BAX, Clifford. Evenings in Albany, London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1942, 8°, FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED on front blank by Bax whose explanation of the figure of "The Dweller on the Threshold" begins: "What an attentive reader I have found, John Arlott, in you ... ," original grey cloth (slightly discoloured), dust-jacket; Rosemary for Remembrance, London, Frederick Muller, 1948, 8°, FIRST EDITION, frontispiece, original cloth, dust-jacket, with the author's signed typescript of one of the chapters, "Portrait of Mr. W.S.," loosely-inserted together with 2 photographs, one inscribed, and 3 letters from the author to John Arlott, one dated November 1944, all concerning the Shakespeare portrait and the story that Bax is to publish about it; and 2 other works by Bax, both inscribed to Arlott. (4)

Details

BAX, Clifford. Evenings in Albany, London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1942, 8°, FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED on front blank by Bax whose explanation of the figure of "The Dweller on the Threshold" begins: "What an attentive reader I have found, John Arlott, in you ... ," original grey cloth (slightly discoloured), dust-jacket; Rosemary for Remembrance, London, Frederick Muller, 1948, 8°, FIRST EDITION, frontispiece, original cloth, dust-jacket, with the author's signed typescript of one of the chapters, "Portrait of Mr. W.S.," loosely-inserted together with 2 photographs, one inscribed, and 3 letters from the author to John Arlott, one dated November 1944, all concerning the Shakespeare portrait and the story that Bax is to publish about it; and 2 other works by Bax, both inscribed to Arlott. (4)

Lot Essay

"Portrait of Mr. W.S." concerns a portrait "of Shakespeare" attributed to Frans Hals. Bax relates how he acquired it, and in his efforts to convince other people that the sitter is, indeed, Shakespeare, introduces into the story John Arlott, "the poet-detective" who "came to Albany on his way to Broadcasting House, where he was to give in his pleasant Hampshire brogue a talk about cricket ...." (p. 140). Arlott wishes to do a broadcast on the discovery but this is not permitted by the B.B.C. without the corroboration of an art historian who proves sceptical. A note on the typescript and a reference in one of the letters both indicate that the story was first published in the revived New English Review of May, 1945.

More from Printed Books

View All