Corrected typescript of Scottish science-fiction writer John Keir Cross's unpublished BBC radio verse play 'The Balloon', with five Typed Letters Signed and one Autograph Letter Signed from Cross to the Faber production manager Montague Shaw.

Typescript of 'The Balloon': landscape 8vo, 24 pp. Text clear and complete. On aged paper. With pencil emendations (including the deletion of a number of passages) on practically every page. Described by Cross as a 'radio composition' and a 'fantasy for broadcasting', 'The Balloon' presents an absurd take on T. S. Eliot's verse plays. It was transmitted on the Scottish Home Service of the BBC in 1946, with music by Cedric Thorpe Davie (1913-1983). There is no record of it having been published. The five typed letters total seven 4to pages. The autograph letter is landscape 12mo, 1 p. All six letters (all signed 'John') are clear, complete and good, on aged paper. Energetic and entertaining correspondence. Topics include: the Edinburgh Festival ('I'm soaked with music, conversation, drama, ballet, opera - just soaked (the beer is wonderful too)'), an entertaining account of a coincidence in a Dublin bookshop; Shaw's wedding; and Cross's 'strange desire', in his 'ever-increasing old age', to 'start collecting pornographic books'. Also included is a cutting of Cross's brief Daily Telegraph obituary (24 January 1967): 'At Diptford, near Totnes, Devon, aged 52. Farmer, novelist, scriptwriter; joined scriptwriting team, BBC radio series "The Archers," October, 1962; books included "The Man in Moonlight," "The Dancing Tree" and "The Sixpenny Year."' From the papers of the Faber & Faber production manager Montague Shaw.