![SASSOON, Siegfried (1886-1967). Lenten Illuminations and Sight Sufficient. Downside Abbey, near Bath: Catholic Records Press for Downside Review Publication, 1959. 8° (205 x 130mm). Original printed grey wrappers (lightly faded at outer edges, corners lightly bumped). Provenance: Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984, presentation inscription on front free endpaper 'J.B. from SS [monogram] Pentecost [i.e. 5 June], 1960.'). OFFPRINT EDITION LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, PRESENTATION COPY, this copy unnumbered. Keynes A60c.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2006/CSK/2006_CSK_04074_0205_000(010056).jpg?w=1)
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SASSOON, Siegfried (1886-1967). Lenten Illuminations and Sight Sufficient. Downside Abbey, near Bath: Catholic Records Press for Downside Review Publication, 1959. 8° (205 x 130mm). Original printed grey wrappers (lightly faded at outer edges, corners lightly bumped). Provenance: Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984, presentation inscription on front free endpaper 'J.B. from SS [monogram] Pentecost [i.e. 5 June], 1960.'). OFFPRINT EDITION LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, PRESENTATION COPY, this copy unnumbered. Keynes A60c.
S. SASSOON. Autograph letter signed with monogram ('SS') to Sir John Betjeman, Heytesbury, 5 June 1960, 1 1/3 pages, 8°.
PRESENTATION COPY OF LENTEN ILLUMINATIONS INSCRIBED TO JOHN BETJEMAN, WITH THE COVERING LETTER DISCUSSING THE POET IAN DAVIE AND RONALD KNOX. Ian Davie (1924-2000) had written to Sassoon in April 1960, sending some of his religious poems (inspired, in part, by reading Sassoon's religious poetry), and the older man befriended him; Sassoon writes to Betjeman that Davie is staying at Heytesbury -- 'I wish you could meet him. (He is one of your appreciators, and is aching for your autobiography)', and describes Davie's education, noting that he was a contemporary of Kingsley Amis, John Wain, and Philip Larkin at Oxford -- '(P.L. writes very well, doesn't he?)'. 'A comforting touch was, when he told me that he talked to Ronald [Knox] after he'd been received [into the Catholic church] at Campion Hall ... R[onald] happening to be staying at the Old Palace. I am taking him to Mells this afternoon'; Sassoon had hoped that he would by instructed by the celebrated Catholic priest and writer Ronald Knox, but the diagnosis of Knox's liver cancer in early 1957 prevented this, and, following his death in August, he was buried in the churchyard at Mells (where Sassoon would also be buried). Sassoon then requests Betjeman's help to find a publisher for Davie's poems, 'if Rupert H[art].-D[avis]. doesn't come up to the scratch'; the collection was eventually published by the Harvill Press as Piers Prodigal and Other Poems with a foreword by Sassoon in 1961. Lenten Illuminations was first published in Summer 1958 in The Downside Review lxxvi, no. 245, pp. 219-222, followed by an edition of 58 copies in November 1958, and this offprint of the The Downside Review text in 1959. (2)
S. SASSOON. Autograph letter signed with monogram ('SS') to Sir John Betjeman, Heytesbury, 5 June 1960, 1 1/3 pages, 8°.
PRESENTATION COPY OF LENTEN ILLUMINATIONS INSCRIBED TO JOHN BETJEMAN, WITH THE COVERING LETTER DISCUSSING THE POET IAN DAVIE AND RONALD KNOX. Ian Davie (1924-2000) had written to Sassoon in April 1960, sending some of his religious poems (inspired, in part, by reading Sassoon's religious poetry), and the older man befriended him; Sassoon writes to Betjeman that Davie is staying at Heytesbury -- 'I wish you could meet him. (He is one of your appreciators, and is aching for your autobiography)', and describes Davie's education, noting that he was a contemporary of Kingsley Amis, John Wain, and Philip Larkin at Oxford -- '(P.L. writes very well, doesn't he?)'. 'A comforting touch was, when he told me that he talked to Ronald [Knox] after he'd been received [into the Catholic church] at Campion Hall ... R[onald] happening to be staying at the Old Palace. I am taking him to Mells this afternoon'; Sassoon had hoped that he would by instructed by the celebrated Catholic priest and writer Ronald Knox, but the diagnosis of Knox's liver cancer in early 1957 prevented this, and, following his death in August, he was buried in the churchyard at Mells (where Sassoon would also be buried). Sassoon then requests Betjeman's help to find a publisher for Davie's poems, 'if Rupert H[art].-D[avis]. doesn't come up to the scratch'; the collection was eventually published by the Harvill Press as Piers Prodigal and Other Poems with a foreword by Sassoon in 1961. Lenten Illuminations was first published in Summer 1958 in The Downside Review lxxvi, no. 245, pp. 219-222, followed by an edition of 58 copies in November 1958, and this offprint of the The Downside Review text in 1959. (2)
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