TWENTIETH

A specialist on Dickens and Tennyson, Cuming Walters was for many years a central figure in the literary life of the north-west of England. Shortly before his death (and as reported in The Times, 28 April 1932) he boasted of having written 'between 15,000 and 20,000 leading articles, nearly 20,000 reviews of books, 8,000 dramatic notices, and 15,000 special articles. He had published about 20 books and had written 250 lectures.' The present collection is divided into two parts. A.

All four items clear and complete, on aged paper with wear to the extremities of item one. Item One: 'Leaflet No. 1. English League for the Taxation of Land Values. Statement of Principles.' 12mo, 4 pp, on unbound bifolium. Headings include 'Objects of the League', 'Meaning of Land Values', 'The Taxation of Land Values would be just', 'The Taxation of Land Values would promote general prosperity and remove social evils'. Item Two: '[...] No. 3. The Taxation of Land Values: What it would do. 12mo leaflet, 2 pp.

Literary Characters'. 12mo (leaf dimensions roughly 18 x 12.5 cm): 32 pp. Stitched with brown thread. Fore-edge and top-edge rough. Unbound as issued. Very good. Cartoon in red ink of man seated at typewriter on front cover, and another, in black ink, of a hatted-figure skulking away with a walking stick held behind his back on back cover. Initial note, with publisher's colophon, on p.2: 'This series of Literary Characters appeared in Now & Then numbers 77-87 and is here reprinted by Jonathan Cape Limited for their friends | Christmas 1954'.

12mo bifolium (leaf dimensions 21 x 13 cm): 4 pp. On lightly-aged and creased paper, with a little spotting. Strikingly simple stylised illustration (14 x 9 cm) by Ross on cover, depicting a girl with long blonde hair, large black bow an elongated neck. The 'special appeal' (whose patrons are the king and queen) aims to raise £100,000 for 'The Brompton Hospital for Consumption'. The second page lists the Appeal's officers, and the third gives the cast list for Byng's play, including Ernest Thesiger, Viola Tree, Florence Desmond and Cicely Courtneidge.

All nine are printed on art paper, roughly 18 x 12.5 cm. Tipped in onto 27.5 x 21 cm leaves. The mounts have the title, 'THE GLOOMY THICK WOOD | By Kay Nielsen' and a border surrounding the plate, both printed in olive. The collection is in very good condition, with occasional nicking to the mount. None of the items carry any indication that they have been cancelled or rejected. Providing a fascinating insight into the quality-control process in early twentieth-century book illustration, with most of the items rejected because the colours are slightly off-register.

8vo: 1 p. Good, on lightly-creased paper, with a faint 4cm pink stain in the right-hand margin. Reads 'Many thanks for the copy of your interesting paper, and the kindly reference to my novel.'

Sitwell and Renishaw collaborated on the play 'Gentle Caesar' (published in 1942), and the last two letters would appear to concern a possible film adaptation. All three items very good on lightly aged paper. Letter One ('Friday Renishaw'): 12mo, 2 pp. 18 lines of text. Apparently written around the time of the play's composition. Sitwell is 'delighted' that Minney is 'already immersed in Pares's book. I have just read the Czar and Empress Marie's Letters.' He has 'marked (in the preface mostly) what I thought helpful for atmosphere, or amusing'.

4to: 1 page. Twenty-one lines of text. Good, on creased and lightly-aged paper. An impressively-considered letter, declining Mrs Steward's manuscript 'I had rather be a Doorkeeper'. 'As you point out, Christ Church, Newgate Street, is a near neighbour of Amen House, and its ruins are a pathetic sight.

The engraving illustrates the biblical passage describing an incident during the wreck off Crete of a ship carrying Saint Paul. Acts 27:35: 'And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all: and when he had broken it, he began to eat.' Printed on one side of a piece of paper, 28 x 19 cm, with one rough edge. A striking image, irregularly shaped, with white lines against a black background, showing centurions and others on the deck of a ship on a stormy sea, with land in the distance.

8vo: 4 pp, surrounding a bifolium carrying 4 pp of photographs. Stitched. Printed on laid paper and nicely produced. Lightly creased, and with the covers grubby and lightly-spotted. Begins 'CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, their London house having outgrown its quarters in Regent Street, have moved to twenty-three Bedford Square where they are occupying one of the old Adam houses, the lease of which they have purchased from the Bedford estate.' The four photographs consist of an exterior view, the 'Manager's office', 'One of the Adam fireplaces' and 'Entrance hall'.

On one side of a piece of wove paper, cut into a rectangle approximately 4.5 x 9 cm. Good, on lightly-creased paper with one vertical fold. Cut from an envelope, with traces of the postmark over the autograph, and a section of the gummed strip on the reverse. Reads 'From | John Cowper Powys | Waterloo | Blaenau - F Festiniog | Merionethshire | North Wales | I enjoyed thinking of you in Italy'.

Gregory's letter: 8vo, 1 p. Thirteen lines of text. Very good on lightly-creased paper. A telling comment on the craze for inscribed copies of books. She is 'sorry to seem disobliging', but considers that 'an author's inscription seems [...] to have significance only when the book in question has been presented to a friend or when it is likely to become profitable to a dealer'. Her book 'qualifies in neither category'. She is 'puzzled to know' how Disspain 'came upon' her address. Gregory's book: 8vo, 208 pp. No dust wrapper. Grubby copy in worn original red cloth binding.

8vo, 4 pp. Bifolium. Very good on lightly aged paper. Written in Powys's distinctive, sprawling hand. Concerns William Blake and the monograph on him (1954) by Denis Saurat, who 'must indeed be a wonder considering the scope of his interests.' 'Yes I was brought up by my mother on the Poems of Blake; so I am always interested by any reference to them or any reproduction of them. Indeed and indeed I can fully understand your being so hypnotized by the pictures of Blake that you find yourself going to see them when you had decided to go somewhere else'. Powys is 'in excellent health'.

4to, 1 p. Four lines of text. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with slight staining from paperclip in top left-hand corner. He thanks him for his 'very interesting letter': 'The photograph shows an agreeable, and perhaps distinguished building. I return the picture thereof, and wish you every success therein.'

12mo: [ii] + 14 pp. Unpaginated. Frontispiece of Blake's celebrated print. Internally tight on lightly-aged and grubby paper, and with the reverse of the frontispiece slightly discoloured. Staples a little rusty. In grubby white wraps. A signed presentation copy. Boldly written on the front wrap: 'Lawrence Binyon C.H. with the compliments of [signed] H. Edward Newton'. A characteristic production by the boisterous author of 'The Amenities of Book-Collecting'. At end: 'A. EDWARD NEWTON | "Oak Knoll" | Daylesford, Berwyn P.O., | Pennsylvania'.

4to: 1 p. Ten lines of text. Heavily stained, but a neat link between two giants of the twentieth-century British book trade. 'I give myself the pleasure of saluting you, I really believe for the first time'. He is happy for the opportunity of telling Secker how much he admired his 'flair and enterprise in earlier years'. He hopes he 'may write as firmly and with as lively a mind as you in six years' time'. 'Alas that we must disappoint you': the books Secker has requested are all out of print. 'Just possibly one or more may come into our hands secondhand.

From the collection of Alec Clunes, who performed as Don Juan in this excerpt from 'Man and Superman' ('Don Juan in Hell') at the Arts Theatre Club in 1946. Carbon copy of typescript by May Hemery Ltd, paginated 1 to 60, on the rectos of sixty leaves, preceded by title leaf ('Excerpt from Act Three | "MAN AND SUPERMAN" | By | BERNARD SHAW'. In original blue paper wraps, with yellow tape spine and label on front wrap. Grubby and worn, and with light staining to wraps, but tight, complete and clear. Numerous manuscript stage directions, mostly on the facing versos.

All three items in very good condition. Clear, bold signature, on a cropped piece of paper three inches by five wide, reading 'Leonard Bernstein | Edinburgh | <'73>'. The first photograph (six and a half inches by eight wide, and with the stamp of the Scottish Tourist Board on the reverse), shows a smiling Bernstein in a Prince of Wales check double-breasted jacket with a bespectacled old gentleman in a single-breasted pinstripe jacket, admiring a bagpiper in full regalia at a British railway station (Edinburgh Waverley?).

4to: 1 p. Fourteen lines of text. Aged and worn, with closed tears along the fold lines, but with text clear and complete. He thanks his correspondent for the letter ('It is always a great delight to me to know that people like my work.') and gives details of where the 'little book I published on "Pride of Body" ' can be purchased. Ends with the details of his 'new novel "A Soldier of Life" ': 'I mention it, as you say it is difficult for you to get hold of books and I should like you to read it.'

12mo, 2 pp. Twenty lines. Text clear and complete. On lightly aged paper with a 2 cm across both leaves of the bifolium (not affecting text). He did not 'draw Domini and Hermione from special people', but believes that 'there are women quite as sincere as they are'.

16mo (15 x 12 cm), 32 pp. Stapled pamphlet, in original green printed wraps. Text complete and clear, on aged and dogeared paper. Wraps worn and stained. Part three only of an annotated collection of ballads. Six-page English glossary at rear. Scarce: the National Library of Ireland only appears to have Part Five, and the only record on COPAC is of Parts One and Three at Trinity College, Dublin.

Printed in purple on six pages, on the rectos of six leaves, each roughly 34 x 21 cm. Three bifoliums, loosely inserted one in the other to make a pamphlet. Text neatly written and complete. Good, on aged and lightly-worn and stained paper, with the discoloration to the blank verso of the last leaf more marked than elsewhere. Begins with a paragraph explaining the context, and ending 'It is strongly rumoured that all the high administrative appointments are to be given to E. I.

On piece of laid paper paper (roughly 11 x 16 cm) cut from diary. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Under the heading 'June 25'.

On light-yellow page (roughly 11 x 14 cm) removed from autograph album. Four glue stains showing through from the reverse (not affecting the signatures), otherwise good. Reads 'Dora Stevens | Ethel Hobday | Marjorie Hayward | Cedric Sharpe'. Lightly docketed in pencil.

On piece (15 x 16 cm) of laid-paper cut from a page of a diary. Creased and worn at head. Signature under heading 'March 18'. Lightly docketed in pencil.

On one side of a leaf (roughly 11 x 16 mm), removed from an autograph album. Good, on lightly aged paper, with some show-through from amusing drawing on reverse by L. E. H. Phipson. Bold signature reads 'Yours Sincerely | Marie Novello'. Drawing on reverse depicts a monocled old fogey protesting his love to a pretty young thing regarding herself in a handmirror. Captioned 'I'd rather be a young man's slave!' Signed by the illustrator 'L. E. H. Phipson | 6/12/1917'. Docketed in pencil.

On a leaf of pink paper, roughly 13.5 x 11 cm, removed from an autograph album. Lightly creased and with a thin glue stain along inner margin (not affecting text). The inscription, in a top outer corner, reads 'Noël Eadie | 21. 1. 24'. It is somewhat smudged, either having bled or been badly blotted.

On leaf (roughly 10 x 15 cm) torn from autograph album. Good, on lightly aged paper. Signed 'Hugo Rignold' with another signature ('John <?> | <?>') in pencil above it. Docketed in pencil.

On piece of laid paper (roughly 8.5 x 16 cm) cut from diary. On aged paper with wear and 1 cm closed tear at head. Clear and clean signature, beneath the heading 'July 17'.

On one side of a piece of wove paper roughly 220 x 280 mm. Good, on lightly aged and creased paper, with a few short closed tears to extremities. Cheaply but effectively printed in a variety of point sizes. Reads '£1 REWARD | LOST, on Monday Evening, December 16, either on the Motor-bus between Oxford and Witney, or in Witney, A Lady's Gold Wrist-Watch & Bracelet | Engraved on the back, P.E.B., Dec. 28, 1921. | A Reward of £1 will be paid to anyone bringing the same to the Police Station at Witney, or to the County Police Station, New Road, Oxford.'