Five Autograph Letters Signed HWN [H.W. Nevinson] to Robert Lynd, essayist and Irish Nationalist

5 ALsS, total 8pp., 12mo.One, on letterhead of 4 Downside Crescent, Hampstead; 'Tuesday' [December 1908]. Concerning Nevinson's sacking as a Daily News journalist following his heckling of the Liberal Chancellor Lloyd George at a meeting in December 1908 in which the Daily News editor Gardiner was also on the platform (see L. J. Satre's Chocolate on Trial, Ohio University Press, 2005, pp.141-144). Begins: 'Yes, it's true enough. Gardiner sacked me directly after the meeting. Whether at [William] Cadbury's suggestion or not I don't know.' He thinks Gardiner 'is a bit ashamed of it now, & I think he believed & interrupted Lloyd George. Whereas I was quite quiet till they began flinging the women about.' He is not hopeful about the coming board meeting, 'because the Cadburys hate me for Angola'. He asks RL to persuade members of staff thinking of resigning not to do so: 'Why should I have the hunger of their wives & children on my head?' He has been 'inquiring about the charges of indecency, but can find no absolute proof. Of course there was a lot of sexual feeling & foul suggestions, but I find no actual assault, and it would be best to tell Sylvia that the whole thing is exaggerated. As was my prowess in laying the stewards low.' Two, on Downside Crescent letterhead; 12 October 1913. He begins 'Don't you think for old time's sake you might drop the Mr. now?' He thanks him for the 'proposal about the Butcher. I hardly know what to say. I hate to refuse any work, for the suffrage has run me as poor as a McKenna mouse.' He 'didn't know that the change was made when you sent me Masefield. [...] I am very glad about it, but I thought you looked ill the other day. | I do hope you've not gone off the Nation staff again. Above all things we want young blood there. It was my 100th. birthday yesterday, and all the rest are older still.' Three, on Downside Crescent letterhead; 10 January [1914?]. 'Perhaps you will like to know how much everyone at the Nation lunch admired your Kipling review. No wonder, for it was excellent.' Four, on letterhead Downside Crescent letterhead; 6 May 1915. Offering to do a signed review of Irene Rutherford McLeod's 'Saving of a Soul' (in fact Songs to save a Soul, 1915), which Chatto & Windus 'are very soon bringing out at their own risk': 'She is quite young but her work has long seemed to me remarkable'. Five, from Downside Crescent; 18 January 1918. He is glad the review pleased RL: 'You may be sure of one thing - I should never have praised your book unless it had been good. What I have suffered from the bad books of my friends! How I have tried again and again to praise them, but always failed! My path lies strewn with the corpses of friendships. [...] The Convention seems in great danger. The Ulster stalwarts refuse to move. I like to see the Times preaching Home Rule at last, and denouncing Garvin for offering it as a bargain to balance conscription. | Sometimes it seems as if the utmost stupidity becomes sane with time. Look at the Suffrage! After 12 years of bitter struggle we have won at last, and the Westminster proclaims itself a lifelong supporter!' Fears that his 'history of the Dardanelles' is 'in danger. [...] If so, now that the Suffrage is won, I shall seek an island in the Pacifist Ocean and keep coral insects.' See Angela V. Johns, War, Journalism and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century. The Life and Times of Henry W. Nevinson (2006) for the background.