MUSSOLINI

All three items in very good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Third letter in its envelope, addressed to Hodson at Bradbourne Hall, Ashbourne, Derbyshire. ONE: Despite the letterhead written from Italy, as the text shows. 4pp., 12mo. Typed. The 'stress of the election' has delayed his response. 'I am writing now in the train from Naples to Rome and everything I have seen since has helped to convince me that you are right. Mussoline [sic] in this country would be a man after your own heart.

2pp., 4to. 41 lines. In fair condition, on aged paper. He begins by stating that 'Yellow Sands' 'only touches social questions by the accident of the plot. Socialism is a word the definition of which no two people appear to agree about. Ask a dozen Socialists what they understand by their faith & they will each tell you something different.' The opinions depicted in the play are both 'clear' and 'foggy', 'but it is [in] no sense propagandist - I hate propaganda in art.' He goes on to discuss his own views: 'I am not a socialist.

2pp., folio. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Castellani, who had accompanied the Italian royal family into exile in Portugal in 1946, is responding to two letters from Bilainkin, loyally attempting to conceal the unhappy state of relations between the royal couple ('We were never happy', the Queen declared after her husband's death; and there were rumours of homosexual affairs on the King's part).

16 pages, 8vo, unbound. Illustrated map taking up most of title-page. The British Library has an item published by Casavis on the Dodecanese in 1941 but does not appear to have a copy of this earlier pamphlet. In need of professional restoration: in bad condition, printed on poor-quality paper, discoloured, torn and flaking. The text complete and entirely legible, but with the first and last leaves in particularly poor condition.