Details
HERBERT, Sir A[LAN] P[ATRICK]. Autograph manuscript signed of Holy Deadlock, the novel that helped to change divorce laws in England, n.p., n.d. [London? ca. 1932-33]. Approximately 935 pages, 4to, including preliminary leaves, pages with notes, etc., written in pencil almost entirely on rectos of plain white sheets (disbound from notebooks), a working draft with extensive to very heavy revisions; loosely enclosed in three plain green cloth covers. [With:] Autograph manuscript signed of his "Author's Note," dated June 1957, 1 page, 4to, in ink, describing the writing of the book and referring to this manuscript (for an auction appearance of the work?); a copy of the first American edition of Holy Deadlock, Garden City: Doubleday, Doran, 1934, 8vo, original red cloth.
The English novelist and essayist A.P. Herbert is perhaps best known for his The Water Gipsies (1930). In 1934 he published Holy Deadlock, a novel dealing with the obsolete and punishing English divorce laws. As he writes in his introduction to the 1954 Penguin edition of the work (tear sheets of the text present in this lot): "It is not for me to suggest that this book has any literary merit; but it may deserve a modest place in political history, for it helped, I believe, to change the law of the land. It was first published in April 1934. In November 1935 I was elected to the House of Commons. In 1936 I presented a divorce reform Bill called the Marriage Bill. In July 1937, very surprisingly, after a long, severe Parliamentary struggle, this received the Royal Assent as the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1937. I do not claim that the walls of Jericho fell down because of the book; I cannot remember that it was ever mentioned in debate: but I think it had softened the climate of public opinion in which Members of Parliament have their being, and so made it easier for many to support, or accept, a reform which had always been considered politically perilous."
The English novelist and essayist A.P. Herbert is perhaps best known for his The Water Gipsies (1930). In 1934 he published Holy Deadlock, a novel dealing with the obsolete and punishing English divorce laws. As he writes in his introduction to the 1954 Penguin edition of the work (tear sheets of the text present in this lot): "It is not for me to suggest that this book has any literary merit; but it may deserve a modest place in political history, for it helped, I believe, to change the law of the land. It was first published in April 1934. In November 1935 I was elected to the House of Commons. In 1936 I presented a divorce reform Bill called the Marriage Bill. In July 1937, very surprisingly, after a long, severe Parliamentary struggle, this received the Royal Assent as the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1937. I do not claim that the walls of Jericho fell down because of the book; I cannot remember that it was ever mentioned in debate: but I think it had softened the climate of public opinion in which Members of Parliament have their being, and so made it easier for many to support, or accept, a reform which had always been considered politically perilous."