WEST
(1908-2007, Social Advocate, Novelist and Playwright, niece of Somerset Maugham), saying she has "often wanted to get in touch with you. But I have wasted the last few years in winding up my husband's estate, which has nearly driven me mad, and all my married life our affairs have been handed over punctiliously to a firm of accountants, who have now handed it back to me in the state of a piece of knitting played with by a litter of kittens. As I picked up the stitches I have had more and. more trouble with. my eyes and so. life has been a shambles. I've got my eyes as right as I can and tried to get the knitting on the needles again, and I would like to see you! Thank you for your book and your kind lunch. (That was a lovely party Sarah and Marjorie gave for me! And I saw so many people lie you that I had been barred off from for so long). I will read your book with pleasure. About Barbara - she is very glad of company if one can sacrifice oneself for an hour or two. She is very old now, and very stiff. and very distraught. But she is sweet and affectionate with her bitchiness and it is all very sad.", 2 sides 8vo., with original autograph envelope, 48 Kingston House North, Prince's Gate, S.W.7., 9th February Marr-Johnson was well known for her charitable activities on behalf of the poor. During World War II she opened a meeting place in London called Beauchamp Lodge, where poor women could find respite from the grinding poverty and shocking living conditions that surrounded them. It wasn't long before the lodge became a sort of women's club, then added a nursery center, youth shelter, and soup kitchen. Marr-Johnson devoted much time and effort to keep the refuge open by raising funds, delivering public lectures, and working at the centre itself. Eventually Beauchamp Lodge collected clothing and found housing for people displaced by wartime bombings during the Blitz; its founder's efforts were so successful that the lodge remains in operation today. In September 1912, West accused the famously libertine writer H. G. Wells of being "the Old Maid among novelists". This was part of a provocative review of his novel Marriage published in Freewoman an obscure and short-lived feminist weekly review. The review attracted Wells's interest and an invitation to lunch at his home. The two writers became lovers in late 1913, despite Wells being both married and twenty-six years older than West. Their 10-year relationship produced a son, Anthony West. Their friendship lasted until Wells's death in 1946. West is also said to have had relationships with Charlie Chaplin, newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, and journalist John Gunther. In 1930, at the age of 37, she married a banker, Henry Maxwell Andrews, and they remained nominally together, despite one public affair just before his death in 1968.
OLIPHANT
asking her "to do me a service which I fear you will think a very odd one? I am anxious at this moment to be present at some trials for a serious offence if possible murder - I find that assizes are going on at Aylesbury and that it is the nearest place to which I could go on this uncomfortable mission. Would it be taking too great a liberty with the kindness you have more than once shown me, were I to ask you if you could kindly find out for me if anything of the kind is coming on at Aylesbury and when? Pray pardon me - I feel it is the strangest commission which a lady could be asked to undertake - but I am rather desperate about it, feeling that the time is hurrying on and assizes closing and my murder slipping through my fingers - if you would be so very good as to inquire into this for me. I should be infinitely obliged.", 3 sides 8vo., with original autograph envelope, The Crescent, Windsor, 10th March crest removed with the loss of a few words of text In 1873 Mrs Oliphant published her novel Innocent. At the beginning of the book the Eastwood family learn that Mrs. Eastwood's late sister's husband has died, forcing them to take in their child, Innocent. The Eastwoods have never met Innocent, but are excited about her arrival. Innocent fails to emotionally connect with any of the family members except Frederick who she falls in love with, but he marries another woman. Frederick's wife is severely ill, and while she is under Innocent's care, Innocent accidentally kills her by overdosing her on opiate. Innocent is tried for murder and is eventually acquitted, later going on to marry the much, much older Sir Alexis Longueville. While pregnant, Innocent tries to administer medicine to the ill Sir Longville, but in a heated moment, he makes a comment about how she could poison him as she has done it before. She flees the house and loses her unborn child before Sir Longville dies.
MICHAEL
(1911-1994, KCMG, OBE, HM Ambassador to Greece and Minister at the British Embassy in Washington) telling him that he has received "your very touching letter to Philip Hay. Thank you so very much for your sympathy. I was much moved by the number of kind people who signed the book in the Embassy. Thank you for your letter which Mr Goodenough has just given me. I look forward to seeing you in the near future.", 2 sides 4to., on mourning paper, with original autograph envelope marked "by hand", Athens Airport, 6th September no year From the collection of Sir Michael Stewart (1911-1994, KCMG, OBE, HM Ambassador to Greece and Minister at the British Embassy in Washington)
OLIPHANT
saying that he "must write you a farewell line, I have just come down from Dalich to make my house ready for Lady. Duff & her family whom I expect by the next boat. She arrives with three little girls, a governess, nurse & cook, & he comes later, by way of Constantinople with a secretary & manservant. The two latter will live at the Hotel. My people will always all live up at Dalich where I have been making the house comfortable for them, but they will have notwithstanding a pretty rough time. I am sending back my Will by this mail to Eyres. What fearfully hot weather we have been having. I hope it has not caused you suffering. I have felt nothing like it since I have been in the Country. Now that the Carmel question has been settled as between the Colony & the Monks, the Colony is quarrelling over it in consequence of Keller the German Count's action which has been very unjustifiable. Indeed I have had some personal experience with him, which convinces me that he is as bad as any Arab, so far as truth & honor in money matters. a thoroughly bad lot, because he is such a hypocrite. His object is to sow dissension in the Colony & pit the Germans against the Americans, to which end he abuses his official position. I have heard nothing against Schneider [?] of late - he seems to be doing better and it was really through his mediation that the Carmel affair was sorted - so far as the Monks were concerned. There is a new Mere Superior now - a Maltese. The Vali has been cruising up and down here, and has bought. for a fabulously small sum - He is giving to present it to the Sultan with a view to future favors - He is the worst robber so far as the peasantry are concerned that we have had, and demoralises the officials by his wholesale taking of bribes. I get on very well with my Druzes at Dalich.", 4 sides 8vo., Haifa, 3rd November, dated in another hand In May 1879, Oliphant was in Constantinople petitioning the Sublime Porte for permission to establish a Jewish agricultural colony in the Holy Land and settling large numbers of Jews there (this was prior to the first wave of Jewish settlement by Zionists in 1882). He did not see it as an impossible task in view of the large numbers of Christian believers in the United States and England who supported that plan. With financial support from Christadelphians and others in Britain, Oliphant amassed sufficient funding to purchase land and settle Jewish refugees in the Galilee. The Oliphants settled in Palestine, dividing their time between a house in the German Colony in Haifa, and another in the Druze village of Daliyat al-Karmel on Mount Carmel. In December 1885, his wife Alice became ill and died on 2nd January 1886. Oliphant, also stricken, was too weak to attend her funeral. Oliphant was persuaded that after Alice's death he was in much closer contact with her than when she was still alive, and believed that she inspired him to write Scientific Religion: Or, Higher Possibilities of Life and Practice Through the Operation of Natural Forces, which was published in November 1887.
CHRISTIE
saying that they "did enjoy our evening with you so much - It was a delightful party & all your guests were such fun to meet. I am still full of interest in your Italian home to be - Houses have always been my passion - usually acquiring interesting looking wrecks & having fun doing them up, living in them for a year or two, then selling & starting again; a pastime put a stop to by the discovery I'd have to pay War Damage Insurance on them all - & nobody wanted to buy - only the one we really wanted to live in was bombed! But I never got as far as building a house. I was entranced by Washington & hope to come again sometime. Your husband was extraordinarily kind in all the help he gave us. I hope we shall see you again in England.", 2 sides 4to., Wade Park Manor headed paper, Cleveland, Ohio, 5th November the year added in another hand In August 1926, her husband Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He had fallen in love with Nancy Neele. On 3rd December 1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie announced his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his wife. Late that evening, Christie disappeared from their home in Sunningdale. The disappearance quickly became a news story, as the press sought to satisfy their readers' "hunger for sensation, disaster, and scandal". Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for another 10 days. On 14th December 1926, she was located at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, 184 miles north of her home in Sunningdale, registered as "Mrs Tressa[d] Neele" (the surname of her husband's lover). In 1928, Christie left England and took the Orient Express to Istanbul and then to Baghdad. In Iraq, she became friends with archaeologist Leonard Woolley and his wife, who invited her to return to their dig in February 1930. On that second trip, she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, 13 years her junior. He was her husband for the rest of her life. From the collection of Sir Michael Stewart (1911-1994, KCMG, OBE, HM Ambassador to Greece and Minister at the British Embassy in Washington)
CHAMBERLAIN
(John Thomas, 1831-1902, Polymath, Printer and Lexicographer) saying that "it may please you to know that in the final arrangements there will be no licences to sell liquor either to whites or to blacks in Khama's country. There is one existing. licence in Bathoen's reserve, but that will be extinguished. White men residing in the country, & desiring alcoholic liquors, will have to apply for and obtain a permit to import sufficient for their personal use, but if they abuse this privilege, or part with any liquor so obtained to natives, the permit will at once be taken away.", 2 sides 8vo., 40 Prince's Gardens headed paper, 23rd November together with Bellow's Autograph reply, saying that he is very "grateful. as I am sure everyone will be who has felt an interest in the Bechuana Chiefs, for the care and judgement with which those that brought their matter to a settlement honorable to England and laying a firm foundation stone for the Empire in Africa.", 1 side 8vo., 28th November Khama's Country was in Botswana. San (Bushmen) were the aboriginal inhabitants but they constitute only a small portion of the population today. The Tswana supplanted the San, who remained as subjects. Beginning in the 1820s, the region was disrupted by the expansion of the Zulu and their offshoot, the Ndebele. However, Khama II, chief of the Ngwato (the largest Tswana nation), curbed the depredations of the Ndebele and established a fairly unified state. A new threat arose in the late 19th cent. with the incursion of Boers (Afrikaners) from neighboring Transvaal. After gold was discovered in the region in 1867, the Transvaal government sought to annex parts of Botswana. Although the British forbade annexation, the Boers continued to encroach on native lands during the 1870s and 80s. German colonial expansion in South West Africa (Namibia) caused the British to reexamine their policies, and, urged on by Khama III, they established (188485) a protectorate called Bechuanaland. Britain provided for the eventual transfer of Bechuanaland to the Union of South Africa. From the 1895 general election the Liberal Unionists were in coalition with the Conservative Party, under Chamberlain's former opponent Lord Salisbury. In that government Chamberlain served as Secretary of State for the Colonies, promoting a variety of schemes to build up the Empire in Asia, Africa, and the West Indies. He had major responsibility for causing the Second Boer War (18991902) in South Africa and was the government minister most responsible for the war effort.
BARNARD
showing him head and shoulders, smiling, wearing a striped jacket, 5" x 3½", no place, no date but postmarked 25th October Barnard performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant operation. On 3rd December 1967, Barnard transplanted the heart of accident victim Denise Darvall into the chest of 54-year-old Louis Washkansky, with Washkansky regaining full consciousness and being able to talk easily with his wife, before dying eighteen days later of pneumonia, largely brought on by the anti-rejection drugs that suppressed his immune system. Barnard had told Mr. and Mrs. Washkansky that the operation had an 80% chance of success, an assessment which has been criticised as misleading. Barnard's second transplant patient, Philip Blaiberg, whose operation was performed at the beginning of 1968, returned home from the hospital and lived for a year and a half.
WARWICK
showing her half length seated in an armchair wearing a lacy dress, 5½" x 3½", no place, no date Harold BAKER (1860-1942) was a British photographer who was based in Birmingham, England. Frances Maynard was considered a possible wife for Queen Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold (later Duke of Albany). The Queen desired this and used Lord Beaconsfield to influence the Maynard family to this end. However, the match fell through by mutual choice. In 1881 Frances married Francis Greville, Lord Brooke, the eldest son and heir of George Greville, 4th Earl of Warwick, although her parents did not initially approve. Lord Brooke succeeded to the earldom in 1893, and the family moved to Warwick Castle. Daisy's first child, and probably the only one fathered by her husband, was Leopold Guy (18821928), who later became the sixth Earl of Warwick. Marjorie Blanche (18841964), born three years after the marriage, was Daisy's second child. Daisy, in a 1923 conversation with Basil Dean, the husband of Mercy, stated that Marjorie was fathered by Lord Charles Beresford. The third, Charles Algernon (18851887), died aged 16 months, and may also have been fathered by Beresford. Daisy's fourth child was a son, Maynard (18981960), and the fifth, a daughter, Mercy (19041968). These were fathered by Joseph Frederick (Joe) Laycock, a millionaire bachelor with whom Daisy was infatuated despite his faithlessness to her. Mercy was fathered by Laycock after he had married Katherine Mary (Kitty), the Marchioness of Downshire, on 14th November 1902, after she had been divorced by Arthur Hill, 6th Marquess of Downshire, citing adultery with Laycock. Daisy and her husband were members of the 'Marlborough House Set', headed by Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. Beginning in 1886, as was the unspoken 'code' for aristocrats of her set, she became involved in affairs with several powerful men, most notably the Prince of Wales.
PAXTON
saying that he has received their letter "and I reply without a moment's delay - unfortunately the postage betwixt here and Manchester is so badly arranged that it requires 2 days to pass a letter from here to you - I should have been happy to furnish you with all the particulars of the Chatsworth Fete but have sent them to the Derby Reporter and I have requested them to forward you a paper which you will most likely receive as soon as you get this.", 3 sides 8vo., Chatsworth, 4th November Paxton remained the Head Gardener at Chatsworth until 1858, he was also able to undertake outside work such as the Crystal Palace and his directorship of the Midland Railway. He worked on public parks in Liverpool, Birkenhead, Glasgow, Halifax (the People's Park) and the grounds of the Spa Buildings at Scarborough. In October 1845 he was invited to lay out one of the country's first municipal burial grounds in Coventry. This became the London Road Cemetery, where a memorial to Paxton by Joseph Goddard was erected in 1868. Between 1835 and 1839, he organised plant-hunting expeditions one of which ended in tragedy when two gardeners from Chatsworth sent to California drowned. Tragedy also struck at home when his eldest son died. In 1850, Paxton was commissioned by Baron Mayer de Rothschild to design Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire. This was to be one of the greatest country houses built during the Victorian Era. Following the completion of Mentmore, Baron James de Rothschild, one of Baron de Rothschild's French cousins, commissioned Château de Ferrières at Ferrières-en-Brie near Paris to be "Another Mentmore, but twice the size". Both buildings still stand today. In 1860, he also designed Fairlawn No. 89 Wimbledon Southside for Sir Edwin Saunders, Queen Victoria's dentist.
PATTI
"Music is the outflow of a beautiful mind", 1 side 8vo., on paper with a blue and silver crested monogram and the address, Craig-Y-Nos Castle, Breconshire, South Wales, Patti's last marriage, in 1899, was to Baron Rolf Cederström (18701947), a priggish, but handsome, Swedish aristocrat many years her junior. The Baron severely curtailed Patti's social life. He cut down her domestic staff from 40 to 18, but gave her the devotion and flattery that she needed, becoming her sole legatee. After her death, he married a much younger woman. Their only daughter, Brita Yvonne Cederström (born 1924), ended up as Patti's sole heir. In her retirement, Patti, now officially Baroness Cederström, settled in the Swansea Valley in Wales, where she purchased Craig-y-Nos Castle. There she had a $2000 billiard table installed, and her own private theatre, a miniature version of the one at Bayreuth, and made her gramophone recordings.
PARRY
saying that he has a "dinner engagement every day till the 13th, I wrote to Captain Lyon to ask if he could accept your very kind invitation on that day. I now enclose his reply, and can only say that on any day after the 20th (except the 28th) I shall be most happy to wait upon you, Lyon in Coy." 1 side 8vo., Admiralty, no date Captain George Francis LYON (1796-1832) was an English naval officer and explorer of Africa and the Arctic. While not having a particularly distinguished career, he is remembered for the entertaining journals he kept and for the pencil drawings he completed in the Arctic; this information was useful to later expeditions. in 1821, he was given the command of HMS Hecla under William Edward Parry on his second attempt at the Northwest Passage. In early 1819 HMS Hecia was converted to an Arctic exploration ship and made three journeys to the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage, and made one attempt on the North Pole, all under Lieutenant William Edward Parry or Commander Lyon, and spent many winters iced in without serious damage. On her second expedition, from May 1821 until November 1823, Hecla was under Lyon's command while Parry led the overall expedition from her sister ship Fury. The furthest point on this trip, the perpetually frozen strait between Foxe Basin and the Gulf of Boothia, was named after the two ships: Fury and Hecla Strait.
OLIPHANT
asking she is "not quite sure whether you mean Thursday next, or Thursday next week - either of them will suit me. Cyril is going to ask Mr Marindin for a loan of a book this afternoon. and you will please tell him which it is - he will be at home next Thursday but not next week so he would intensely vote for the former." ending that she hopes her baby is better and with a postscript that she would be "delighted to see your brother.", 1½ sides 8vo., on crested paper, Windsor, Sunday, no date, circa In 1852 Margaret had married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant. He was an artist working mainly in stained glass. Three of their six children died in infancy. Her husband developed tuberculosis and for his health they moved in January 1859 to Florence and then to Rome, where he died. This left Oliphant in need of an income. She returned to England and took up literature to support her three surviving children. She had become a popular writer by then and worked notably hard to sustain her position. Unfortunately, her home life was full of sorrow and disappointment. In January 1864 her one remaining daughter Maggie died in Rome and was buried in her father's grave. Her brother, who had emigrated to Canada, was shortly afterwards involved in financial ruin. Oliphant offered a home to him and his children, adding their support to already heavy responsibilities. In 1866 she settled at Windsor to be near her sons, who were attending Eton. Windsor was her home for the rest of her life. Over more than 30 years she pursued a varied literary career, but personal troubles continued. Her ambitions for her sons remained unfulfilled. Cyril Francis, the elder, died in 1890, leaving a Life of Alfred de Musset, incorporated in his mother's Foreign Classics for English Readers.
LEIGH
saying that it was "so kind of you to arrange such a perfectly lovely luncheon party. What great good fun Jo Alsop is! & I was so happy to meet the Watkins again.", 2 sides 8vo., Jefferson Hotel, Washington headed paper, 23rd April annotated in another hand as by Leigh. In 1960, considering her marriage to be over, Leigh began a relationship with actor Jack Merivale, who knew of Leigh's medical condition and assured Olivier that he would care for her. She and Olivier divorced and Olivier soon married actress Joan Plowright. In his autobiography, Olivier discussed the years of strain they had experienced because of Leigh's illness: "Throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canninessan ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble". Merivale proved to be a stabilising influence for Leigh, but despite her apparent contentment, she was quoted by Radie Harris as confiding that she "would rather have lived a short life with Larry than face a long one without him". It is strange that she signed as Mrs Olivier when she had been divorced from him for six years. From the collection of Sir Michael Stewart (1911-1994, KCMG, OBE, HM Ambassador to Greece and Minister at the British Embassy in Washington)
O'CASEY
thanking them "for so kindly asking Mrs O'Casey and me to come to the first production of Timon of Athens. I rarely go to first nights, & I am sorry that I cannot go on Tuesday. I hope to have the pleasure of seeing production & performance at the end of this week, or at the start of the next. I sincerely wish the enterprise every success.", 1 side 4to., Forty Nine Overstrand Mansions, Prince of Wales Road headed paper, 18th November Alderson Burrell HORNE (who took the pseudonym of Anmer Hall, 1863-1953, Actor Manager, owner of the Westminster Theatre). He was the licensee of the Westminster Theatre from 1931 to 1947, and took leading roles in productions there, under the stage name Waldo Wright. Early in his tenure at the Westminster, the overlapping company of the Group Theatre of London emerged, with outsiders such as Rupert Doone and Ormerod Greenwood. Horne directed The Dance of Death by W. H. Auden in its October 1935 production by the Group Theatre. Timon of Athens is a play written by William Shakespeare and probably also Thomas Middleton in about 1606. It was published in the First Folio in 1623.
CHAMBERLAIN
(John Thomas, 1831-1902, Polymath, Printer and Lexicographer) regretting that he missed him "at the Colonial Office yesterday. I return to London on Monday but expect to have every minute of my time engaged, and owing to the holding of Cabinet Councils I find it difficult to make any appointment with certainty of being able to keep it. I hope, however, that you and Mr Pease will think it unnecessary to do more than forward to me the minute of the Society. Since I have been in office I think I have given proof that I am determined as far as in me lies to prevent the native races of Africa over whom we have any influence from being destroyed body & soul by strong drink. I thoroughly approve of Khama's policy in this respect, and in any arrangement to which may be made as to the future every security will be taken that this good work shall not be destroyed.", 3 sides 8vo., Highbury Moor Green, Birmingham headed paper, 2nd November 1895 together with a small quantity of letters to and from Bellows on the subject, the first from H. T. Wilson saying that "Mr Chamberlain desires me to thank you. and to say. that if you and your colleagues will kindly look at the terms of the settlement between the Bechuana Chief and the Chartered Company which will very shortly be announced in the newspapers, he thinks you will find that the object of your proposed interests are sufficiently obtained.", 3 sides 8vo., Colonial Office headed paper, 9th November, the next two from Bellows to Chamberlain, one signed, the other a copy, concerning this "arrangement with the Bechuana Chiefs published in today's Times, is so admirable in its balance of the wide and varied claims that are involved in it, that it is only the feeling of the importance of one peril still left open, which has led us to ask for the interview that was kindly offered to accord to the delegates of the Society of Friends. Khama's appeal to the Colonial Office for the maintenance of his territorial rights, has met with full and just recognition and he has also appealed, with thy own full sympathy, to be upheld in the remarkable steps he has taken for the raising of his people to civilization and prosperity, especially as regards his keeping strong drink out of his territory; as Bishop Knight Bruce has put it 'almost at the point of the bayonet'. This appeal made, not only to the Cabinet, but to the masses of the English people, through the platform and the press has evoked what is practically a unanimous response from the whole country." continuing at length about Khama's government of his people and then saying that "There are however two words in the letter which, while not intended to operate against the spirit of the provision, will certainly do so. ie that White man's strong drink shall not be brought 'for sale' into the territory. If these words are embodied in the permanent document they cannot fail to act like a scratch across the tip of a dam, which begins a self-increasing leak.", each 3 sides 8vo., Gloucester, 11th of November, the next from Wilson again arranging for the requested meeting, 2 sides 8vo., Colonial Office headed paper, 13th November, the next is a long Typed Letter Signed from Rev Ralph Wardlaw THOMPSON (1842-1916, Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society) to Bellows, thanking him for the interest the Society of Friends has taken in the matter and saying that "there can be no doubt that in some parts of South Africa where the prohibitive law with reference to the sale of intoxicating liquors for natives is enforced, a good deal of mischief is done by licences to sell drink the the white men. In the territory of the three Chiefs the evil has been known only in a very modified degree. Bathoen has complained of a licence given to a store keeper at Kanye. Sebele and many of his tribesmen have I fear yielded to temptation. In Khama's country no licences of any kind have been issued. Mr Chamberlain in the settlement made with the Chiefs last week has gone much further in the direction of restriction that has been attempted by his predecessors. the Government can scarcely go furher than this in the direction of prohibition." and suggesting that there isn't a lot of point in them meeting with the Colonial Secretary, 2 sides A4, London Missionary Society headed paper, 13th November, the final two are from Bellows, saying that "the Chiefs might like to have a copy of the minute which the Society of Friends presented to the Secretary for the Colonies. it will at least assure them that they have the sympathy of many in England. A firm Imperial Government and a Queen whom we love, are blessings from heaven, yet they cannot guard against any contingency, or stave off some of the harm that comes along with the good in such changes as the opening up of African lands to our countrymen.", 3 sides 8vo., Upton Knoll, Gloucester, 22nd November and finally he thanks Chamberlain for his letter as will "everyone who has felt an interest in the Bechuana Chiefs, for the care and judgement with which thou has brought their matter to a settlement.", 1 side 8vo., no place, 25th November all Khama's Country was in Botswana. San (Bushmen) were the aboriginal inhabitants but they constitute only a small portion of the population today. The Tswana supplanted the San, who remained as subjects. Beginning in the 1820s, the region was disrupted by the expansion of the Zulu and their offshoot, the Ndebele. However, Khama II, chief of the Ngwato (the largest Tswana nation), curbed the depredations of the Ndebele and established a fairly unified state. A new threat arose in the late 19th cent. with the incursion of Boers (Afrikaners) from neighboring Transvaal. After gold was discovered in the region in 1867, the Transvaal government sought to annex parts of Botswana. Although the British forbade annexation, the Boers continued to encroach on native lands during the 1870s and 80s. German colonial expansion in South West Africa (Namibia) caused the Br
WILLIAMSON
telling him that he "ought to write your book of autobiography, forgetting all local papers, local attitudes, local prejudices, local mannerisms; write it simple & straight, & make the scenes live for us by re-creating them out of Time. Do not read or show the chapters, as you do them, to anyone. Keep it secret & growing within yourself; guard it as a mistery [sic] or urge or inspiration. Describe the fells & mosses, make pictures of them. Make a picture of your excellent inn & characters. Tell us the story of your life & doings in the places you love & relish. Write it for yourself, in secret, easily, stealthily, say 500 words daily, regularly; & soon we'll have a transcription of life. Put in the good manners & the bad manners, the uncouth keeper & the snooty person, the cadgers who 'sir' for a drink off a stranger & the poachers & the decent chaps & the fast-car ones (?) who make the car itself live, the engineers who care & have passion for perfection, the engine & the chassis, the roads, the lanes, the birds, the cider, the life you've flown along & loved & dreaded & dreamt of. Put it all in as a flowing sequence, with the 'I' of yourself as thread & mainspring, & you'll write a book which everyman will want to read & adventure with you & above all, don't feel 'Oh, this will be too dull' for it is the 'dull' things that make a book nice & authentic. Don't write for locals; forget them; write it for your secret self, & when done, get it typed & send it to me & I'll see if I can get it published in London.", 2 sides oblong 8vo., with original autograph envelope (somewhat faded), Stiffkey, Norfolk, 28th November Williamson was inspired by the Wiltshire nature writer Richard Jefferies' 'The Story of my Heart' (1883) to move to Devon and begin writing. After he had written many books including Tarka the Otter he wrote two books about Jefferies. He was a supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley and had expressed apparently pro-German opinions so when World War II broke out he was imprisoned briefly under defence regulations but he was soon allowed to return to his Norfolk farm. Visiting London in January 1944, he observed with satisfaction that what he perceived as the ugliness and immorality represented by its financial and banking sector had been "relieved a little by a catharsis of high explosive" and somewhat "purified by fire".
ORPEN
being a reproduction of a self portrait, which shows him seated on the pavement between two pictures holding his hat out, and the text, reproduced from his handwritten original saying "Please forgive me, I am writing for money. I am begging! I know it and I don't like it! But I've got to, as I have been elected by the Arts club. steward for the Artist's General Benevolent Institution 1928.9 which really means, collect all the money I can for this worthy charity.", 1 side A4, 8 South Bolton Gardens, n.d.,
