24 Autograph Letters Signed and 4 Autograph Cards Signed, all to Tinsley Pratt, Librarian, The Portico Library, Manchester.

All twenty-eight items with text clear and complete on lightly aged paper, the only damage being light wear to the second leaf of Item 27, causing slight loss to six lines of text. All items signed by Brighouse 'H. B.'This collection represents a substantial correspondence by a significant literary figure. Not only has Brighouse's most famous play 'Hobson's Choice' (1916) continued in popularity for almost a century, but interest in his other works has increased in recent decades, with reference made, at the revival of 'Zack' in New York in 2005, to his 'returning popularity in England and the United States', with his plays being 'slowly rediscovered in England, with productions on television and on the stage'. Written from London to a close Manchester friend, Brighouse's letters are entertaining and informative, and written, as the extracts given below indicate, in an intimate, witty and gossipy style. In addition to his history of the Portico Library (1922), Pratt published a number of other works including several volumes of poetry, and the friends' shared literary interests add to the interest of the correspondence.Item 1 (letter): 24 May 1918; on letterhead of the Arundel Hotel, Victoria Embankment, London. 12mo, 3 pp. Describing a lunch with 'Adcock' (Brighouse's and Pratt's common agent?), who gives the responses of publishers to their novels. Item 2 (letter): 26 May 1918; address as Item 1. 12mo, 3 pp. 'I'm sorry to hear your news of the novel, yet not so sorry as I was to hear that my last has been turned down three times, Hodder, Chatto, Collins & I'm still sure its the best I've done! We suffer in company & I think we don't suffer so much from our demerits as from the paper shortage.' Of J. M. Barrie's play: 'I saw "Dear Brutus" with [Percy] on Thursday but can't quite equal his enthusiasm for it. It got me in the end, but I found rough going on the way.'Item 3 (letter): 16 June 1918; 88 Ridgmount Gardens, London WC1. 4to, 1 p. Complains of his 'dull' life: 'Unexciting futile days at the Air Board & tired evenings. [...] I can't read - Louis Vance is about my level - & I've been to three theatres in 6 weeks, two of 'em on consecutive evenings: so I donn't call it the debauched life in London.'Item 4 (letter): 1 November 1918; 24 Guilford Street, London WC1. 8vo, 1 p. Describing how Pratt can 'make money' writing 'boy's bloods' like 'a man in my section at the Air Ministry called Sydney Horler [(1888-1954)], one time journalist in Manchester'. Horler writes 'some 15,000 words a time - & gets £12/10/0 to £15/0/0 for em'.Item 5 (letter): ['circa 1919']; address as Item 3. 8vo, 1 p.Item 6 (card): Postmarked 27 June 1919. 'Horler has, I hear, left Newnes altogether & I dunno where he is. But I'll find out some time.'Item 7 (letter): 15 July 1919; no place. 8vo, 1 p, with comical diagram by Brighouse on reverse. Concerns the preparations for his play 'The Bantam V.C.' 'I'm depressed. Been in bed for a week & seen nothing of my farce. My wife went to the dress rehearsal last night <?> a lot of gags <?> in italicising my <?> vulgarity: especially the acting of the leading lady, who's a De Courville revue person.' The diagram, beneath the heading 'These are the hurdles he's asked to jump | Which is the one he's going to bump?', has a military figure cut from a newspaper at the foot of the page with ten hurdles ranged above him, with such captions as 'Producer's Gags', 'over-advertisement', 'Unknown leading man', 'St Martin's Theatre', 'Rent £450 a week', 'cheap cast'.Item 8 (letter): 21 July 1919; no place. 8vo, 1 p. 'I'm rather like the people who do well by going bankrupt & with that mysterious remark he turned from the subject.' More on the subject of Horler and 'boy's bloods': 'As to cuss words, invent 'em. I rather like "By the slacks of his trousers" & "By the left eyebrow of the wrinkle", while "By Rum" is terse & "Split my powder casks" expressive.'Item 9 (card): 27 July 1919.Item 10 (letter): 23 January 1920; 67 Parliament Hill, London NW3. 4to, 1 p. 'Here's a suggestion. Why don't you write to Adcock & tell him you learn from me that I expect to have published next month 'Three Lancashire Plays' & a novel & as these are Lancs & you're an expert ask him to send 'em you for review?'Item 11 (letter): 13 February 1920; address as Item 10. 4to, 1 p.Item 12 (letter): 12 June 1920: address as Item 10. 4to, 1 p. 'Maleson is truly a weird looking animal: the carricature makes him a weird looking fish. [...] No news of late, except the "Pan" incident. [...] "The Sunday Express" is known as "The Sunday Agate" - at least Agate says so. [...] Jimmy's wonderful [...] he met me & its editor at lunch, & for two hours gave a brilliant dispaly of pyrotechnical self-advertising & salesmanship, ending by securing the dramatic criticism of "Pan" which the editor, who'd read Buzz-Buzz, didn't want to give him. It was a simply astounding exhibition & if he hadn't had the goods to sell, would have been nanseous. Only, he has the goods. He is brilliant.'Item 13 (letter): 23 May 1926: address as Item 10. 4to, 2 pp. 'Arabia's placed his (first) novel with Lane here (£50 on a/c) & Boni & Liverwright in U.S.A. ($350 on a/c). I conclude they think he's written a seller. They annoy him by saying his name's too like Arlen's: as Arlen took his Michael & his Arlen from Arabia it naturally annoys him to have to take another name himself. | Saw "The Plough & the Stars" this afternoon. Two wandering acts & two good acts. Lord! They'd pass anything for public performance nowadays. Bloodies by the score.'Item 14 (letter): 5 December 1927; on letterhead as Item 10. 12mo, 1 p.Item 15 (letter): 14 December 1927; as Item 14. 12mo, 1 p.Item 16 (letter): 4 January 1928; as Item 10. 4to, 1 p. 'Write your malicious memoirs, sir, if you'd sell. Fiction's in decline & this is the day of the worthless diarist. So come on with it. The Lecherous Librarian or Priapus at the Portico. That's how to do it, delicately, with fastidious good taste.'Item 17 (letter): 10 January 1928; as Item 10. 4to, 1 p.Item 18 (letter): 18 January 1928; as Item 14. 12mo, 2 pp. 'But oh dear! To sit between Sutro & Milne at lunch yesterday was to realise the hopelessly competitive game it is. Milne's just done a detective play, & Sutro's revising the end of a play. We happened to be a larger company than usual at the Dramatist's Club, & except for the old 'uns who've nearly retired, like Barrie & Pinero, I don't believe there was one of us who hadn't a play or two to place.'Item 19 (letter): 19 March 1928; as Item 10. 4to, 1 p. 'Middling here. I've tottered through a play: comedy: Lancs. Therefore, Liverpool. The London stage devotes itself to light music & murder. [...] But cotton! How can Manchester pay £3,300 a week to see Cochran's revue at the Palace when the place is supposed to be ruined?'Item 20 (letter): 31 July 1928; as Item 14. 12mo, 2 pp.Item 21 (card): postmarked 26 April 1929; New Orleans.Item 22 (card): 24 May 1929; address on postmark Carmel, California. 'Got out of Hollywood intact tho' they tried to bribe me to stay there'.Item 23 (letter): 5 July 1929; on letterhead of the Hotel Algonquin, New York. 8vo, 2 pp. 'N. York in July is not a good place. Hot & nothing but light shows at the theatres & (especially as some <?> of Independence Day a long weekend) difficult to find the people one wants to see. Iden Payne [(1881-1976), English actor] is here, tho', & is not exactly deserted.'Item 24 (letter): 23 August 1929; as Item 14. 12mo, 3 pp. Reports 'what the verbose fellow says, sending 'Nonce' [a play by Pratt?] back'.Item 25 (letter): 17 December 1929; as Item 10. 4to, 2 pp.Item 26 (letter): 26 March 1930; as Item 10. 4to, 2 pp. '<?>'s been pretty ill of the kidneys. Deserves it? Probably. He & his partner are publishing the next section of the Joyce new-language monstrosity [i.e. 'Finnegans Wake'] & as they've sold half the ed. to N.Y., they're going to make a fat thing of it. They're doing the devil of a <?>, too, without cuts: I'd regard that as highly speculative.'Item 27 (letter): 20 December 1931: address as Item 10. 4to, 2 pp. '[...] what happened to ordinary people during the historic crashes of the past? Nothing in particular? Well right, then, let England go on going bankrupt: it won't excessively matter, [...]'Item 28 (letter): 19 May 1934; as Item 10. 4to, 1 p. 'Iden Payne has been called from America to be interviewed by the Stratford Council: I hope he'll pull it off. I've felt for some time the University Shakespeare in the States isn't good enough for Payne.'Also included is a photograph, cm, of a caricature of Brighouse, in the Beerbohm style, by 'E. M.' [Ernest Marriott] (reproduced in Brighouse's autobiography, 'What I have had', 1953).