Letter from Douglas Percy Bliss, Glasgow, to Margaret Pilkington, 1949 March 8 : mimeograph of a typescript.

Writing in response to a query about the wood engraver Eric Ravilious, who, along with Balston, attended the Engraving School of the Royal College; stating that the professor of engraving was Sir William Short, who "never concerned himself much with Wood-Engraving", and that those students who were interested in the craft "picked the matter up for ourselves"; adding that "there were only two people failed in the written exam of the Royal College in the subject of Wood-Engraving, - one of these was Ravilious and another myself", writing that they received some technical help from a couple of the older students, including John Platt (head of the Hornsey School of Art), and that some the "best artists at the R.C.A." failed to get into the School of Engraving, including Edward Bawden, "because Sir Frank thought their drawing was not good enough, but remarking that he has "no quarrel with Sir Frank" who was a great man" but "not interested in the modern movement in Wood-Engraving"; listing the books he has illustrated with his own wood engravings, and stating that "Of recent years I have only used wood-engravings as a means of producing Book Plates".