[Rev. Richard Blake Brown of Magdalene College, Cambridge.] Extraordinary spoof 'printed' poetry volume, purporting to be 'The Works of Count Ivor Telmarckle. With an appreciation by Denis Basil Gray.' With photographs of Blake Brown in character.

30 + [1]pp., 12mo. 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. 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 Blake Brown, and the volume contains among its six illustrations four original photographs of him in the character of the Count, with fake beard and glasses. The first photograph carries the mock inscription 'With sincerity Ivor Telmarckle Count. 1919.' From the Blake Brown papers (still catalogued in their entirety, inventory #13711.