Autograph Letter Signed from the poet Laurence Binyon to 'Miss [Alice] Warrender', regarding his duties as one of the judges of the 1925 Hawthornden Prize, with reference to Aldous Huxley, J. R. Ackerley and Sean O'Casey.

2pp., 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Docketed in a neat hand at head of second page. Binyon writes that he cannot be with her on the Friday, as he has to 'go down to Winchester on business. And I am so driven I don't know where to turn.' He has 'had Huxley's Barren Leaves in the house for days', but hasn't 'had one moment to look at it'. He has 'managed to read [J. R. Ackerley's] Prisoners [sic] of War', which he considers 'awfully well done', although he wonders whether 'its overwhelming interest' is not 'documentary & pathological': 'It's all too passive & painful for one.' Regarding the eventual winner he declares: 'Surely [Sean O'Casey's] Juno and the Paycock ought to be considered?') He is 'off to Bath, to give a lecture', but hopes to 'get a little time for reading soon'. He concludes: 'For writing poems (which is all I want to do) I get no leisure at all. But such is life.'