JESUS

14pp., 4to. In exercise book with green printed wraps. Good, on lightly-aged and worn paper. The first page carries the title 'The Element', with the words 'Peter Levi S.J. | Nov. '57-Jan. '58' in the top right-hand corner. With occasional light corrections. The second poem ('Out of shaking') has the directions: 'No title & no commas', and the last but one ('Unfinished Elegy'), which is the longest at 4pp., is annotated: 'There ought to be three parts or possibly four.

The four items (copy of typescript of Belcher's memoir; autograph letter from Belcher to Mills; copies of two typed letters from Mills to Rosie Llewellyn-Jones), from the Frank Mills papers, are all in good condition. The copy of the typescript is 47 + [5] pp., 8vo, including title-page, two-page contents, preface and full-page map, on 52 loose leaves; Belcher's letter to Mills is 2pp., 8vo; the copies of Mills's two letters to Llewellyn-Jones are each 1p., 12mo.

[114]pp., obl.8vo, printed blue wraps, worn at spine, loss of strip at edge, some damage to back wrap, contents good. See image on my website, richardfordmanuscripts.com (or request it). COPAC lists only one copy, at BL (who have the Mark and John as well).

12mo: [iv] + 35 pp. In original green cloth printed wraps. Text clear and complete. On aged high-acidity paper, and with four staple holes throughout. Creasing to front wrap and slight loss at head of title (not affecting text). In the 'Editor's Preface' (p.iii, dated 'V. TCHERTKOFF.

Poet and editor (see DNB). One page, 4to, traces of blue paper on which item formerly laid down, condition mainly good, text clear and complete as follows: "Motto for the Bible/ Behold the Book, whose leaves display / Jesus the life, the truth, the way; / Read it with diligence [in the prayer?]; / Search it.- and You shall find Him there."

Catholic theologian, author of 'Natural Theology' (1891). All three letters are on 16mo bifoliates. The first two are 3 pages, and the last is 2 pages. All in good condition, but all with some discolouration and closed tears, and with pin marks in one corner. All three letters concern James Martineau's 'Study of Religion' (1888). In the first letter he praises 'Dr. Martineau's great work', from which he has taken notes. 'I admire the loftiness of his mind and the elegance of his style.' He apologises for the fact that there is no reference to him in his book.

While Dowsing was a sixteenth-century Puritan iconoclast who kept a journal of his various depredations, this 'account of a similar visitation at some later date' which the editors claim 'has recently come into our hands', would appear to be a spoof, a suspicion perhaps strengthened by the dedication (p.3) to Ronald Knox's brother Wilfred Laurence Knox. In printed green wraps. With pseudo-sixteenth-century title and with the long s used throughout: both features being signal warnings against similar attempts at such whimsy. 12 pages, 8vo.