Featured Items

Featured Items - Literature

Father Brocard Sewell's Autobiography
	SEWELL, Father Brocard. My Dear Time's Waste. Two typescripts, corrected in his hand, of Father Sewell's autobiography. Sewell's autobiography was published in 1966 at the Saint Albert's Press in Aylesford, Kent, titled My Dear Time's Waste. The two typescripts show that title and also shows the titles of From a Friar's Cell and After Fifty Years. Each complete typescript is held in two separate folders. The one noted "First Writing" showing holograph dates of 1962, with about 200 pages on paper 8" x 13" with about 120 pages on paper 8" x 10". The smaller sheets seem to contain the portion covering the Ditching Commons and his relation with and observation of the Peplar family and his introduction to printing. There are numerous corrections, annotations and deletions to each page of this draft. The later draft is dated July 1965 and has the "author's note: this draft, & the first which preceded it, of this book, bear comparatively little resemblance to the 3rd & final version, which incorporates new material & has been rewritten throughout in the interest of concision & readability. Brocard Sewell July 1965. On the other hand, this version does contain matter omitted in the final version." Although this version has holograph corrections, it is not as heavily annotated as the first. This version has a typescript of the Colin Wilson Introduction but it is not signed nor are there corrections to it. Father Brocard Sewell (1912 - 2000) became a Carmelite friar in 1952. In a subsequent career as editor, publisher, printer and writer, he commemorated and wrote about a number of lesser literary lights: Arthur Machen, Frederick Rolfe, Montague Summers, André Raffalovitch, John Gray, Olive Custance, Henry Williamson. He also wrote on distributist figures and the Eric Gill and Ditchling circle. Although this text was published by the Saint Albert's Press, which Sewell founded and nurtured to print and publish small books and pamphlets on Carmelite topics, he apparently revised to the extent of nearly rewriting his autobiography from first to second to third and final (published) version. Wrinkling to the edges of the pages but intact save to one-third of one page which appears to have been scissored out. (16000) $4,500.00
T. H. White autograph letters to Pat Howard
	WHITE, T. H. Eleven Autograph Letters, signed by T. H. White written to Pat Howard. Pat Howard was the wife of Michael Howard, son of George Wren Howard, who followed his father into the publishing firm of Jonathan Cape. Both Pat and Michael Howard became close friends to White. The letters range in date from March of 1958 to October, 1961. March 12, 1958, "Dearest Pat, The icy sea was like a mill pond and when we got to Alderney it was quite quite white with snow, heaving its shoulders out of the waves like a vast sort of Moby Dick...Thank you for saving my life and curing me of pleurisy and helping me back on the water waggon and restoring me to some measure of sanity..." October 15, 1958, "Being in hospital is a splendid change now and then. It is lovely to be organized by quantities of kind-hearted females...how was I to know that the laundryman was fond enough of me to come with a jar of apple jelly?...The B.B.C. wants to commission a 90-minute play from me and are offering what is for them the enormous figure of almost L500 for 2 performances. I was all for this in principle but was at my wits end for a subject when I suddenly had the good luck to remember the Bible...to my intense surprise...the two books of Samuel might have been written by Sir Thomas Malory..." October 15, 1959, "This is to implore you...to coax Michael into doing something - I never understood what - about these tapes of me teaching Jimmo about Macbeth. If it is too much and he is worried about business things, don't bother him But I happen to know that I am a genius - there is no boastfulness about this at all, it is like knowing that you squint...If only those buggers Lerner & Lowe would give me lots of money at once..." October 30, 1959, "It was good to hear from you, as the whole of my life is at a standstill, and I am feeling suicidal...The local watch[?] has lost a bit of my 16 mm camera. I hear nothing from Julie Andrews...And, worst of all - did I tell you? - Lerner & Loewe of My Fair Lady seem to have put off production for another year, are said to have observed that they have so much money that they don't know why they are working...and one of them says he has had a slight heart attack...I will draw a picture and feel better still [below is a self-caricature by White with scowl]." The group of letters total 31 full pages written in White's small script. Each letter filled with content regarding his writing, health, travels, and friendships. (14707) $5,500.00
James Joyce. Ulysses. First English Edition.
	JOYCE, James. Ulysses. London: Published for the Egoist Press by John Rodker, 1922, quarto, blue wrappers. First English Edition, Limited to 2000 numbered copies of which 500 were reportedly destroyed by U.S. Customs. Printed in France from the Shakespeare and Company plates. Slocum & Cahoon A18. Small bit of blue paper missing at spine, about 1 1/4" x 1/2". Back outer hinge weak at the bottom three inches. No bookplates or previous owner's notations. A solid copy. (13344) $4,500.00
T. H. White. Verses. Copy #1 with letters of congratulations.
	WHITE, T. H. Verses. Alderney: (Privately Printed for the Author at the Shenval Press, 1962, octavo, quarter vellum and cloth. T.e.g. First Edition, Limited to 100 numbered copies. The author's own copy, No. 1 of 100 printed. With a holograph manuscript, 6 pp., oblong octavo, written on the verso of p. 43, two blank leaves, and the rear free endpaper, inscribed at the end, "--in a Restaurant in Rome, Christmas 1962." of White's poem "Buon Gusto Qui" or "Good Eating" written out in both Italian and English on alternating leaves. Together with seven autograph letters, signed, and a typed letter, signed, to White from other authors to whom he had sent a copy of "Verses", thanking him for the book. A fine letter from Siegfried Sassoon, 2pp, closely written, 25 February 1963, signed with his monogram, begins, "...were you ever anything but brilliant and stimulating with your pen? You do write so well -- born 'James player' that you are. Not that most of the poems are Jamesome, but they hit the mark all right...", and concludes, "Thank you for your beautiful book which so illustrates your giftedness of mind and wordcraft." On 25 February 1962, in a letter signed "Bunny", 2 pp, folio, David Garnett paints a picture of White's future, "...when you & I are fleshless peachstones -- if that -- people will be moved by your Welsh crusaders & laugh at your pheasant & the feelings that came out of you like sparks from a log, racing up the chimney, will catch in unknown people & burn for a few moments as they burned in you." An autograph letter, signed, 2pp., quarto, 26 February 1963, from Sylvia Townsend Warner, White's future biographer, praises his poems, but notes the blank leaves at the end of the book, "There are five beautiful blank pages at the end of your book. Perhaps one day you will write a poem on one of them." John Betjeman, typed letter, signed, one page, 28 February 1963, affectionately writes, "I love your poems. Yes, old boy. I love them. And I am very proud to have a presentation copy of this rare Alderney publication." H. E. Bates, 1 1/2pp, 11 March 1963, is humble, stating, "I was overwhelmed by what you said about my book. I have never been able to accept the fact that it was any good." He then asks White to read his upcoming book on Ruskin and offer advice. Also present are letters to White by Siriol Hugh-Jones and Francis Legh, and a black-and-white photograph, approximately 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" depicting White smoking a cigarette beside the ocean. Very minor fading to the cloth of the book, else all in fine condition. (16683) $11,500.00
Transition: Djuna Barnes, James Joyce, Kay Boyle, W. C. Williams...
	JOLAS, Eugene, editor. Transition: An International Quarterly for Creative Experiment. Number 9. Paris: December, 1927, small octavo, printed wrappers. With contributions by Djuna Barnes, William Carlos Williams, Joan Miro, Eugene Jolas, Laura Riding, Max Ernst, Hart Crane, Kay Boyle, Yvor Winters, and others. Spine very slightly faded, edges of wrappers with faint waterstain. Unopened. (16828) $100.00 JOLAS, Eugene, editor. Transition: An International Quarterly for Creative Experiment. Number 15. Paris: February, 1929, octavo, pictorial wrappers. Pages 195-238 contain a portion of James Joyce's "Work in Progess" with an article about "Work in Progress" by Robert McAlmon in which he quotes a passage which did not appear in the final work. See Slocum and Cahoon 70 and 73. This issue also contain writings and artwork by Man Ray, Moholy-Nagy, Piedro Rivers, Malcolm Cowley, William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, Archibal Macleish, Elliot Paul, Hart Crane, Eugene Jolas, Kay Boyle, Harry Crosby, Katherine Anne Porter, Louis Zukofsky, and many others. This copy has the fragile tipped-on contents leaf which covers much of the front wrapper. One inch closed tear at top outer edge of front hinge. Although the newsprint quality paper used has brown, this copy is unopened and has not suffered chipping to edge of pages. (16827) $300.00 JOLAS, Eugene, editor. Transition: An International Quarterly for Creative Experiment. Number 25. Paris: Fall, 1936, octavo, pictorial wrappers. Contributions by Eugene Jolas, Dylan Thomas, Franz Kafka, Piet Mondrian, L. Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, and many others. An exceptionally fine, clean copy of this issue with the Jean Miro cover. (16831) $250.00