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Clarendon Press, Oxford.—An early copy of his book has been sent today. Asks where he would like his other free copies sent.

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The Clarendon Press, Oxford
23rd September 1927

Dear Sir,

We are sending to you to-day, under separate cover, an early copy of your book. {1}

You are entitled to twelve (12) free copies less the one early copy. If you care to send us the names and addresses of persons to whom you would like the remaining eleven (11) copies sent we should be pleased to despatch them from here with your compliments. If you should desire further copies you may purchase them at “author’s rates” (a discount of one-third off the published price).

Yours faithfully
G E Durham

R. B. McKerrow Esq.,
Enderley
Little Kingshill
Great Missenden
BUCKS

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Typed, except the signature. The reference ‘3249(Pub)/D’ is typed at the head after the printed words ‘Please quote’.

{1} Cf. Add. MS a. 457/2/2.

The Clarendon Press, Oxford.—Yesterday’s discussion and McKerrow’s letter have clarified the situation (the relationship between the Press and the Review of English Studies).

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P 4509

The Clarendon Press, Oxford
15 January 1924

My dear McKerrow,

Yesterday’s discussion seemed to me to be perfectly clear, though no doubt more would have had to be said if the participants or any of them had been dull of understanding. But I am glad to have your letter of 14 January, {1} which puts it in a nutshell. You leave the door tantalisingly ajar; I shall not shove it, but if anyone else should want to, he would probably know what he would find on the other side.

Yours sincerely
R. W. Chapman

R. B. McKerrow Esq.,
Messrs Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd.,
3 Adam Street, Adelphi, W.C.2.

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Typed, except the signature.

{1} Mistyped ‘Jnauary’.

The Clarendon Press, Oxford. - Thanks Trevelyan for his letter of 15 January with the book and manuscript; asks him to excuse Sisam's 'apparent neglect': has been away a while and now has the 'very heavy business of the beginning of term' to deal with. Has not yet had time to read Trevelyan's translations [of Montaigne: see 22/16-17, 21/83] or take advice; is unsure whether the translation might come under [Oxford University Press's] London Department's remit rather than the Delegates' but will go into it as soon as possible and write again.

The Clarendon Press, Oxford.—Advises what titles, etc., should be appended to his name (in the prospectus).

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The Clarendon Press, Oxford
25 Jan. 1924

My dear McKerrow

I have no decoration except plain Master of Arts and my official designation. If you think my edition of Jane Austen ‘qualifies’, by all means put it in. I think perhaps Clarendon Press had better not appear, though the Delegates will be glad that their benevolent attitude should be known indirectly.

Yours sincerely {1}
R. W. Chapman

R B McKerrow Esq

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{1} Indistinct.

The Clarendon Press, Oxford. - Thanks Trevelyan for his letter of 27 May: sorry to have kept him waiting so long regarding [his translation of] Montaigne. The 'stoppage of coal and fuel... reversed the tendency to increase book production', and there was 'no prospect' of improvement. Was therefore unfair to a project like Trevelyan's to 'try and decide about it in these bleak months'. Montaigne falls more within the remit of Oxford University Press's than that of the Delegates [of the Clarendon Press] which is these days largely restricted to academic work, and the London and American houses have 'rather tied themselves' to [the translation by Emil Trechmann]. But if Trevelyan sends the rest of the manuscript so they can get the 'effect of the selection', promises to give it consideration and a 'reasonably quick answer'; wishes they could judge manuscripts 'on their merits and not under the rule of necessity'.

The Clarendon Press, Oxford. - Trevelyan will think he has treated the question about Montaigne with 'scandalous negligence'; hopes he can forgive him, as he has had 'very heavy pressure of administrative work for some time'. The Press liked Trevelyan's translation and 'personal selection', but such a book would be more in the line of the London and New York houses who 'know about the market for books'. They have already published Trechmann's complete translation; Sisam thinks Trevelyan has 'the advantage of him at many points', but still his version is in print, set up when printing was at 'half its present price'. The London and New York houses did not think they could sell Trevelyan's selection at a price rather more than the complete Trechmann. Sisam waited for a while, hoping that 'conditions might improve', but unfortunately in the publishing world everything is 'getting always scarcer and dearer'. Hopes that Trevelyan will not think the delay in giving this 'disappointing answer' is due to a lack of interest or appreciation for his translation.

Clarendon Press, Oxford.—Asks to be notified of any errors in the accompanying advance copy.

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The Clarendon Press, Oxford
23rd September, 1927.

Dear Mr. McKerrow,

Here is your advance copy, and I hope we have got through with no more than the usual quota of final errors. Please let me know whether you approve of the cloth. It is durable, but it looked a little dull today, when it came up alongside another book in a glossy black buckram. We still have time to make any change you wish.

I hope your bibliographical tendencies have not encouraged a taste for cancels, but if you will let me know within the next few days, I shall do anything we can to put errors right. It is a very attractive book, and I am inclined to think it will have a long and steady sale. In the end we printed 1750 copies.

Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Sisam

R. B. McKerrow Esq.,
Enderley, Little Kingshill, Great Missenden, Bucks.

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Typed, except the signature. The reference ‘3249/Pub./K.S.’ is typed at the head after the printed words ‘Please quote’.

Clarendon Press, Oxford.—The free copies will be despatched as advised.

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The Clarendon Press, Oxford
26th September 1927

Dear Sir,

Thank you for the list of persons to whom you wish your free copies distributed. {1} They will be despatched on the day of publication, i.e. 20th October.

We shall be sending the copy for Prof. J. M. Manly to the University of Chicago as he will have returned to America by 20th October.

Yours faithfully
G E Durham

R. B. McKerrow Esq.,
Enderley
Little Kingshill
Great Missenden
BUCKS

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Typed, except the signature. The reference ‘3249(Pub)/D’ is typed at the head after the printed words ‘Please quote’.

{1} Cf. Add. MS. a. 457/5/3.

McKerrow considered producing an original-spelling edition of Shakespeare as early as 1910, but abandoned the idea on learning that another new edition of the writer’s works was underway. In 1929, however, he was invited by the Clarendon Press to undertake just such an edition as he had formerly had in mind. He accepted immediately and spent the remainder of his life working on the project. His progress, however, was slow, mainly owing to the pressure of other commitments and to ill health, and in 1936 he invited a fellow-scholar, Alice Walker, to assist him. With her help a substantial amount of the work for the first three volumes had been completed by the time McKerrow died in 1940, but though Walker continued to work sporadically on the edition for the rest of her life the only part ever to see print was McKerrow’s general textual introduction, published in 1939 under the title Prolegomena for the Oxford Shakespeare.

The letters in this file document this collaboration. Most of Miss Walker’s letters were written at 2 Bankfield Lane, Southport, the house she shared with her parents and her sister. Others were written during extended visits to The White House, Tite Hill, Englefield Green, in Surrey, the home of her friend and literary collaborator Gladys Doidge Willcock, and at 151 Woodstock Road, Oxford, the home of Dr F. D. Chattaway and his wife. It is not known with whom she was staying when she wrote from Pleasington, near Blackburn (A4/4).

Oriel College, Oxford.—Supports his idea of issuing a scholarly English journal. Refers to his own unsuccessful attempt in that direction, and makes some suggestions.

(With an envelope.)

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Oriel College, Oxford
1 Dec. 1923

Dear Dr. McKerrow

Dover Wilson writes to me of your project of issuing a scholarly English Journal. I sympathize fully with you. Some years ago I mooted here the question of an ‘Oxford Journal of English Studies’, to be conducted by the English School, the staff of the Dictionary, & the Clarendon Press. I also tried to get the English Association to move, but I failed.

I shall be glad to give any help I can, but—frankly—I dread just now taking on more work.

Wilson asks about a scholar for Middle English: R. W. Chambers, if you can get him—a scholar & a literary critic in one, as his Beowulf book & his writings on Piers Plowman show.

I have one suggestion. Undertakings of this kind always seem to me to get water-logged by the review part. Need every damned thing anybody prints—if you don’t mind my violent way of putting it—get reviewed? Could you without invidiousness select the works {1} you would review, or from time to time print short surveys of study in a particular author or a particular subject. R. W. Chambers some time wrote an excellent report of the stage which the Piers Plowman controversy had reached. {2}

Your paper would, I suppose, be quarterly; or even three times a year, leaving the summer holiday free. I should suggest for its working motto not only Ne quid nimis, but Ne quid saepius. {3}

Yours sincerely
Percy Simpson {4}

Twelve years ago Henry Bradley said of Kenneth Sisam (now at the Clarendon Press) that he was far the first of the young men working at Old & Middle English. Enlist him. I can help if you don’t know him.

Nichol Smith for the eighteenth century if you can get him: he is difficult to get hold of. And, for an occasional article, R. W. Chapman.

On Elizabethan English F. P. Wilson.

From time to time I come across some very able young men. I should like to introduce them to you occasionally.

This is a disjointed letter, but I am in bed with a cold.

PS

[Direction on envelope:] Dr. R. B. McKerrow. | Enderley | Great Missenden | Bucks.

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The envelope was postmarked at Headington, Oxford, at 2.30 p.m. on 3 December 1923.

{1} Reading uncertain.

{2} ‘The Authorship of “Piers Plowman”’, MLR, v (1910). 1–32.

{3} i.e. not only ‘nothing in excess’, but ‘nothing too often’.

{4} Followed by ‘PTO’. A page ends here.

Clarendon Press, Oxford.—The drop in sales (of An Introduction to Bibliography?) is temporary.

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The Clarendon Press, Oxford
9:10:29

Bibliography

I am not afraid. Temporary saturation I think, no more. The sale is largely V & A & therefore oscillates because our Board orders in bulk.

RWC

Dr McKerrow

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The writing is indistinct, and the reading of some words is uncertain. The reference ‘[..]5889’ is written at the head after the printed words ‘Please quote’. 

(The Clarendon Press, Oxford.)—Clarifies the Press’s policy towards the new journal, and agrees to join the panel, with certain provisos. Chambers’s ‘great work’ is already being referred to as if it were a familiar work of reference.

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P 4509
28 December 1923

My dear Chambers,

Many thanks for your letter. My recollection (confirmed by my notes) is that we bade you God speed if you could secure the weight of Bradley’s name; but were afraid that if any less authoritative modernist were named as editor, the journal might look too like an unpaid duplicate of the Literary Supplement. Nor could we, though we had thought for ourselves, hit on anyone suitable who was likely to be able to give the necessary time, especially in view of the modest remuneration that we then (I think) contemplated.

I say this because I should be sorry that you or anyone should think that we would not have welcomed the enterprise with this editor and this ‘panel’. But of course I guess that this editor could not have been secured except on the terms indicated by the prospectus.

I am honoured by the invitation to join your panel, and very gladly accept it. My limitations will be understood. I could not sign any book review or survey; and it might be best that I shouldn’t review on any terms. I might, again, have to withold† interesting information, though in general I am in favour of as much publicity as possible about books in preparation. Perhaps I ought to add, ex abundante cautela, that if at any time it were desired to a[c]quaint the panel with facts which it was not desired that another publisher should know, I should of course expect to be excluded.

Subject to these limitations I shall be very glad indeed to give any help I can. Please put me down for two copies—one personal and one for the Secretary, Clarendon Press. I send you this in duplicate, that you may send McKerrow a copy if you like; and I have deposited a copy in the archives here.

I hope the reviews of the great work {1} have given you satisfaction. Not many books are referred to on publication as if they were already familiar works of reference.

Yours sincerely

E. K. Chambers Esq.,
Board of Education, London S.W.1.

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Carbon-copy of a typed original. There is no signature, though the letter is evidently from R. W. Chapman. Chambers struck through the last paragraph before sending the letter on to McKerrow.

{1} The Elizabethan Stage.

† Sic.