[Harry Reginald Hall of the British Museum, Egyptologist.] 27 Autograph Letters Signed to F. G. Gordon, written in a playful style on scholarly matters, including Tutankhamun's tomb. With a copy of Hall's funeral service, and two other items.
The letters total 104pp., mainly 12mo. In fair overall condition, with light aging and wear. Seventeen are signed 'H. H.', three 'Harry Hall', one 'H. R. Hall', three 'H.', one unsigned. Most addressed to 'Frank', others, in playful style, to 'Ryzt Worchypfull & very dere ffrend', 'Respected Friend and most admir'd Poet!' and 'the Scribe of the Admiral's | Yamen, Fa-erh-an-ki'. Also present is an Autograph Card Signed. One letter is prefixed: 'At Oo-erh, in the land of Ho-p'ung ("Between the Rivers") [Burma?], which is also called Î-erh-ah-ku, the twenty-third day of the third moon, in the Season of Many Large Dragon-flies, in the year of the Palm-branch, the scribe and pilgrim Hâ-erh-î writes this.' envelope is addressed 'To Mr ffr: Gordon Esquire | Clerk to His Matie's Admiralty | at No. 180 Birchanger Road | South Norwood | S.E.25'. The text contains numerous quotations from the ancient languages (mainly Greek) and Arabic, and the topics include: Gordon's 'epistle from the Middle Minoan Strata' and his 'most admirable Pastorale'; 'Politta and the rose'; 'the hospitality of Fern Bank'; several Greek inscriptions (including one, 'Byzantine, frightfully crabbed and contracted, and a monument of miserable degeneration'); 'Dugmore' and a room promised to Hall by 'Pullan'; Gordon's possible joining of the Society of Antiquaries ('We have besides myself as proposer, Hill, Gardiner, Skilbeck [Cuthbert Skilbeck, to whom there are several other references], and Forsdyke [Sir John Forsdyke (1883-1979)] who know you; and Emery Walker [printer (1851-1933)], who talked with you at the "Hats" dinner [a dinner of the Cocked Hat Club, referred to in another letter]'); the response to the arrival of the American troops during the First World War, including a reference to Gordon's daughter Maria, 'who appears to be making friends with the Yanks'. A letter of 13 June [1928] gives a list of lot numbers and prices of the 'good many things' purchased by the British Library at the Sir John Maxwell sale of Egyptian antiquities at Sotheby's: 'The Jew's head in the other sale we tried for, but couldn't get. Prices low, except for the gold mask. Maxwell disappointed, I expect'. Other individuals referred to include Cuthbert Skilbeck; 'Peet'; 'Oswald'; 'Bernard' (praised by 'Adcock, a don of King's'); 'Bertie'; 'Meek'. As an example of the playful scholarly style often employed, one letter begins: 'Dear F. G. G. | Bless thee, sweet knave, bless thee! as the ass said to the boy when he cut off his tail', with the footnote: 'Verisimilituditer corruptio Shakespeareiane cuiusdam apophthegmatis Samuelis Wellerie conjectio Grossbillii perabsurda est: non dico eam, ob pudorem'. A letter of 15 April [no year] is written in Wardour Street English; and another, on Government of India letterhead, is written in the style of a translation from Arabic, 'From the city of Baghdad, Harî [i.e. 'Harry'] the scribe to the scribe of the Amir al-bahr, Ferenk Qûrdûn [i.e. 'Frank Gordon']'. In the letter said to be written at 'Oo-erh', Hall jokes, parodying the style of an ancient Chinese official: 'The workmen I have with me are Tartar prisoners of the tribe of the Hinng-nu or T'u-ki. They are extremely stupid, and the local Pantheys mock at them. But they desire to please me, so I beat them with engaging courtesy. My servants are of the land of Hin-to, and the magician who drives my private lightning-car is an A-fi-gha-nu who has been to U-si-ta-ra-li-ya, [i.e. Australia] and talks the language of that land, which is unfit for ears polite. He went there with camels, carrying water to the gold-miners in the desert; from the town of Kal-gur-li.' The letter concludes: 'There have many diverse peoples forgathered in this land owing to the war with the Hiung-nu. This Burman had driven his car to Kazrin, & to the foot of the mountain of Elbruz, and near the shore of the Caspian, to which our honoured ancient general Pan-ch'ao led the armies of the Middle Kingdom in the days of the Roman Emperor Tra-jan, corresponding to the Han Dynasty, the furthest western point ever reached by the armies of China. Of all strange figures I have seen here, the Burman is the strangest.' On 6 April [1919?] he gives his opinion of Germans and the French. Regarding the latter he writes: 'I don't hate them. I have rather a prejudice against them, perhaps due to antenatal parental impressions (?). You know my father was twice nearly shot by them as a spy in the war of '70, and was only well treated when the Germans caught him up. Then he was treated en prince: he was an Oxford man, that was enough. To the French Oxford meant less than Timbuctoo. And my mother was through the siege of Paris, and had no happy memories of Paris or the Parisians, who made things unhappy for all foreigners. It was not their fault, poor things, except for their ineradicable contempt for foreigners which made them the easy victims of Napoleon - or of Bismarck - let us say and of Bismarck.' He continues with a discussion of the Germans ('We understand, both of us, the bad side as well as the good') and the 'over-civilized' French. He considers the British 'angels of light compared with the French [...] we are the only really nice, kindly, helpful people in the world barring the Scandinavians'. On 11 May 1897 he transcribes two Greek inscriptions 'brought back' by Wallis Budge (1857-1934), warning that 'they are not to be out just yet, and [...] no rumour of them must reach the long ears of Mahaffy or Grenfell'. Regarding Gordon's 'vivid account of the Battle of Carfax', Hall writes on 17 May 1897: 'I own that at first I regarded your vivid account [...] as a jeu d'esprit - a pigment, as Mrs M. would have called it - but in the evening paper I saw it was even as you had described. York Powell confirms you: I met him last night, and he described the fighting at Carfax as "most picturesque": regular Communard! The fault lay in the introduction of the Metropolitan Police, unused to the ways of the place. Who is Smith of Merton? Hill, our Merton man, don't [sic] know him. "Probably Stinks," he says, loftily: which would to the uninitiated sound rather ambiguous.' A letter, 'At Montague House ye 26th of March [no year], is written in a cod seventeenth-century style, regarding Gordon's 'most musical and muiferous Verses': 'our accomplish'd Friend Mrs. [sic] Skilbeck and Madam his wife, Mr Forsdyke our Amateur of Grecian Urns, Mr. Laswt of St. John's College in Oxon:, and the modish and ingenious Mr. Leeper, of the Office of His Majesty's Secretary of State, are vastly engag'd by it, and would fain see another of the same Kidney.' Also present in the correspondence are: the printed funeral service of 'Harry Reginald Holland Hall', 15 October 1930 (3pp., 12mo); a copy of a printed circular from the Egypt Exploration Fund, signed by Hall and dated 20 January 1914; and two small photographs of a 'Lapis lazuli Plaque', obverse and reverse, laid down on a piece of card. Gordon published 'Through Basque to Minoan: Transliterations and Translations of the Minoan Tablets' with the Oxford University Press in 1931.