creation in the fact that Mr. Blake Brown is unique’.The following description is divided into eight sections:1. Novels2. Poetry3. Short stories4. Non-fiction5. Drama6. Travel7. Miscellaneous8. Published worksThe condition of the collection is good, but there is some damp damage to a few of the volumes.1. NovelsThe Remarkable History of Hilden Abbey. Being the original manuscript written by Richard Blake Brown. (Aged fifteen.) With an introduction by –: | Richard Blake Brown. | (Aged twenty-three.) B.A., of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Together with a strange portrait of the author!Autograph dated 5 August 1917, with typewritten additions from 1925. In sturdy black cloth binding, gilt, by Bumpus. With two coloured illustration of ‘chapels’, from the original 1917 manuscript, onto which, in 1925 photographs of Rupert Croft-Cooke and Lincoln Blake Brown have been laid down. Dedication: ‘Re-dedicated to "C. S. G."’ Addresses: Oxford, 1925, and Rochester Cottage, 23 July 1929. Autograph note on front pastedown: ‘I have decided to seal this volume up with The Third Volume of my Diary (Jan: to July, 1929), since it shows vividly how much & how strongly I was attracted to Religion (ie: its externals) when I was a young and impressionable boy. | R.B.B.’ Introduction – dated from ‘Four Winds’, Bidborough, Kent, on ‘Saint Matthew’s Feast-Day, 1925’, begins: ‘Rummaging in attics only yesterday I came across the manuscript of a history, written by myself at the age of fifteen, which throws much light upon a part of my childhood that was perhaps the beginning of my connection with the Church. This actual manuscript, which I have deemed it better to include between these two covers without any alterations or corrections whatsoever rather than to use a typewritten copy for the present purposes of binding and destroy the moderately legible original, can well speak for itself.’ In the introduction RBB states: ‘My brother Lincoln entered into our agreement of founding an Abbey (indeed, it was his own idea) and of taking turns at being "Abbot" [...] Nor shall the memory of the share that my "school-chum", Rupert Croft-Coke (who dwelt with his involuntarily tolerant parents at "Cage Farm" near Tonbridge), had in the whole business ever grow dim.’ He also refers to his ‘recent decision to take Holy Orders, for which purpose I am shortly to repair to St. Stephen’s House, Oxford, (October 9th, 1925) to take the necessary course in matters of theology, etc.’The Tangled Web. A Romance. Written by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "For the King" and "the last of the Stauntons," etc. Illustrated by R. J. A. Courtney.18 May to 20 June 1917. Autograph. In half-bound exercise book, with black spine and brown boards. Three signed watercolour illustrations by Courtney, all 4to, tipped in.The Land of Lost Spirrits. [sic] An Epic Poem, written by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "Caesar’s Hamlet;" etc. With Frontispeice, [sic] And Various Other Illustrations.1918. Autograph. 44pp., 4to. In notebook with red cloth spine and marbled boards. ‘Dedicated to My Father and Mother, and Piers; the former that they may enjoy reading it and the latter because he has shewn such a keen interest towards my writing it.The volume also contains:My Aunt in Pink. A novel by Richard Blake Brown.1936. Autograph. 47pp. Dedication: ‘To My Aunt in Massachusetts, Edith Knight Barney, [last word scored through, and ‘(as she used to be styled),’ added] Whom I shall always remember looking absolutely ravishing, one night in The Edwardian era, in an evening gown of coarse biscuit-coloured lace over violent emerald-green satin!’ ‘Started at Fonthill, Salperton, Monday night, April 8th, 1935.’ [See the other volumes of autograph manuscript of My Aunt in Pink, below.]Caesar’s Hamlet. A Novel roughly in the year 1860. Written by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "Enid Dantestein," "Scraps," etc. With a coloured frontispiece by H. de C. Hastings.March to May 1918. Autograph. In blue cloth small 4to binding, ‘the Cover decorated by Sidney H. Nicholls’. Attractive coloured frontispiece. Photograph of RBB laid down at start. ‘This Book is Dedicated to "L. K. B." With hopes that she will really enjoy reading it. R.B.B.’Stonehouse. A novel written by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "Caesar’s Hamlet," "Mr Pinniwig," etc. Illustrated by Mrs. Celia Streeten.1918. Autograph. In half-binding with grey cloth spine, blue marbled boards. Attractive watercolour illustration laid down as frontispiece. ‘Written: July-August. 1918. at "School House", Berkhamsted, Herts, and at "Hilden Lodge", Tonbridge, Kent. Finished August 6th. in the evening.’The peculiarities, adventures and the mystery of Barrie Knight. Book One. A Novel by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "Caesar’s hamlet," "Stonehouse", "Mr Pinniwig", etc. Illustrated By Sidney H. Nicholls.1918. Autograph. In half-bound exercise book with blue cloth spine and marbled boards. Dedication to Beatrice Banfield.Soul of a Schoolmaster. By Richard Blake Brown. With a coloured frontispiece by Godfrey Morgan.1919. Substantial 4to volume, with marbled boards. Erratum slip. Studio photograph of RBB writing studiously at a desk present.Followed by:The legal and sinful dealings of Edgar Ebonhard. A Novel by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "The Belfry Tower;" "Enid Dantestein"; "Scraps", etc. Dedicated to ‘Ardie Kortright’ [‘Or: "The night of the 13th, of May. 1919.’Rita: Books I and II. A Novel of a Romance and a stolen Opera. By Richard Blake Brown. Author of "Enid Dantestein;" "The Soul of a schoolmaster," etc. Illustrated by Moyra Fox Davies.1919. [Written on the Isle of Wight, and at Tonbridge and Berkhamsted, between August and November 1919. Autograph. 87pp., 4to. No illustrations, despite title. In damp-stained red cloth notebook. ‘UNFINISHED’ written by RBB at foot of title. Dedication: ‘Dedicated To: – | Wenzala Tallack and Tessa Bradley.’Bertha, the Bedder’s ’elp. Or The Tragedy of the Stage, A Nonsense Novel by Stephen Peacock. Being a parody of Stephen Leacock’s "Nonsense Novels." | Apppeared in the "Granta", January 1921.1920-1923. Magazine cuttings laid down. Also portrait photograph of RBB laid down on front pastedown as frontispiece, signed by him and dated to 1923. RBB’s ownership inscription, from Magdalene College, dated ‘1920-1923’.The Secret of the Duchesses. A novel, Being, in point of fact, the entertaining story of George Edgerby’s development. By :– [in manuscript] Cosmo Bryant.1925. (‘Written at Southcliffe School, Filey, Yorkshire. February to July, 1925.’ and ‘Most of chapter iii, and chapter iv, were written at –: "Four Winds", Bidborough, Kent. April, 1925.’) Typescript. 265pp., 4to. Mustard cloth binding /Dedication: ‘To my brother, Lincoln.’ Photograph of RBB laid down on front pastedown, with inscription by him: ‘Your sincere servant, Cosmo Bryant. 1925’, and caption ‘Photograph taken at Tonbridge, April 1925’. Typed Letter Signed from Charles H. Daniels, Director of the publishers Brentano’s Ltd, 27 July 1926, rejecting the book but stating that ‘we are definitely interested in your work and would be very glad if you would give us the first offer of any future work’. The letter also gives ‘the opinion of our best reader’, which offers a shrewd criticism of RBB’s style: ‘As a story of George Edgerby’s development it fails, | (1) because he is puny beside the fascinating Sarah, the attractive Jane, the mysterious Adolphus, the intrusive Bishop and even the punpleasant Mr. Marckleman. After introducing us to these characters with the makings of a most intriguing plot we are dumped down with an entirely new set and the unfortunate George is left languishing in Prison. | (2) George should not be drowned before our eyes on the last page. We are interested in his development, or should be, and that should be the pivot of the story. As it is poor George is dragged in as an afterthought now and again. | (3) There is too much of the author on "Things that Might be Improved" in the story. | The Author has the makings of a successful writer if he could be persuaded to pay some attention to Construction of plot and concentrate on a central idea.’ RBB writes at the head of this letter: ‘Quelles vâches enragés!!’ Loosely inserted is a Typed Letter Signed by L. C. Owen of Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 12 May 1927, acknowledging receipt of the typescript.The Secret of the Duchesses. A Novel, Being, in point of fact, the entertaining story of George Edgerby’s development. By: – Cosmo Bryant [i.e. RBB].1925. Typescript. 265pp., 4to. Black cloth binding, gilt. Dedication: ‘To My Brother, Lincoln.’ Mock address (‘Mr. Cosmo Bryant, | c/o Lincoln Toney, | Four Winds, | Bidborough, | Kent (England.)’) and dedication (‘To my dear Lincoln, from his affectionate brother, Cosmo. | Rome, September, 1925.’) by RBB in autograph on front free endpaper. Laid down on front pastedown is a printed ‘Extract from A. C. Benson’s Book "The Silent Isle."’; above which RBB has written: ‘Cosmo Bryant’s favourite philosophy.’English Lilac or The Duchess of Ealing Common. A novel by Adolphus Blake [author’s name amended to ‘Richard Blake Brown’].1928. Typescript. 241pp., 4to. Brown cloth binding, gilt, with back board lacking. Deleted address: Rochester Cottage, Westwood Rd, Tunbridge Wells. Cancelled dedication: ‘This brief but kaleidoscopic work has been especially fashioned to delight. In varying degrees, the following delightful Creatures –: | MIMI | BISH | LINCOLN | and | DENIS.’Opening: ‘Chambers coughed, raising his right hand to his mouth, with the first finger a trifle hooked, as was his nervous though not unpleasant custom.’Miss Higgs and Her Silver Flamingo. A Novel by Eugene Favell [author’s name amended in autograph to ‘Richard Blake Brown’]1930. Typescript. 258pp., 4to. Pink binding, gilt. Dedication ‘To Norman Hartnell’. Dated by RBB to 1930, with address 85 Gloucester Road, London, SW7 cancelled by him. Two stamps on front endpapers of the literary agents Curtis Brown Ltd, New York City. Illustration of a Rolls-Royce tipped in onto front free endpaper, with autograph quotation: ‘"Yes," she added in thought, "the first money shall be spent in discovering what sort of woman I really am . . . ." | –: Page – 54.’Opening: ‘Gertrude Higgs was thirty-one; she was good-looking. Yet there was that about her which tended rather to put people off; an indefinable FINISH that repulsed the hungry animal in man and silenced the feline spite of women.’Joy in Jeopardy or The King with Two Noses | A novel by Richard Blake Brown.1932. Typescript. 260pp., 4to. In two volumes, bound by Bumpus, brown morocco spines, gilt, and green boards. Book I: pp.1-166; Book II, pp.167-260. Dedicatory poem ‘To My Mother (An unusual woman, though she delights to deny it.)’, dated from Lake Windermere, June 1923, on loosely-inserted leaf. Photograph of the author, dated 1931, laid down on front pastedown.Opening: ‘Queen Berengaria was expecting to give birth at almost any moment to the heir to the throne to Karcia, when her husband, King Sebastian VII, was drowned at sea in a common fishing smack. | The appalling news was telegraphed to Phantrum, the capital of Karcia, from the famous lighthouse of Saintchapelstein which the King himself had caused to be built, when he had succeeded to the throne six years ago.’The Bicycle Belle by Richard Blake Brown.1935. Typescript. 339pp., 4to. Unbound. Each of the 13 chapters separately bound, and each with its own dated title, the first ‘Written at FONTHILL, Saplerton, Gloucestershire, January-February, 1935’ and the last from ‘FONTHILL, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, April 3rd & 4th, 1935 [with following note added: ‘Begun about January 27th: 1935’]. In brown paper packet with note by RBB: ‘Carbon copy of "Bicycle Belle.""My Aunt in Pink" continued.17 September 1935. Autograph. Pp.168-284, small 4to., in a ‘Rough Book’. In worn black cloth. Two notes by RBB on last page: ‘End of Part Four’ and ‘Fonthill, Salperton, Gloucestershire: Wednesday night, October 2nd. 1935.’Continuation of "My Aunt in Pink".15 October 1935. Autograph. Pp.286-326, small 4to. Preceded by 18pp of a youthful illustrated untitled story. In black cloth exercise book."My Aunt in Pink" (continued).21 October 1935. Autograph. Pp.327-357, small 4to.Preceded by ‘The Last Great Sunset. The Tragedy of a romance. Written by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "The Tangled Web", "The last of the Stauntons", etc. Illustrated by Mrs. Celia Streeten.’ 1917. Autograph. In black cloth 4to notebook.My Aunt in Pink. A novel by Richard Blake Brown.1936. Typescript. 261pp., 4to. Black cloth binding, gilt. Addressed from Fonthill, Salperton, New Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Cutting of review of RBB’s ‘Joy in Jeopardy’ from John O’London’s Weekly, 24 August 1935, laid down at front of volume.Opening: ‘AS QUITE A SMALL CHILD, I had always called Aunt Laura "my Aunt in Pink," for she was always dressed in that colour; nor have I since known her to wear any other.’Shake Off the Dust | A novel by –: | Richard Blake Brown.[c.1939?] Typescript. 330pp., 4to. Damp-damaged, in grey binding, gilt. No date, but the latest title on a list of RBB’s books at front is Mr. Prune on Cotswold (1938).Opening: ‘PERCIVAL BOIL was twenty-six and he desired nothing so much as to write a novel. But, young as he was, he had to manage a prosperous though scarcely glamorous business which he had inherited from a sensible and enlightened aunt, so that the cherished contribution to Fiction had had to be repeatedly postponed, and, on the whole, the young man, who possessed personality and common sense, was bound to admit that the tantalizing delay might possibly prove to be all for the best.’The Spur of the Moment | A novel by Richard Blake Brown.[March to May 1940.] Typescript. 358pp., 4to. Blue cloth binding. Dedication: ‘For John Hencher and Michael Shrewsbury’. Typed list of eleven books by RBB, with three added in autograph (The Apology of a Young Ex-Parson; Yet Trouble came; Bright Glades). Address on front pastedown: Cholmondeley Castle, Malpas, Cheshire, amended to Embley Park near Ramsay, Hampshire, and with small photograph of ‘The Author, 1949’ laid down. Theresa Avenue labels.Opening: ‘‘WHEN I DIE – if I do die – everything’ll have to go to you, Roland. Have another cigarette before you go." | The Duke passed the box across to his cousin after he had lighted a fresh one for himself. The sun came out suddenly, throwing great bars of butter-coloured light on to the full-length portrait of Lady Henrietta Nettle (as she had been before her marriage to the sixth Duke of St. Pancras, two years previously.)’ The Spur of the Moment | A novel by Richard Blake Brown.‘Carbon copy’ of last item. Blue cloth binding, gilt. Also 358pp., 4to, but with extra covering titles to eleven instalments of chapters, dated from ‘Sidmouth, March 1940’ (chapters 1 to 4) to ‘Sunday , May 5th, 1940. | SIDMOUTH’ (chapters 40 to 43). Blue cloth binding. Variant dedication following last page: ‘THIS LITERARY TRIFLE | IS DEDICATED AFFECTIONATELY | TO THE MEMORY OF | [rest in autograph] Ouida | and | Marie Corelli’. Autograph note: ‘Roughly about 90,000 words.’Archbishop at Large. The Romance of a Follower. A Novel by Richard Blake Brown.1940 [amended in autograph to ‘1946’]. Typescript. 258pp., 4to. Red cloth binding, gilt. Dedication: ‘To Mervyn Stockwood and Rupert Croft-Cooke.’ Preceded by autograph ‘Note to Printer’. Stamp of ‘R. B. BROWN | Chaplain | R.N.V.R.’ Printed advertisement for ‘Miss Higgs and Her Silver Flamingo’ laid down on front paste-down.Opening: ‘"Funny how people don’t seem to like beards," grumbled the dramatic critic. | "You’re too sensitive," replied his companion, as he rang the bell of the bright green door. "It’ll take many more years before people get over the habit of staring."’Olga Reppin By Richard Blake Brown.1943 [altered by RBB first to ‘1944’, then ‘or even 1945!’ and lastly ‘or 1953!’] Typescript. 107pp., 4to. Red cloth, gilt. At end: ‘This imaginary work was written at Cholmondeley Castle, Cheshire, in April, 1943.’ Dedication: ‘To The Lady Margaret Sackville and to Others with Imagination and Vision’, with note by RBB: ‘She died at Cheltenham on April 18th., 1963’. Preceded by signed note by RBB, dated May 1943, followed by ‘Not offered to any publisher until September 1st!’ and ‘Offered a second time, April, 1944.’ Photograph of RBB in drag laid down on front pastedown, captioned ‘Rough proof of the only Photograph ever taken of Olga Reppin.’ and ‘For Frontispiece and Dust-jacket. Larger copy to follow.’Opening: ‘OLGA REPPIN’s brilliant book "The Relevance of Irrelevance" was not understood by the public; so she immediately followed it up with "The Song in my Heart" which set everybody talking for months. It was typical of the woman, for although Mrs. Reppin was decidedly ahead of her time she did not intend to be misunderstood by her fellow creatures.’Bright Glades.1945. Typescript. 255pp., 4to. Yellow cloth. Marked up and disbound for use by printer on the book’s publication by Cassell & Co in 1959, with RBB’s original dating to 1945 deleted. Address: c/o HMS Vernon, Roedean School, Brighton, Sussex [amended first to Portsmouth and then: ‘c/o Lloyd’s Bank, Ltd., 16, St James’s Street, London, SW1]. Dedication: ‘To Julian’. Note by RBB: ‘Puzzle: Find the one "Henry James" sentence in this novel!’Typed ‘Blurb for prelims’ loosely-inserted, reading: ‘A weird tapestry of The Last Judgement woven at her home in Gloucestershire by Minnie Boyland, the daughter of a war crimes investigator, incorporates the evil faces of those once concerned with running the notorious Dourmonck concentration camp. Dickie Beckoner, a jovial young man accustomed to driving about the countryside in a custard-and-scarlet motor-car, is the "Pied Piper" who brings together again the characters portrayed in the tapestry and others once connected in some way with Dourmonck, some for revenge and justice and others to meet their long-deferred deserts. | But they find that Dourmonck is not the only link between them, and as the tangled threads of their past and present are unravelled Minnie, Colonel Ponderstorm, Professor Boyland, the child Cynthia and the sinister Baroness von Tulpermann, find that there are other and sometimes more disturbing ties which must play a part in the pattern of their future.’With second copy, titled ‘Bright Glades | A novel by | Matthew Knight.’ In blue cloth, gilt. Address: c/o Mr. R. B. Brown, 16 Cotham Park, Bristol 6’. Under Pale Leafage. A novel by Richard Blake Brown. [‘New Title –: | Bright Glades’]1945. Autograph. 251pp., foolscap 8vo. In notebook issued for the public service (‘D.192.-M.209.-S.472.’), grey boards, orange spine. Stamp of ‘R. B. BROWN | Chaplain | R.N.V.R.’ On front board: ‘Richard Blake Brown | Brighton (Roedean) | 1945.’ Preceded by one-page preface, dated ‘Brighton: January 2nd., 1945’ and followed by two-page postscript (‘I have to confess with shame and regret that I have never read (or even seen) a single one of the eight novels of Virginia Woolf.’) Following the story is a two-page ‘Note’ regarding ‘"mock"-penances inflicted on unpopular naval officers at guest dinners, games dignified with such names as "Creeping to Jesus", "Weeping tears for Jesus", ETC’, and headed H.M.S. Vernon, Roedean, Brighton. | Saturday, April 21st., 1945’. Press cuttings relating to Virginia Woolf and Belsen concentration camp loosely inserted. Also, starting upside-down from the other end of the volume, a 23-page account, regarding ‘Olive’, beginning ‘The course of events leading up to our reconciliation in July 1969 were along the lines as follows: – [...]’.Opening: ‘The afternoon sunlight came palely through the trees, not warmly, barely inquisitively, giving, too, a chilly effect which was not disagreeable. | Mrs. Belvedere-Pulse looked out upon the garden and the park, the former classic and formal, the latter sloping away upwards and southwards to tall splendid summer trees that well nigh concealed a pretty little florid temple on the hilltop.’Thunder, 1970 [‘new title – : | An Atrocious Mistake –’]. A Novel by Vernon Draper [first name amended first to ‘Kenneth S.’ and second to ‘Margaret’].1950. Autograph . 192pp., 4to. ‘Roughly 30,000 [amended to ‘28,500’] words.’ Light brown cloth spine and brown rear board (front board cut away). Beside title: ‘Whatever next! A blunder of 1970.’ Dated on first page 13 March 1949, and on last page 12 April [1949].Opening: ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury was in bed with fearful stomach-ache. Like shrill, vociferous dragon-flies the jet planes screeched through the air overhead, tearing the beauty of a summer’s day into shreds of crudely shot taffeta. His Grace groaned lamentably, remembering his unconventional career, so much of which was hidden as yet from those voracious journalists.’She Took Umbrage | a Novel by Richard Blake Brown.1951. Manuscript. 191pp., 4to. Red calf half-bound ‘Minute Book’, cloth boards. Five dedications, comprising: dedicatory letter from ‘Richard’ to ‘Walewska Vaz Nuñes da Costa’ (‘[...] I grow so weary of being told that my books have been strongly influenced by Ronald Firbank, of whom few people in these days would ever had heard but for his "Valmouth" being turned into a modern musical a few years ago. (I refrained from going to see and hear this.) I admit I enjoyed several of Firbank’s short novels as "Lent Reading" in 1929; but I possess far too vivid an imagination of my own [...]’); ‘To Wilfred Blunt’ (with ‘Wilfred’s acceptance of the dedication’ in an autograph letter signed, dated 8 August 1951, laid down) and ‘Some rejected dedications’: ‘To A.L.F.’, ‘To the memory of Samuel Joseph Gosling, an irresistible and valued friend’ and ‘To David Oliver’. Photograph of RBB laid down on pink paper on front pastedown, with date 13 June 1951 and note: ‘unintentional impersonation of the Duke of Windsor! June 13th., 1951’.The manuscript of the novel is followed by a manuscript memoir titled ‘Thirty [amended to ‘50’] Hours in Paris by Richard Blake Brown. 1952.’ Dated ‘July 9-10, 1952’. 20pp., 4to, with numerous illustrations from newspapers and magazines laid down. Begins: ‘On Monday, June 23rd., 1952, after spending the week-end at my old friend Norman Hartnell’s enchanting house in Windsor Forest, I flew with him and a mutual friend, George Mitchison, to Paris. I had not flown for ten years, nor seen Paris for twenty.’ Laid down are three typed letters by two secretaries of the Duke of Windsor (25 April, 2 and 21 June 1952), regarding the presentation of two of RBB’s book. Regarding this matter RBB writes in the memoir: ‘At six I rang once more at No.50-and-so Rue de la Faisanderie, only wishing with all my heart that Queen Mary were with me! [...] Soon His Royal Highness’s very nice, precise lady-secretary came to tell me that the Duke was so pleased with my 2 books; he looked forward to reading them; he would take them with him when he went yachting next week .... ("Oh, WOULD he?" Thought I.) His Royal Highness much regretted he could not possibly see me; he was full up with engagements. He would return my presentation copy of my novel, "Miss Higgs AND HER SILVER FLAMINGO", if it was the only one I had left, ETC .... I protested – I was gracefully shown out. My visit to the Duke of Windsor’s temporary Paris home was over. | Outside, in the Rue de la Faisanderie, I breathed again. The opening words of my unwritten "next" novel came to me –: "Frankly, I’m disappointed." And so I was.’Also:Manuscript of ‘Retrospect: A Sequel’. Dated ‘August 24, 1952’. 6pp., 4to. A reconsideration of his visit to Paris, ‘so hurriedly, nearly two months ago’. Ends with a reference to ‘my own esoteric and unpopular novels!’Also:Written upside-down from the start of the other end of the volume, among several images of barechested and semi-naked young men, a memoir of a visit to Cardiff Castle: ‘July Castle. 1952’ Dated to 16 July 1952. 5pp., 4to. ‘Ever since visiting Neuschwanstein Castle, in Bavaria, on July 27th., 1932, it has been my custom to visit a new castle (new to me, I mean) on or around that date.’For Ever Ada | or | A Mad Cloud of Muslin. [added in autograph: ‘Volume Two of "Scarlet Lake" a fantasy-satire by –: Richard Blake Brown’.Typescript. 326pp., 4to. Red cloth, with label ‘The second part or second Volume of SCARLET LAKE, a novel (or fantasy-satire) by Richard Blake Brown’. Typed list of RBB’s works, dated ‘1954-55’. Address label: 21 Theresa Avenue, Bishopston, Bristol, 7.Yet Trouble Came (An old-fashioned novel set in the future) by Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 200pp., 4to. Black cloth binding, gilt. Dedication: ‘To | The Lady Margaret Sackville | Poetess and Friend’. Address on front pastedown 16 Cotham Park, Bristol 6, amended to 21 Theresa Avenue, Bishopston, Bristol 7. Disbound and marked up for publication in 1957 by Cassell & Co. Pinned at the front of the volume is a leaf carrying the blurb, beginning: ‘Sir Valentine Pugin-Stuart, newly succeeded to the baronetcy, is the centre of this novel of encounter and intrigue.’ The blurb concludes: ‘This is an unconventional, provocative and entirely satisfying book. It does not cry for attention in the manner of best-sellers, but offers to the intelligent reader a rare opportunity for stimulation.’Opening: ‘The heat was unbearable. Each breath I drew, though necessary, seemed insupportable. The pain in my left leg was damnable, and the sweat was gathering juicily inside my expensive Homburg.’Raspberryminster Fresco | A novel by Richard Blake Brown. [In autograph: ‘Alternative title –: | "Shady Old Lady".’]Typescript. 246pp., 4to. Orange cloth binding, gilt. Dedication: ‘To Walewska’. Theresa Avenue labels over stamps. Ownership inscription of Julian Nixon, 10 Meer St, Avon. Autograph note on last page: ‘Re-read by the indomitable author on the Feast of Epiphany Sunday, January 6th., 1963. "Of course, what need have I to write any other book about the poor dear old Church of England?" R.B.B. | 6.40 p.m. !’Typed synopsis on yellow paper laid down on front pastedown: ‘THE PALACE is Lady Vanderlove’s vast house at Raspberryminster, where mysterious foreigners come and go, though nobody knows why. International mysteries may be afoot. Perhaps some important World-Conference is being held there under cover of a lesser excitement in the form of a competition as to how to "brighten up" the hideous east end of the interior of Raspberryminster Abbey which got cut in half, as it were, at the Reformation . . . From all over the world artists have entered the competition and the town is agog with the thrill of banishing gloom and conventional ugliness from the sacred PENETRALIA of Anglican Religion. Plots and intrigues are afoot also, and Sir Sigismund Parfitt, the great architectural critic, is very nearly caught in an indelicate trap involving the romantic naughtiness of a spruce spinster in the form of Madge Wedge of Thin End Cottage. | Further to the variegated "plot" is the perspicacious PECK of a black swan called Siegfried who rescues a young man called Nigel Heron from a moat in DARKEST Warwickshire . . . . . | Through it all our "Shady Old Lady", Mrs. Consuelo de Desk, glides in her antediluvian Rolls-Royce, as mysterious a figure as the Dowager Duchess of Volnor whose priceless necklace of diamonds and rubies is temporarily stolen by an escaped convict who assumes the most convincing disguises to perpetrate his unco-ordinated ends.’She Took Umbrage | A novel by Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 138pp., 4to. Blue cloth binding, gilt. Dedicatory letter from ‘Richard’ to ‘Walewska Vaz Nuñes da Costa’, as in manuscript. Autograph ‘Author’s note to Publisher’ following contents. On front pastedown: ‘From Mr. Richard Blake Brown, | 21, Theresa Avenue, Bishopston, Bristol, 7.’Opening: ‘On a certain harsh windy May evening there might have been seen a carriage of antique pattern descending the lush-hedged lane which drops from the Jesuit College at Luke Green, and aiming somewhat circuitously in the ever vague direction of Ruggerground whose chief architectural gem, the oft restored cathedral, can never be discerned from any point whatever, until the tireless sightseer is standing bang opposite the low forehead of its west façade.’Tapestry of Innocence. Howard Maelstrom.Typescript. 147pp., 4to. Unbound loose leaves, tied together with string. Preceded by a ‘Cast of Characters’ and full-page synopsis, clearly by RBB himself: ‘This is a story that is concerned with the actual adventures of an innocent and charming boy who, whether for good or evil, seems destined to encounter just those very people whose emotional impact on his life, as the story shows so vividly, could scarcely be ignored. | Almost this book would seem to divide itself into a series of TABLEAUX which, far from being static, marks the inescapable development of a young life and a young mind uncannily attuned to shrewder reactions than are common to the average growing boy in any age. [...]’[Three volumes of related autograph works, in three buff ‘PUBLIC SERVICE’4to exercise books, numbered by RBB vols.1 to 3.] [Vol.1, beginning with] Lady with Large Red Legs, OR Where I hid my wig . . . by Richard Blake Brown. [Vol.2, beginning with] Ladies with Long noses: OR The Romance of a Bank Manager | Section 5: A short novel by Richard Blake Brown. [dated 26 January 1966] [Vol.3, beginning with] Outside the Heart: A new sort of religious novel by Richard Blake Brown.Romp. A Novel by ? [question mark added in red ink]Unbound typescript. Title and 5pp., 8vo, paginated 6-10. RBB writes on title ‘An unfinished start!’ and ‘For Dick from Dickie. | I’ve NO idea when I wrote this nonsense!’2. Poetry"Scripta Juvenis." A Book of unworthy Poems, Written by: Richard Blake Brown. With a frontis-piece of the author at the age of fourteen.‘1912 to 1918.’ Autograph. [51]pp., 4to. Red morocco binding, decorative endpapers. Address: "Hilden Lodge", Tonbridge, Kent; dated ‘April 19th. 1918.’ Photograph of RBB as a boy laid down as frontispiece, above typed caption ‘TONBRIDGE, 1916’. Cutting of printed version of one poem (‘Autumn’), from the ‘New Cambridge’, 4 November 1922.25 poems, including ‘"I love everything."’, ‘A Poem by a chorister’ and ‘Sonnet to: Charles Dickens’. In pencil by RBB beneath ‘The Daisy’: ‘The first I ever wrote.’The Second Poetry Book. "Humilis Poeta." 18 Poems. The Sequel to "Scripta juvenis." Written by: Richard Blake Brown.‘1919-1920. 1921’. Autograph. [47]pp., 4to. Black morocco binding, gilt, decorative endpapers. Photograph of ‘The Author’ laid down as frontispiece. Cuttings of printed versions of five of the poems, four from the ‘New Cambridge’ and one from ‘Magdalen College Magazine’. Typed note next to cutting of ‘Old Age’ (‘New Cambridge’, 13 May 1922: ‘The alteration in the last line of the second verse was suggested by A. C. Benson.’17 poems, including ‘In Memoriam: Nurse Cavell, Lying In State At Westminster Abbey’ and ‘Esme: A Poem To An Unknown Friend.’Juvenilis Ardor. The Third book of Verse by –: Richard Blake Brown. The Sequel to –: "Scripta Juvenis" and "Humilis poeta." Illustrated.‘1921 | 1922’. Autograph. [78]pp. 4to. Four illustrations from magazines laid in. Damaged black morocco binding. Photograph of RBB and his brother embracing as frontispiece, with caption referring to the poem ‘Lines on my brother’s long illness.’ Dedication ‘To –: | Sybil.’, including four lines of verse by Alec Waugh. Cuttings of printed versions of twelve poems, nine from the ‘New Cambridge’, and one apiece from ‘The Berkhamstedian’ and ‘The Granta’, with one unattributed.29 poems, including ‘To cruel Agnes’, ‘A Panegyric on Porridge and cream’ and ‘Lines to my Mother at Chipstead’ (the last facing a cutting from an autograph letter from his mother, addressed from Overtheway, How Lane, Chipstead, Surrey, 5 May 1922).Adolescens. Sequel to "Scripta Juvenis", "Humilis Poeta", and "Iuvenilis Ardor." Being –: The fourth book of Verse by –: Richard Blake Brown. Author of "Youth’s Comradeship", etc.‘1922-23.’ Autograph. [75]pp., 4to. Photographic illustration laid down of ‘Tonbridge School, seen from the playing fields.’ In black morocco binding, gilt, with split spine. Photograph of author laid down as frontispiece, with RBB’s signature dated 1922. Dedication: ‘To MIMI –: are these poems dediated’, including four-line quotation from Oscar Wilde, and dated from Sidmouth, April 1923. Address: Magdalene College, Cambridge, dated 25 October 1922. Cuttings of printed versions of seven poems, five from the ‘New Cambridge’, the other two unattributed.34 poems, including ‘Nonsensical Lines to "Wilfred" (Alias: Sidney Levett.) With apologies to the lighter moods of Tom Hood’ (dated ‘Sidmouth, April 10th, 1923’), ‘Lines on the retirement of a female impersonator’, ‘To the Memory of B. A. F. D. Who died young, before he had been but a few months at Magdalene College, Cambridge’, ‘Thoughts of Mimi from Lake Windermere’, ‘Lines to R. H. G. N. [Robert Newton]’ (with ‘Turned into a Sonnet’ added), ‘The Resting-place of Oscar Wilde’, ‘Rupert Brooke’ and ‘Memories That blister and burn – A poem of passion by –: Ella Peeler Pillcox [i.e. parody of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, author of ‘Poems of Passion’]. Sidmouth, South Devon, April, 1923’ (the printed version of the latter gives the author’s name as ‘Ella Wheeler Would-row’).De Amicis Aliisque. The fifth book of poems of Richard Blake Brown. With several illustrations.‘1924 –: January 1st. to May 4th.’ Autograph. pp., 4to. Damaged black morocco binding, gilt. Photograph of author laid down as frontispiece, signed by RBB and dated ‘London: 1924.’ ‘Dedicated lovingly to Mimi and to Bish.’ Second dedication: ‘To You. (The dedication to "Selected Poems", 1920-1923.)’, dated London, 13 January 1924. Flyleaf carries inscription, in another hand ‘To Dicky [RBB] from Mimi.’ Cuttings of printed versions one poem, from Magdalene College Magazine.37 poems, including ‘Cambridge Remembered’, ‘The passing away of Harry Newton’, ‘Lines to my friend, Norman Hartnell, on the occasion of his first dress show in London’, two poems ‘To Fran Ewald’, ‘To Florence Saunders’, ‘To Rupert’ (with ‘Love’ added to title), ‘The Happy Legend of the Church above the Town. An allegory of the future. (To Ion Swinley.)’, ‘The Lemon Grove. A Poem by –: Stanley Bryant & Richard Blake Brown’.Caeli Enarrant. The sixth book of poems of Richard Blake Brown.‘May 5th., 1924 –to – March 6th. 1925.’ Autograph. 78pp., 4to. Worn black morocco binding, gilt. ‘Dedicated to Rupert, for in April I received from him the letter copied below –: [there follows a rhymed epistle to ‘My own Dickie’, ending ‘Rupert’, and addressed from Brown 60, San Isidro, Buenos Aires, Argentina’]’.53 poems, including ‘To Tom Douglas’ (with photograph of the poem’s subject laid down on the facing page); ‘An impudent Sonnet to A. C. Benson, LL.D., C.V.O.’; ‘To Kathleen and Victor Neuburg’; ‘To Norman Hartnell’; ‘To Helen Christopher’, ‘To M.F.H.’ Deleted ‘Sonnet’ on last page, dated 26 July 1925.Rursus Nunquam. The Seventh book of poems by Richard Blake Brown.1925 and 1926. (Ownership inscription dated Tonbridge, 14 December 1925.) Autograph. 113pp., 4to.Light-brown cloth. 64 poems, including ‘To the Rev. A. H. Gaskell’, ‘William Boyd Carpenter, K.C.V.O., etc.’, ‘Lines to Charlie Gillett on a post-card’, ‘John Dudley Elwis: In Memoriam’, ‘The Unfortunate Actress | A Poem Dedicated to Teddy Higham’ (the last dated from Bidborough, 3 January 1926).My Christmas Sonnets, and other Poems, Etc, that I have had privately printed: by Richard Blake Brown.‘1925-19[ ]’Twelve Christmas keepsakes, all designed by RBB, and dating from between 1925 and 1932, laid down in a worn exercise book with this title by him. Nicely printed items, in a range of different typographic and poetic styles. Included is one item of four 12mo pages, titled ‘Schwärmerisch. A Poem (to no one in particular) At once philosophic and romantic, by Adolphus Blake’. Newspaper cutting carrying a photograph of A. C. Benson laid down on front pastedown, beneath crest of Magdalene College.Unearthly Fetters | Poems by [signed] Richard Blake Brown. (With a frontispiece and three other photographic portraits.)1924. Typescript. 155pp., 4to, with one leaf loose, having been torn out. In handsome red calf half-binding, lilac board, gilt tooling and all edges gilt. Lightly-worn and damp-damaged. Containing 116 poems, seven of them in autograph. In two parts: ‘INTRODUCTION, including twenty-seven poems’ (30pp, with separate introduction dated from Southborough, 3 January 1925) and ‘"RED SKY AT MORNING", the Manuscript of an unpublished volume of poems arranged under an excusably affected pseudonym.’ (111pp, 82 poems). The volume closes with a further seven autograph poems, and a typed page ‘Concerning the frontispiece and three other photographic portraits’ (only three full-page photographs are present). ‘Dedicated Dispassionately to Nobody but My Brother Lincoln and MYSELF | For the former composed the title of this book, and the latter loved God without full understanding.’ Collection preceded by ‘FOURTEEN PLEASANTLY APPROPRIATE LINES By my favourite Poet [Rupert Brooke], the Poet of Youth, placed neatly on a page towards the beginning of this essentially youthful BOOK’.Selected Poems of Richard Blake. Nineteen twenty to Nineteen twenty-three.[1924.] Typescript. In handsome green calf Bumpus binding, gilt. 62pp., small 4to. Printed ‘NOTE’: ‘These poems, arranged in chronological order, were written during the three years that I was up at Magdalene College, Cambridge, written after I had gone down. The photographic frontispiece was taken during the summer of nineteen twenty-two. | RICHARD BLAKE. | 37 Bury Street, St. James’s, London. | Sunday, January 13th, 1924.’ Two autograph notes by RBB on front free endpaper: ‘The earlier poems of Richard Blake. | February, 1924.’ and ‘A present to my Mother and Father on the occasion of the 26th. anniversary of their wedding-day. [...] | August, 25. 1924.’The Works of Count Ivor Telmarckle. With an appreciation by Denis Basil Gray.1923. 30 + [1]pp., 12mo. An amusing undergraduate spoof of finely-printed limited edition vanity publications, purporting to be a production of ‘The Bleak House Press’ (sine loco). (No reference is to be found on COPAC or OCLC WorldCat to either the Count or his publishers.) Six pieces (‘Youth’s Immortality’, ‘Pale Green Velvet’, ‘Friendship and Sympathy’, ‘The Brink’, ‘Last thoughts before passing on’ and ‘An appreciation of the Count’, the last by ‘Gray’) are collected together in the volume, consisting of cuttings from the New Cambridge Magazine laid down on the leaves of the book. ‘Count Ivor Telmarckle of Sweden’ is of course a pseudonym of RBB’s, and the volume contains among its six illustrations four original photographs of RBB in character, with fake beard and glasses. The first photograph carries the mock inscription ‘With sincerity Ivor Telmarckle Count. 1919.’ On good thick laid paper, and in an attractive but worn Bumpus half-binding, with green leather spine, gilt, and corners, and cream linen boards. The title is typewritten, as are the prelims, pagination and fake colophon: ‘Of this edition one hundred copies have been printed on antique laid paper, and twenty upon handmade paper. Of the de luxe issue this copy is number – : | 28’. [‘Colophon’.] ‘PRINTED AT THE BLEAK HOUSE PRESS. | Nineteen hundred and twenty-three. The works of Count Ivor Telmarckle of Sweden. | CONFITEMINI DOMINO.’ In RBB’s hand on flyleaf: ‘This copy belongs to – : | [signed] Richard Blake Brown | Magdalene College | Cambridge | April: 1923.’ Signed again with date on front free endpaper. Laid down on the rear pastedown is a manuscript text headed with the typewritten caption: ‘A page from the original manuscript of PALE GREEN VELVET in the Count’s remarkable handwriting.’ The handwriting is RBB’s.The Long Tunnel. A distracting tract in verse. By Richard Blake Brown.1943. Unbound typescript. 19pp., 4to. Dedication: ‘For the Lady Margaret Sackville and Others’. Preface includes the following: ‘I am neither a prophet nor a poet: which I suppose no one would dispute. [...] But being American by birth, I do lay claim to having inherited and nourished a sense of humour as well as a sense of fun. [...] Yet this "tract" IS a critical religious document, and is not intended to be irrelevant [sic] or frivolous.’In envelope (with ‘RICHARD BLAKE BROWN’ printed on it), addressed by RBB ‘To Mr. Jones, Schoolmaster candidate’, also containingFirst, the unbound manuscript of the poem, 34pp., 4to, on letterheads of the Royal Naval Barracks, Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire.Second, an unbound ‘Carbon copy | Personal’ of the typescript, attributed on the manuscript title not to RBB, but to ‘Matthew Knight’.Verses & Vagaries by Richard Blake Brown. "I am not a NEW Poet seeking to pierce vistas of abstract illusion as opposed to tripping along the shores of materialistical unlikelihood (sic!) . . ." (From a letter of mine to Desmond Flower of Cassell’s, November 8th., 1959:). [note by RBB at foot of page: ‘"Poems by a Prison Padré." (suggested title?)’]1959-1964. Substantial 4to volume of miscellaneous autograph poems. Several newspaper and magazine cuttings laid down, together with items of incoming correspondence, including Karl Miller, Literary Editor, The Spectator; Desmond Flower of Cassells; Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark.Original Limericks by Richard Blake Brown.[c.1961-1967.] Autograph. 38pp., 4to. In exercise book with light-brown cloth spine and dark-brown boards. The title-page also carries the following poem, dated ‘Whitsunday, 1961’: ‘I do not care for dirty jokes | And leave all such to other folks. | The whiff of a foul Limerick | Succeeds in making me feel sick. | But jokey-pokeys that are fair | Do help to clean the filthy air!’ When the volume is turned upside down, 50pp. of miscellaneous manuscript poems, dating from 1964-1967, begin at the other end. Numerous illustrations are laid down throughout the volume, including several of a homoerotic nature, and these themes are reflected in the verse, together with an unpleasant strain of misogyny. For example, a poem written ‘On a Bristol ’bus’, 30 July 1966, titled ‘Some plain aspects of sex’: ‘Stale paps and stagnant breasts | Flapping ’neath transparent vests | Are not pleasant things to see | In their restless symmetry. | But girls put on their spectacles | To see the outline of ripe testicles. | Even the brazen goddess Venus | Blushes at the risen penis!’ Also present is a poem titled ‘Lines on re-reading Denton Welch’s Journals’, dated ‘Thursday evening, | June 30th, 1966’: ‘I am like a buzzing bee | Inside a tomb: | I cannot escape, | There’s too much room . . . | Outside, one hears | The futile tears | Of self-pity and self-doom; | So it appears that I must wait | Until the silly sexton | Unlocks the Gothic gate.’ A printed version of one poem, ‘The Cow-shed Boy’, is on a piece of paper laid down opposite its manuscript counterpart.3. Short Stories[Pour Les Histoires De –’. Richard Blake Brown. Stoke Gabriel, Devon August 12th. 1916. et Pour Les Histoires De – | Violet Isabel Chinneck, aussi.’] Le Première [sic] Histoire. The voice of the Moor. by Violet Isabel Chinneck [last name deleted in pencil] and Richard Blake Brown. Written at Stoke Gabriel, South Devon.1916. Autograph. 83pp., 4to. With numerous full-page coloured illustrations by RBB. Damp-damaged in black cloth binding.Also in the volume:A Trip up the River Dart. written by Richard Blake Brown. illustrations by M. Kortright.Autograph. 13pp., 4to. With final full-page autograph ‘Poem of Dedication to W. J. C.’, ‘written by R.B.B.’For the King. Written by Richard Blake Brown. Illustrations by Ardie Kortright.‘Finished April 24th. 1917.’ Autograph. In brown 4to notebook. Attractively illustrated in colour.The Last of the Stauntons. A Novel by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "The Price of a pearl" and "For the King" etc. Illustrated by Sidney Nicholls.‘Second Edition.’ 2 May 1917. Autograph. In brown 4to notebook. With pencil illustrations tipped in.Two Stories: The Message and Mr. Pinniwig. By Richard Blake Brown.1918. Autograph. In 4to notebook, with red cloth spine and black boards. Both stories attractively illustrated by Sydney H. Nicholls. First: ‘The Message. Written by Richard Blake Brown. Illustrated by and Dedicated to Sidney H. Nicholls. 1918.’ Note by RBB: ‘Written April 1918. On a holiday in Devon, which came to an unexpected and unhappy end.’ Second: ‘Mr. Pinniwig. A Biography. Written by Richard Blake Brown. Author of "Caesar’s hamlet", etc. Illustrated by Sydney H. Nicholls.’The Belfry Tower. Written by Richard Blake Brown. Illustrated Henry Grattan. With brief Preface by Piers John Barnes Wimbush.1917-1918. Autograph. In small 4to exercise book. In damaged half-binding with black leather spine and brown boards. Wimbush’s preface is signed and dated from Berkhamsted, 16 June 1918.Spring Song or Hylas. A Story by Richard Blake Brown.1931. Autograph. 47pp., 4to., with 11pp of miscellaneous notes and poems following on. In brown exercise book, with pink label pasted to front. Photograph of a youthful RBB laid down on pastedown, and small photograph (of two men in drag?) laid down as frontispiece. Dedicated ‘To A.A.E.W.’The Orange Scarf. A worldly piece of fiction. By Richard Blake Brown. Author of "The Temple of Black pearls", "Enid Dantestein", "The last of the Stauntons", "Scraps," etc.1919. Autograph. 13pp., 16mo. Full-page illustration by RBB of ‘Lilly de Basky’. Stapled into makeshift orange card wraps, with a list of the four titles in the series on the back. RBB’s deleted ownership inscription, dated from Milden Lodge, Tonbridge, Kent, on 7 January 1919. Note by RBB on first page: ‘First edition: | VERY RARE | 1953:’Scraps. A collection of Stories, etc.January – April, 1918. Autograph. 132pp., 4to. With several satirical illustrations by RBB in black ink. RBB’s ownership inscriptions, with addresses at Hilden Lodge, Tonbridge, Kent, and ‘School House’, Berkhamsted School, Berkhamsted, Herts. Introduction from ‘Godfrey Frederick Vorn Morgan’ (RBB himself?), dated from the school on April Fool’s Day.Rococo Coffin – The name (for very good reasons) of Lady Rampart’s yacht. A novel by Richard Blake Brown (Author of "Miss Higgs & Her Silver Flamingo," "Yellow Brimstone," "The Apology of A Young Ex-Parson," and "A Broth of A Boy," etc . . .1934. Autograph. 149pp., 4to. Worn red morocco binding, gilt. Dedication: ‘For Alec King.’ Deleted and replaced by: ‘Dedicated reminiscently to ULRIC NESBIT with whom I once lived in a most remarkable castle, while his talented wife was away in America.’ Five chapters, followed by ‘Continued in next volume of MS:’ and followed by the titles in orange ink of chapters six, seven and eight, present in the next volume. [Title from label on front board.] The Princess and the Postman And Other Stories By Richard Blake Brown.1933. 66pp., 4to. Containing three items. ONE: The title story. 15pp., 4to. ‘Begun at Stoke Gabriel: May 26, 1933. | Concluded at Bidborough, July 22nd., 1933. | Roughly, about 2,800 words.’ TWO: 7pp. of ‘Volume Two of Manuscript of Rococo Coffin | A novel by Richard Blake Brown’ (continuing from last volume), dated ‘Compton Castle. (November, 1933 . . . .)’ The last three pages carry a list, in three columns, of individuals receiving ‘Yellow leaflets, May 1934’. Listing 190 individuals from ‘1. Hal & Lill’ to ‘190. Lady Oxford.’ Includes ‘Rupert C-C. [i.e. Rupert Croft-Cooke]’, Vera Brittain, E. F. Benson, Lord Alfred Douglas, Raymond Mortimer, ‘Hon. Mrs. Bernard Shaw’, Osbert Sitwell. THREE: Two sermons, totalling 44pp., starting from end of volume, the first dated 9-10 February 1934; the second (‘Sermon on the Human Face’) dated 18 February 1934.Fantasia |Being short stories and poems in prose | By Tristan Cameron.[1924.] Typescript. 135pp., small 4to. Orange binding. Dedication: ‘To Mimi’. Photograph of RBB laid down on front pastedown, with fake signature of ‘Tristan Cameron | 1924’. Address: "Four Winds", Bidborough, Kent, dated 1925.The Ambush at Dunmanway. [By ‘I.J.H.T.McL. | Copyright reserved.’]Typescript. 2 copies. 4pp., 4to.The Belated Triumph of Peter Podd. [in autograph: ‘re-entitled –: Cream Skirts and a Carpet-Bag.’] A story by –: Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 14pp., 4to.The Boy who walked into the Sea | By Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 13pp., 4to.Christmas a Bore! by Richard Blake Brown.3pp., 4to.Count Telmarckle’s Manuscript by Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 13pp., 4to. ‘Dedicated in spirit to Carl Van Vechten, whom I have never met.’Cream Skirts and a Carpet-bag | A short story by Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 19pp., 4to. Address: Fonthill, Salperton, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.The Death of Innocent Grape by Richard Blake Brown.16 November 1934. Typescript (‘Carbon copy’). 11pp., 4to. ‘About 2500 words.’ Address: Fonthill, Gloucestershire. With original typescript, dated in autograph on title-page to 1949."For the bettering of the World." A Short Story by Richard Blake Brown.February 1920. Typescript. 9pp., foolscap 8vo.The Last of an Angry Young Man (A short Short Story) By Julian Herron.Typescript. 13pp., 4to. ‘A short short story of 3,000 words’.Mystery at a Price. By –: Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 18pp., 4to.The Perfervid Friendship: An intense story by Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 32pp., 4to. Address: Colaton Villa, Sidmouth, Devon.Mrs. Pitchcock’s Balloon | or Royal Engineering at Raspberry Grange | by Richard Blake Brown.‘Shrove Tuesday, Feb: 21st., 1939.’ (‘COPYRIGHT, if you please: 1939.’) Typescript. 15pp., 4to. ‘About 3,500 words.’The Queer Adventures of Private Jones. A short story by –: Richard Blake Brown (Author of "Spinsters, Awake!"), etc.Typescript. 13pp., 4to. Address: 48 Clarendon Road, Leeds 2.Saved by a Swan: A trifle by –: Richard Blake Brown.‘Monday, May 23rd., 1960’. Typescript (‘Carbon Copy Unpublished’). 14pp., 4to.The Spider and the Lie. A short story for sensible parents, by Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 28pp., 4to.4. Non-fiction[‘The few chapters that are left of a book entitled –: "The English Public School." Written by –: Richard Blake Brown.’]1921. Typescript. 30pp., 4to, paginated 7-36, with title leaf bearing at foot: ‘Read through by A.C. BENSON, the Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. See Chapter 5, of "PLACES and PEOPLE".)’ 3 chapters (1, ‘Masters in general, and ridiculous ones in particular’; 2, ‘The new ideas of Mr. Cloud’; 3, ‘Conclusion’).Macbeth not Bloody? by Richard Blake Brown (A junior member of the Old Vic. Company, 1923-1924.Typescript. 6pp., 4to. Address: 1 Lillian Street, Redfield, Bristol, 5. Note by RBB: ‘An article on Macbeth productions.’Cambridge Glimpses | By –: | [signed] Richard Blake Brown. (With a frontispiece.)1924. Typescript. 52pp., small 4to. In handsome green calf Bumpus binding. Presentation inscription by RBB on front free endpaper: ‘For my Mother and Father : – | with love from | Richard. | Christmas, 1924.’ Photograph of RBB as frontispiece, captioned ‘By Byron’s pool’. Full-page photograph laid down on rear paste-down, with note by RBB: ‘A Photograph, taken in the Cathedral close, Ely: Spring, 1923.’[p.36] But the literary giant of my own, personal little world was A. C. Benson, the Master of my College. He returned, my first term, to his duties as Master from a serious nervous breakdown, which necessitated a cautious, mysterious aloofness that mingled well with my first awe-struck realisation that the Master of my college was a well-known writer. My first impression of him, upon being summoned one evening to the Old Lodge, increased my awe and instinctive admiration, for he entered his book-lined, invisibly lit study through a disguised doorway, the existence of which I had naturally not suspected, - a huge, looming figure, heavy of shoulder and short-necked, with snow-white hair, large, rugged features and a medium, white moustache that had stray light-brownish streaks as though the wearer had aged suddenly. [...]’Youth’s Comradeship. Being the unposted letters of a public school boy. By Richard Blake Brown.Typescript. 167pp., 4to. On yellow paper in stained and worn brown boards. Ownership inscription on front free endpaper of ‘Richard Blake Brown, Magdalene College, Cambridge. August: 1922. Personal Copy.’ The letters are said to be addressed by ‘Geoffrey’ to ‘Julian’ (nickname of a boy also named ‘Geoffrey’). Laid down are a typed rejection letter from the London publishers George Allen & Unwin 9 November 1922; an Autograph Letter Signed by A. C. Benson, on letterhead of The Old Lodge, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 21 June 1922 (with typed note by RBB at head: ‘A.C. Benson advised me not to dream of having this book published.’); and an ‘Extract of letter from "C.S.G." The Benson and C.S.G. letter are both heavily-stained.Yellow Dawn. [added here: ‘(Wherein, on page 119, I meet José Collins!)’] Volume II of my Journal, being the sequel to "The Tide in the Bay." By –: Richard Blake Brown.1928. Diary entries dating from 19 March to 31 December 1928. At end: ‘Rochester Cottage, | Speldhurst, Kent: | December 31st:, 1928, | 7. o’clock, P.M.’ Autograph. 266pp., foolscap 8vo. Typed note by RBB, on letterhead of the Vicarage, Portsea, 19 March 1928: ‘This is the second volume of my Private Diary, which – I will repeat – I do not intend to use as a DAILY laxative, but rather whenever I feel that anything has happened which I DESIRE TO SET DOWN, [...]’. Dedicatory poem ‘to the memory of a forgotten poet’, Oscar Wilde. Photograph RBB as boy on front pastedown, next to magazine photograph of Jackie Coogan. Large photograph of RBB in clericals at end, captioned ‘Portsea, December 1926 – September 1928’. Photograph of Harloven Saunders laid down on rear pastedown, dated Christmas 1928. Several photographs, as well as cuttings from newspapers and magazine cuttings, laid down throughout, together with a with a drawing of an altarboy with genitalia exposed and ‘only his cotter on’ (‘Dear me! how shocked will be those souls who open this volume after my grand and episcopal bones have been laid to rest in my own Cathedral fifty years hence!!’). Tipped in is a long Typed Letter Signed to RBB from Dick Green in Rome, 17 December 1928."Dilemma", the Private Diary of a Young Ex-Parson: By Richard Blake Brown.1930. Typescript. 350pp., 4to. 2 vols., in uniform worn red cloth. Both with deleted address 85 Gloucester Road, London SW7. Vol. 1: pp.1-182, 4to. ‘Carbon-copy’. Dedication ‘To Philip Dore, M.A. Organist of the Pavilion, Bournemouth.’ Introduction begins: ‘I was ordained a Deacon of the Church of England in Winchester Cathedral, in December 1926; I was ordained Priest in Portsmouth Pro-Cathedral in December 1927; but on September 23rd., 1929, I legally resigned my Orders, in a Westminster office. | During my brief ministry I kept a full and intimate Private Diary, certain extracts from which shall speak for themselves in the following pages of this book.’ Publicity portrait of Dore laid down on rear pastedown, with note by RBB: ‘Once organist of Queen’s College, Cambridge.’ Vol.2: pp.183-350. ‘PART TWO: (1928-1930 [last date deleted]) With the spirit of a rebel and the soul of a revolutionary I attempt, in vain, to lead the placid, selfless life of an "Anglican" priest . . . .’ Photograph of ‘Miss José Collins’ laid down on front endpaper.Nineteen-Thirty. A Quiet Journal or Essay by Richard Blake Brown.1931. (‘Finished February 2nd. 1931.’) Autograph. 135pp., 4to. In black cloth binding, with large square cut out of front board, in order to remove an illustration on the pastedown. Numerous photographs and cuttings laid down throughout. Also Typed Letter Signed on behalf of solicitors Day & Son, Westminster, 18 October 1929, informing RBB that ‘the Deed of Relinquishment of Orders executed by you has now been enrolled in the High Court of Chancery and an Office Copy delivered to the Bishop’. Original photographs of ‘tiny Geoffrey Harmsworth’ (in bathing trunks, emerging from a shower), Mrs Berkeley Levett (‘My friend, Mrs. Berkeley Levett, was away in the South of France, staying with the Duke of Connaught at his villa at Cap Ferrat, ....’), ‘Billy Murray’ of Edinburgh (in sumptuous dressing gown, in front of gilded tapestry) and Norman Hartnell. Beside a magazine photograph of Osbert Sitwell RBB writes: ‘I later met him & Evelyn Waugh at dinner with Tom Balston, in 1931.’[p.76] ‘Sandford Gorton came to stay with me, but his visit was not a success because of the glaring incompatibility of our two natures; I was constrained to send this chirpy and shallow youth packing! And what a pleasant contrast was the succeeding visit of my beloved friend of ten years’ standing, Norman Hartnell![p.88] Billy Murray changed into a different dressing-gown every hour, each robe being more splendid & bewildering than the one before. He also dressed up as the Queen of the Belgians: so that I grew more and more depressed, realizing the flimsy texture of my host’s mental apparatus, and consequently I did not spare the gin and vermouth which were plentifully displayed upon the cumbersome side-board.’[p.90] On the Wednesday night, David Wilton and (oddly enough!) an old Cambridge acquaintance of my own, also in the Masque Players, came to a meagre supper at No: 15.’[p.105] Sometimes I dined at "Cottington" with the Levetts; sometimes at Trow Hall with Mrs. Josephine Hamilton-Fleming, who, on one occasion when she motored by me as I toiled along on my bike, asked me in to have a cocktail and whispered triumphantly into my ear that no less a personage than Osbert Sitwell was due to dine with her. And I thought it somewhat selfish of her not to have asked me to . . . . | On August 4th., I had a letter from Norman Hartwell whose flourishing business was detaining him tediously in Paris. He was presently to join me at Colaton Villa: so he wrote – : | ". . . But I want quite a simple holiday. Very little drink, but lots of fresh air, sea, pebbles, sunshine, grass, sleep and nothingness. I don’t even want to see much of The Levetts. I would like to throw my bottie over the backside of a horse – and I’d like damned well to take a tophole round of golf, old son of a gun, what! . . . . Write by return (with 2½d. stamp) – and the rose-pink blood in the young heart of your friend Normie will curdle to carmine with pleasurable anticipation at the sign of your well-known handwriting . . . . . ."’Newspaper cutting of Sunday Times review of ‘Miss Higgs and Her Silver Flamingo’ by Ralph Straus , 1 February 1931, under heading ‘EXTRAVAGANZA’: ‘Some people may find "Miss Higgs and Her Silver Flamingo" a little too mad for their taste. For myself, I enjoyed it, not least so at its most extravagant moments. Mr. Brown is clearly a very young man. [...] It is all the wildest nonsense. In places it is quite delightfully improper. Miss Higgs is what in certain circles, I believe, is called "a scream." [...] And Mr. Brown manages to write throughout with an air. He is obviously enjoying himself. A little more satire and a little less extravagance might have improved his book, but its frolics are certainly amusing.’The Bavarian Cousins (King Ludwig II of Bavaria and The Empress Elizabeth of Austria) | By Richard Blake Brown | With Twenty Illustrations.1932. [Typed date: ‘London: October 1932 to February 1933.’ But RBB has also added ‘1939’ to the autograph title.] Typescript. 265pp., 4to. Numerous illustrations throughout, with note: ‘The illustrations are deliberately put into OVALS as being typical of 19th. century photography.’ ‘Alternative Titles –: | Ludwig the Lovely | Wittelsbach Vignette | Some suitable pseudonyms –: | 1. Lady Emily Diet | 2. Olga Franzel | 3. Baroness Kodelka’. Addresses: 9 Park Street, Windsor, Berkshire, dated to 1950 and deleted; and 21 Theresa Avenue, Bishopston, Bristol 7. Loosely inserted are two Typed Letters Signed from ‘John’ to Julian [Nixon], both from 306 Garces Drive, San Francisco 94132, 8 and 9 November [no year], discussing the book and the ‘monetarily lucrative subject of TV/movies’.Sheer Presumption by A Curate. A Tract for the Times. [‘An Anonymous work: c/o: R. Brown Esq., Crossways, Sidmouth, Devon.’]‘1939 or 1940’ on title, with ‘England, Autumn, 1940’ at end. Typescript. vii + 97pp, 4to. ‘About 25,000 words.’ Foreword begins: ‘I fully realize that it is a piece of sheer presumption for an unimportant young clergyman to dare to make any criticisms or to offer any suggestions concerning the Church of which he is an active minister; [...]’.Brightening the Parish Church. [Letter by RBB.]20 November 1940. Typescript. 4pp., 4to.Any Man’s Legs by Richard Blake Brown.1940. ii + 207pp., 4to. Stained red cloth binding, gilt. Cancelled address 3 Crossways, Sidmouth, Devon., with stamps of ‘R,N,A,H. CHOLMONDELEY CASTLE’, Chaplains Office, Royal Naval Barrcks, Chatham, and RBB as RNVR Chaplain. Foreword by ‘R.B.B.’: ‘Most of these sermons were preached in Sidmouth Parish Church in 1939, a few of them having been also delivered in the chapel of Portsmouth Prison some dozen years earlier.’ Dedication: ‘To my Father and Mother who – ever since I can remember – have practised so fully what they "preached", that they have seldom had to preach it in any other way.’The Gaiety of God.1940. Three typescripts. First: March 1940. 8pp., 4to. ‘Carbon copy: about 2000 words.’ ‘First section of a new short book or pamphlet to be entitled "The Gaiety of God." By –: [signed] Richard Blake Brown’. Address: Crossways, Sidmouth, Devonshire. Second: August 1940. ‘SIXTH AND LAST [last two words deleted] section of book or paper-bound pamphlet to be entitled "THE GAIETY OF GOD" by –: [signed] Richard Blake Brown’. 9pp., 4to, paginated 46-54. ‘Carbon copy; roughly 2,000 words.’ Third: September 1940. ‘FOREWORD and Chapters SEVEN & EIGHT of paper-bound pamphlet originally to be entitled THE GAIETY OF GOD, but now to be anonymously produced.’ vii + 21pp., 4to, paginated 56-76. Address: Sidmouth, Devon.A Life in the Shade [amended in manuscript to ‘The Wrong Turning’] | An autobiography by Richard Blake Brown | Volume One: – The Wrong Train [subtitled deleted by RBB]Typescript. 201pp., 4to. Stained brown cloth, with title on orange label on front board. Dedication to Sewell Stokes. Note by RBB at end: ‘Next volume is –: | "No more Sea". | 1941-1947’. Photograph of RBB on rear pastedown, with note by him: ‘Myself as an undergraduate of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1921, aged nineteen . . . . [Possibly some people might think this would make a pleasantly innocent dust-jacket!]’ Address: 21 Theresa Avenue, Bristol 7’. With piece of 8vo paper, carrying a makeshift index in a modern hand, loosely inserted. Laid down at the beginning of the volume is a piece of paper carrying a brief account of RBB’s life up to 1947, reproduced in the introduction to this description.Sing Among The Branches | By Richard Blake Brown.[1941.] Autograph. 2 volumes, foolscap 8vo, totalling 304pp. Damp-damaged. Note at end of vol.1: ‘Author’s private comment: – Unless I’m mistaken, I started this first manuscript volume on Saturday evening, June 9th., and completed same, on page 152 (above), at noon on the Tuesday, about 10 days later, June 19th. 194[1.]’Introduction begins: ‘Perhaps there can be small excuse for such a book as this. It lends itself to hostile (and no less facile) criticism; it lies open to the accusation of triviality, egotism, and incohate disjointedness. [...] I have, on the other hand, no wish to write an autobiography [...] But it seems to me that in every life there are bound to be moments of engrossing interest, human contacts productive of wisdom or humour [...]’.A Saint James’s Day Sermon on controlling the tongue. Preached by the Reverend R.B.Brown, R.N.V.R. at Parade service, at 10.30 and at Evensong in St. James’s Church: Brighton, on Sunday July 30th, 1944.Typescript. 7pp., 4to. Address: HMS Vernon, Roedean, Brighton, Sussex. RBB’s stamp as Chaplain, HMS Vernon, dated 7 August [1944].Sing Among the Branches by Richard Blake Brown.15 August 1945. Typescript. 328pp., 4to. Green cloth binding, gilt. Manuscript note: ‘In 74 Sections, some of which may well prove quite unsuitable –’. Preceded by ‘Personal Note from Author to Publisher and Printer’, dated 25 August 1945. Large photograph laid down on front pastedown as frontispiece: ‘My Mother, planning an arrangement of flowers’. Two photographs laid down on rear pastedown, with captions ‘H.M. Queen Mary at Tortworth Court’ and ‘We were usually taken on our summer holidays to remote farms’.Includes reminiscences of A. C. Benson and his brother E. F. Benson (p.12: ‘The Bensons have always interested me. I knew "A.C.", I met "E.F.", and have read many of their books, [...] I have known Rye, off and on, since I was a boy, and it was in the Garden House (the big room at right angles to Lamb House) that I met the author of DODO and DAVID BLAIZE in nineteen-thirty-something.’) , and of examining Baron Corvo’s manuscripts with A.J.A. Symons, William Boyd Carpenter, the Sitwells, Dick Sheppard.P.18: ‘Had I not considered myself original in having a die made for my notepaper bearing the aloof legend "NO TELEPHONE ON PURPOSE" [...]’How to enjoy Religion [‘Alternative title –: Enjoyment in Religion’] by Richard Blake Brown [author’s name amended to ‘Julian Greenstreet’].Dedication ‘To Granville Seymour Conway’ [‘Maggie Smyth and’ added before dedicatee’s name].December 1946 and January 1947 (‘Finished on Friday, January 17th., 1947: H.M.S. "Ramilles"). Autograph. 136 + 3pp., foolscap 8vo. 2 vols, in uniform notebooks with brown card wraps. vol. 1 (December 1946), pp.1-80; vol. 2 (January 1947), pp.81-136. ‘Just over 20,000 words.’ Also includes a full-page ‘Note, dated January 14th., 1947’. RBB’s RNVR stamp to vol.1.The last page of the first volume is filled with a list, in four columns, of ‘Photographs, August, 1946’. Subjects include Martin Secker, Norman Hartnell, Denton Welch, John Deakin.My visit to Alton Towers April 9th, 1948 (Description to be included in my book "Seats and Shrines.")1948. Autograph. 19pp., 4to. In quarter-bound exercise book with maroon cloth spine and boards. Numerous newspaper and magazine cuttings laid down, together with coloured postcards.Followed in the volume by:Midland Diversion by Richard Blake Brown. August, 1948.1948. Autograph. 86pp., 4to.The volume also contains, upside-down, beginning from the other end:Visit to St. Albans: Thursday, July 29th, 1948. Autograph. 31pp., 4to.Gothic Folly by Richard Blake Brown. An article.1951. Typescript. 12pp., 4to. ‘Just over 2,000 words.’ Address: 9 Park Street, Windsor, Berkshire.Bishops and Embryo Bishops by Richard Blake Brown.1953. Typescript. 6pp., 4to. ‘About 1,250 words.’ Address: 16 Cotham Park, Bristol, 6.No More Sea by Richard Blake Brown.1956 [amended to 1966 with autograph note ‘Why not?’] Typescript. 255pp., 4to. Stained black cloth, with title on white label on front board. Autograph dedication to Grahame Greene, replaced by one to Sewell Stokes. Autograph list of chapter titles, with another of ‘New Titles for Chapters, November, 1961’. Notes by RBB: ‘Continuation of my autobiography . . .’ and ‘This is NOT a "War" book!’ Address: 21 Theresa Avenue, Bishopston, Bristol 7. Photographic portraits of RBB laid down on front and rear pastedowns, the latter captioned in blue ink ‘Clasping a copy of my first novel, "Miss Higgs and her Silver Flamingo"!’, with the following added in red ink: ‘This morocco-bound copy was accepted by the Duke of Windsor in 1952. [Photograph taken at Windsor.]’Not Without Love | A strange essay on religion | By Richard Blake Brown.At end: ‘Feast of St. Bartholomew, Sunday, August 24th, 1958.’ Typescript. 141pp., 4to. In stained red cloth, gilt. Dedication ‘To the memory of my beloved parents’. ‘VOLUME ONE’ on front board, explained in note by RBB on front free endpaper: ‘VOLUME ONE" on cover solely means that a sequel has been begun . . . .’ Photograph laid down on front pastedown: ‘Frontispiece: My Mother, circa 1908’.A very short (& tentative) Article on the Clerical Collar, entitled Clerical Cholera by Richard Blake Brown. Submitted to The Spectator.26 April 1960. 7pp., 4to. With Typed Letter Signed to RBB from Karl Miller, Literary Editor, The Spectator, 27 April 1960, undertaking to pass the article on ‘to the right quarter for consideration’. With carbon copy with ‘An article (or a "Letter to the Editor" –?’ in autograph on covering page, and autograph date ‘May, 1960’, and ‘or anonymous’ added besides RBB’s name, together with address: 21 Theresa Avenue, Bishopston, Bristol, 7. Note by JN: ‘Another version of "Clerical Cholera"’.Clerical Cholera | Comments on the Common "Dog-Collar" by Richard Blake Brown.2 November 1960. Typescript (‘Carbon copy’). 10pp., 4to. ‘An article for "Time and Tide"’. Noted as unpublished by JN. With second copy with the following in autograph: ‘"Cuts" endorsed by the author! Nov: 13th., ’60’ and address: 21 Theresa Avenue, Bishopston, Bristol, 7.A Trifling Unimportant Episode in the Life and Routine of a Prison Chaplain | (R.B.B.)20 May 1961. Typescript. 7pp., 4to. Marked as unpublished by JN, with note by him : ‘This is typical of the sort of petty incident that Richard had to endure & which in reality angered and saddened him.’Jesus Laughed | A pleasant but unimportant little book on religion by Richard Blake Brown.1963. [Foreword dated 1963, amended in pencil to 1965.] Typescript. 83pp., 4to. In green cloth binding, gilt. Damp damaged. Manuscript dedication: ‘Dedicated | To All the Bishops I have ever met, including Archbishops, especially remembering Cosmo Gordon Lang, with whom I kept up a Correspondence during the last seven years of his life : –’ Foreword begins: ‘I cannot claim to know the Bishop of Woolwich well; but I do know him and I like him. Nor can I presume to claim that this "pleasant, but unimportant little book" of mine, JESUS LAUGHED, in any real sense pretends to be an answer to his book, "HONEST TO GOD." [...]’5. Drama[Plays by Richard Blake Brown, "Hilden Lodge", Tonbridge, Kent.] "Charlie’s Uncle." A Farce in one Act. By Richard Blake Brown. [‘Acted at Berkhamsted School, 1919.’] [AND] "The-Martyr-of-Rheims."A Tragedy in two Acts. By Richard Blake Brown. January 9th. – 12th., 1919. [AND] The Snake-charmer. A Farce in One Act. Written by Richard Blake Brown. February 18th. 1919.1918 and 1919. Autograph. In black morocco notebook.The Temple of Black Pearls. Written by Richard Blake Brown. [...] Illustrated by H. de C. Hastings.‘Finished on November 16th. 1917.’ [Written from Berkhamsted school Sanitorium.]Autograph. In red cloth notebook. Note by RBB on title-page: ‘Note: It is advisable for the reader, if he has not done so, to read first "The Tangled Web", a previous volume of this novel, being the Romance of Sir Reginald Irvine and Lady Anne.’The Tragedy of "Savonarola." By L. Brown. For the Part of Lucrezia Borgia played by Richard Blake Brown.‘S.H.D.S. 1920’.Autograph. In blue cloth 4to notebook. Other works in the volume are: First, ‘The Romance of Ethel Monticue: An unintentional Burlesque from the well known novel "The Young Visiters" by Daisy Ashford (aged nine.) Dramatised (ie Chapter IX "A Proposal") by Richard Blake Brown. 30 January 1920. Second, ‘The Adventures of a "Retired Spy" written by Richard Blake Brown.’ Short story, 68pp, 4to. February 1920. Third, ‘Richard Blake Brown, his first Comic Opera (the Words.) Begun: Feb. 5th. 1920.’ 11pp., 4to.The Secret Decision or A Mother’s Love. [subtitle deleted and replaced by ‘Friendship in Flames. A novel in the form of’] A play by Richard Blake Brown.[c.1961.] Autograph. 162pp., 4to, with 5pp. of additions at the end of the volume. In exercise book with light-brown cloth spine and dark-brown boards.The Castle Sink | A nice clean play in three short acts by Richard Blake Brown.[1963.] Typescript. 92pp., 4to. In purple cloth, gilt. Damp staining to boards. ‘Foreword’ by ‘R.B.B.’, dated ‘Whitsuntide, | June, 1963’: ‘This short, slight, and mildly subtle play, which has no nastiness in it, will not, perhaps, be liked to-day. Should it be quietly read by the few rather than seen and heard by the mystified many?’The Castle Sink | A nice clean play in three short acts by Howard Maelstrom.[1968.] Typescript. 92pp., 4to. ‘Foreward [sic]’ by ‘H.M.’ dated June 1968. On title: ‘Please return to Julian Nixon’ at Brook House, The Stream, Hambrook, Bristol; altered first to 14 Chester Street, London, SW1 (with date 3 May 1972); altered again to 32 Kensington Park Road, London, W11.[A Short Sketch to be acted by Pastors & Ministers only . . . . . Entitled –:] Electric Palace by Richard Blake Brown.Bristol, January 1952. Typescript. 4pp., 4to.Torquay Chase. A Discussion by Richard Blake Brown.‘Written on board H.M.S. "Renown": on the Feast of the Transfiguration, 1941.’ Typescript. 13pp., 4to, including last-page ‘Bibliography’. Address: HMS Renown, c/o GPO, London. Title on his letterhead (‘NO TELEPHONE ON PURPOSE’).I want to know or Sir Abraham Abstract | a play by Richard Blake Brown [‘Author of various unknown or too little-known works.’] | The action takes place in the mock-Gothic SALOON of Absolute Abbey, Ampleshire. [‘in sunny weather’ added here].1958. (‘Bristol, Sunday, June 1st., 1958: (Written in six days!)’) Autograph. 148pp., small 4to. Maroon note-book.6. TravelNo. 4 of The Coloured Series. A trip up the River Dart. Written by Richard Blake Brown.1919. Autograph. 28pp., 16mo. Photograph of the River Dart laid down as frontispiece. Stapled into makeshift green card wraps, with a list of the four titles in the series on the back. Dedication: ‘To My father and Mother and Many Others.’ Introduction, dated from Tonbridge, 8 September 1919, explains that the work was ‘written upon my arrival home from a holiday spent there in Nineteen Sixteen. Added now to the Coloured Series, I have slightly rewritten and improved it.’Polish Patchwork [added in autograph ‘OR: flashlight on Poland’] Being a batch of Letters by Richard Blake Brown. Illustrated.1936. Typescript. 197pp., 4to. Red cloth. Numerous original photographs loosely inserted into makeshift mounts, with photograph laid down on front pastedown, with caption: ‘Patchwork photographic design for the front of spine of dust-jacket for book (in the Author’s keeping. The original measuring twelve inches by eleven.)’ Date amended by RBB: ‘Written in 1936, but perfectly ready for 1950!’Volume One of Places and People. A book of partly disjointed chapters, by Richard Blake Brown. With a photographic frontis-piece, and other illustrations.1921. Autograph. 104pp., 4to. Blue cloth binding. Photograph of RBB in ‘The Orange bath-robe referred to on page 63’ laid down on front pastedown. ‘Written during a Summer holiday to Minehead, Somerset; and Polzeath, North Cornwall.’ At end of volume is a list of 36 titles, under the heading ‘The Unpublished Works of the Author which have been, for the most part, consigned to a Tate-Sugar box. | (1915-1921.)’Volume Two of Places and People. A book of partly dis-jointed Chapters by Richard Blake Brown. With Illustrations.1922. Autograph. 71pp., small 4to. In black and grey cloth notebook. ‘Written at "Waldenhurst, Surrey.’ A couple of original photographs and some magazine cuttings loosely inserted.Enjoyment in Religion | By Gabriel [first name amended in autograph] Greenstreet.1952. (‘Finished at Norwich: February 1952 [date amended in autograph]’) Typescript. 97pp., 4to. Brown cloth binding, gilt. Addresses: Ephraim Lodge, The Common, Tunbridge Wells, Kent; amended to 16 Cotham Park, Bristol 6.Bavaria rather than Rome : – | Essays by Richard Blake Brown (For private consumption rather than for publication!)1956-1957. Autograph. 133pp., foolscap 8vo. In light-brown and purple cloth notebook. Label on front board: ‘Volume Two, (Complementing Vol I), my visits to Rome & Munich, 1956, & ending – : February 14th., 1957.’ Five essays: ‘Bavaria Rather than Rome | An Essay’ (60pp.); ‘Archbishop | An unimportant Episode’ (11pp.); ‘Peter’ (23pp.); ‘Some Thoughts on Entering 1957’ (20pp.); ‘My visit to Aberdovey, Merioneth’ (16pp.). Numerous letters and cuttings from magazines and newspapers inserted, including letter to Brown (‘Chaplain, H.M. Prison. Bristol. 7.’), from P. Osborne of Warner Brothers, 8 January 1957, ‘Regarding the film Ludwig 11’; also Typed Letter Signed from Marion Hyde, Lady-in-Waiting, 14 December 1956, on Clarence House letterhead, regarding presenting the Queen Mother with a copy of his new book.7. MiscellaneousFamily Memoirs and Genealogies by Ethel I. Brown.30 November 1942. Substantial 8vo typescript. Blue cloth, gilt. ‘Four copies made’: one for herself, another for her brother Harold G. Brown, and copies for John Wilkie and Lucy Reynolds. Presentation inscription ‘To Harold G. Brown | This book of personal memories, and family information with his sister’s devoted affection | E.I.B. | Aug. 12 – 1943’. Two ownership inscriptions of Julian Nixon: the first, from The Citadel, Gozo, 1968; the second from 10 Meer Street, Stratford on Avon, 1978. Photograph as frontispiece of ‘Drawing of Edith by JOHN BRIGGS POTTER made while we were students in Paris.’ [RBB described as the son of Harold Gilbert Brown (b.1875) and Lillian Knight Brown of Mattapan, Massachusetts. They married in 1898, and RBB’s father ‘Took position in England Oct. 16, 1902. Naturalized British subject 1923.’ RBB’s entry reads:’b. Jan. 4, 1902, Melrose, Mass. Ed. Tonbridge and Berkhamsted, Magdelene [sic] College, Cambridge, graduated M. A. St. Stephens House, Oxford, Church of England clergyman. Chaplain R. N. V. R. m. Jan. 1942, Bridget Hancock, (niece of Bishop of Ripon). [added in manuscript by Nixon: ‘DIED 3rd November 1968 without issue. Legal heir his Godson JULIAN C. NIXON | Born 8.7.1935. Gloucester U.K. Educated St Michaels Prep School Baschurch Shropshire Chester Grammar School Bedford Public School. Married 31st Dec. 1968. Annulment proceedings pending. finalised 1972 Sept.’] RBB’s siblings: Donald Fullarton (b.1899) and Lincoln Torrey (b.1903)]A collection of around 60 miscellaneous items, including several leaves of autograph material by RBB (including ‘The Higher the Heavier’, ‘Rain’ and ‘All that remains of Fonthill Abbey’), original photographs, some items of incoming correspondence (including Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark; H. F. Buckingham; Peter Garlick; H. M. Harries; Charles A. Gladstone), magazine and newspaper cuttings, Christmas cards designed by RBB, an offprint.8. Published worksMiss Higgs and her Silver Flamingo | By Richard Blake Brown. (London: Duckworth. 1931.) 288pp., 8vo. Grey cloth. Inscribed by RBB to ‘Richard Green | With the friendliest and most delightful wishes, from Richard Blake Brown. January 28th. 1931.’ Photograph of RBB laid down on front pastedown, with note by him: ‘Definitely the studied portrait of an embryo "Author"!’Yellow Brimstone. | A Novel by Richard Blake Brown. (London: Duckworth. 1931.) 320pp., 8vo. Yellow cloth. Dedication: ‘Gratefully inscribed to Harold and Lillian | Two delightful and beloved aristocrats without coronets or castles!’ Signed by RBB on front free endpaper, with the words ‘First advance copy.’ RBB has written ‘Press Cuttings’ on the front board, and laid down in the book are a number of press cuttings of reviews (Berkhamstedian; Glasgow Evening Times; Bystander; Edinburgh Evening News; Lady; Daily Sketch; Times Literary Supplement; News Chronicle; Saturday Review; Northern Echo; Johannesburg Sunday Times; Times of India; Glasgow Daily Record; Manchester Guardian), together with parts of the dustwrapper, including the front featuring a photograph of RBB. Written over two pages at the end of the volume is an autograph list by RBB of 30 ‘People to whom I have given signed copies of this book’. The TLS review of Yellow Brimstone, 15 October 1931, stresses the brilliance and unevenness of RBB’s writing: ‘It is not easy to conjecture exactly how this novel is meant to be taken. In conception, construction and texture it is full of paradoxes. The time, for instance, is about sixty years in the future, when Richard IV. is on the throne, and there are pistols reproducing spontaneous combustion, and yet the book contains passages of description and dialogue of the most Victorian solemnity. From being verbose and ponderous, on the other hand, the author easily changes to a natural gaiety and a discriminating use of words. Again, his plot is an incongruous affair. According to the jacket, the story tells of a young man of almost Royal birth who decides "to brighten up the Church of England," and certainly many of the actions of Felix Redlocque are calculated to have this effect, even in the days of Richard IV. But Felix also becomes involved in schemes for frustrating assassins and altering dynasties, which are, to put it mildly, rather unworthy of juxtaposition with the reformation of the Church. Lastly, the writing is curiously uneven, evidences of an inquiring mind, which has explored widely among foreign literature, being followed by callow observations.’ Of the same book Vera Brittain writes in the News Chronicle, 16 December 1931: ‘The author, whose delicate improprieties are subtly reminiscent of Mr. James Branch Cabell, undoubtedly regards himself – by no means without justification – as a very clever young man. He is not yet, however, sufficiently aware that the New Morality which his scintillating phrases embody has been stated before; though never, perhaps, with such conscious brilliance.’The Apology of a Young Ex-Parson | Extracts from his Private Diary of Three Years in Anglican Orders | By Richard Blake Brown. (London: Duckworth. 1932.) 296pp., 8vo. Purple cloth. In poor condition. Inscribed by RBB to ‘Dear John Raynor, It has been the most delicious fun staying with you in your mountain schloss! | Exuberantly yours, | Richard Blake Brown | Hovis Harvest Feast-Day, September 24th. 1933.’ Loosely inserted is a cutting of long review of the book by Norman Collins, with photograph of RBB, from the News Chronicle, 12 May 1932. Collins writes that RBB ‘entered the Church with the perfectly sincere belief that people’s lives should be jollier and brighter, and though – judging from this book – it would have been better if he had been a music-hall comedian or a house painter, at least in his early days in the ministry he thought that he had found his vocation. [...] Often it is only reasonable to believe that the author is strenuously parodying himself, [...] And so this unbelievable diary continues with descriptions of a jade-green bathing costume which "caused considerable amusement"; and jokes that would not have amused Queen Victoria; and accounts of how he started to grow a "fourth ginger beard," but shaved it off in a moment of sacrifice; and how, when he quoted "The Well of Loneliness" in the pulpit it "went off really splendidly." | Anyone who reads this book will agree with the author when he says of himself; "I am quite a singular person." An orthodox churchman – one of the kind that the author hates – might even see evidence of benevolent creation in the fact that Mr. Blake Brown is unique.’Rococo Coffin | The name (for very good reasons) of Lady Rampart’s yacht | A novel by Richard Blake Brown. (London: The Fortune Press. 1936.) 294pp., 8vo. Black cloth and price-clipped dustwrapper. Dedication: ‘To Mr. & Mrs. Ulric Nisbet’.My Aunt in Pink | A Novel | By Richard Blake Brown. (London: Martin Secker & Warburg, Ltd. 1936.) 304pp., 8vo. Pink cloth. Dedication: ‘To Christopher Wood.’Spinsters, Awake! | A Romance | By Richard Blake Brown. (London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd. 1937.) 314pp., 8vo. Green cloth. In poor condition. RBB’s ownership inscription, in red ink on front pastedown, accompanied by: autograph address of the Royal Naval Air Station, Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire, and date 1943 in purple ink; ‘LENDING COPY:’ in green ink; RBB’s RNVR Chaplain’s stamp; label of Romsey College, Near Romsey, Hampshire; stamp of the Chaplain, HMS Vernon, dated May 1944; and ‘Roedean School, Brighton’ in blue ink; autograph address of HMS Ramillies, c/o GPO, London, dated 1945. Dedication ‘To Gerald | who sent me grapes and flowers when I had diphtheria at the London Fever Hospital . . . .’ Note by RBB identifies the dedicatee as Captain Gerald Hervey, MC, ‘Now serving with the Church Army in Bloodiest Africa - | 1942’. Photograph of RBB in striped suit and dog-collar laid down on rear pastedown, with caption ‘The Author in cheerful vein, as usual’. Note by RBB: ‘As this poor old volume is obviously falling to pieces, please handle it as "reverently" and as carefully as possible | – : 1949:’Bright Glades | by Richard Blake Brown. (London: Cassell & Company Ltd. 1959.) 181pp., 8vo. Green fake cloth. Signed by RBB on title page. Dedicated to Julian. Loosely inserted are a newspaper cutting and two Autograph Letters Signed: the first to RBB from ‘Alan’, 28 April 1965; the second to Julian from ‘Roz’, 15 December 1976.