BIB_ID
410345
Accession number
MA 9391
Creator
Tomlinson, H. M. (Henry Major), 1873-1958
Display Date
1927 December 15.
Credit line
Purchased, 1956.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 20.7 x 15.4 cm
Notes
Written on stationery engraved "85, Waddon Road, / Croydon" and signed "Tommy."
Part of a collection of Letters of Cobden-Sanderson purchased in 1956 and not previously accessioned (see MA 1754).
Edmund Blunden and "Tommy" Tomlinson both were at Aveluy Wood in World War I. The reference to Wells may possibly be to H.G. Wells.
Part of a collection of Letters of Cobden-Sanderson purchased in 1956 and not previously accessioned (see MA 1754).
Edmund Blunden and "Tommy" Tomlinson both were at Aveluy Wood in World War I. The reference to Wells may possibly be to H.G. Wells.
Provenance
Purchased at a Sotheby's sale 27 June 1956, lot. 708.
Summary
Concerning a mutual friend, possibly Edmund Blunden, who is reading at the Doves Press the following night; saying "I can't be there. It is too bad. Fate has dealt me a nasty upper cut, & I'm taking the count : about ten days indoors. First time sick enough to be kept in for years, but I cannot help it. Give our Nightingale my benediction. Tell him I must stay in & read his poems, instead of drinking beer with him (do nightingales drink beer?)[.] Tell him that I am well aware that Friday the night of 16 December 1927 at the Doves will be in the Annals of the Earth - I know it - but what is but one night at Hammersmith to Immortality? Tell him I shall indent H.Q. Hades for leave each year to visit Parnassus & he shall meet me at the foot of the slope (I shouldn't be allowed up in case I met someone who recognized me as a damned war correspondent) with a rum jar & two enamelled tin cups. And then we'll talk of Mesnil, & the Dryad of Aveluy Wood. But I'll see him before that;" adding, in a postscript, "Nor can Wells of Harpers come. But I'm telling his representative Hamilton to put in an appearance, if he can."
Catalog link
Department