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(University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.)—In his translation of La Princesse de Clèves a note he wrote to the publisher’s reader was inadvertently printed as part of the text.

(In the hand of R. B. McKerrow.)

Taylor Institution, Oxford.—Refers to aspects of his own work (on Boswell’s Life of Johnson), and comments on Crane and Kaye’s Census of British Newspapers and Periodicals and McKerrow’s Introduction to Bibliography.

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Transcript

Taylor Institution, Oxford
7 Feb. 28.

Dear McKerrow (if you will pardon the familiarity).

I am glad you agree. I shall be able to show that Johnson suggested the publication of the Reliques to Percy some time before Shenstone & that Percy started to collect material much earlier than is generally known.

Pollard wrote to me about a week ago concerning facsimiles. I told him they were not really necessary as the editions are easily accessible & the Cancels can be dealt with without the aid of photographs.

Yes. Chapman did send me your book & I am reading it in what leisure I can snatch from other pressing duties. I will try to write a short notice for the April number, but I have to write a paper for the Johnson Club before the 14th of March & ‘one day treads on the heels of another’.

Crane & Kaye {1} get worse. I find Grose’s Olio solemnly struck down as a periodical! I think I will leave them alone for a bit & turn to better books.

If ‘marginal number’ was a recognized term I think you would have known it; but Percy was in close touch with Dodsley who may have told him. Anyhow I think his use is worth recording. {2}

Catchwords—I much prefer ‘catch-line’, but bow to authority. A good instance will be found in The Passenger of Benvenuto 1612, as book of some 600 pp. in which the Italian is printed on the versos & the English translation ‘de Messer Chingo’ otherwise Mr King, on the rectos. Percy has an instance of a separate series for text & notes. {2}

I will try to bring these points out.

I am looking forward to meeting you on the 20th.

Thanks for cards.

Yours sincerely
L. F. Powell

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{1} A Census of British Newspapers and Periodicals, 1620-1800, by R. S. Crane and F. B. Kaye.

{2} This paragraph has been marked by McKerrow by a line in the margin.

(Oxford.)—Is glad that McKerrow is planning a second edition already, and points out an error in the first. Is doubtful about setting up from dictation.

(Undated. Postmarked 24 Apr. 1928.)

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Transcript

There are no corrections in Mod. Phil. The notice is entirely descriptive.

I am glad to hear that you are preparing a second edition already. I expect you have noticed that on p. 38 you give 1520 as the date of Badius’s later device & on p. 39 as 1530. I don’t remember any other misprints.

I am very doubtful about setting-up from dictation. I think that ‘within a Parenthesis’ is certainly a marginal direction. Quite recently I marked a word to be printed in italics by writing (it) {1}—the form I use—in the margin. The compositor set up it.

Yrs
L.F.P.

Similarly I have seen ‘over’ in the text, etc. etc.

[Direction:] Dr R. B. McKerrow. | R.E.S. | 44 Museum Str. | W.C.1

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Postmarked at Oxford at 6.15 a.m. on 24 April 1928.

{1} ‘it’ is ringed in the MS.

228 Woodstock Road, Oxford.—Encloses in item for inclusion in the Review of English Studies, and draws attention to a review of An Introduction to Bibliography in Beiblatt zur Anglie.

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Transcript

228 Woodstock Rd. | Oxford.
25 Jan. 1930

Dear McKerrow

I shd be greatly obliged if you could get this in an early number of R.E.S. {1}

There was a long review of your Introduction in the December number of Beiblatt zur Anglie by one Binz. I am afraid I didn’t read it so I can’t say whether it is worth your while to look it up. The Boche is usually pretty good on Bibliography.

Yours very truly
L. F. Powell

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{1} The accompanying item was probably the text of Powell’s article ‘George Steevens and Isaac Reed’s Biographica Dramatica: Further Notes’, published in the April issue of the Review of English Studies, but the same issue also included three book reviews by Powell.