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5 Parkfield Road, Didsbury, Manchester.—Declines to contribute to the Review at present. Thanks him for his kind words about the edition of Jonson.

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5 Parkfield rd. | Didsbury | Manchester.
25 Nov. ’24.

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

I am extremely sorry to disappoint you, & in particular to have to refuse a request so gratifying & so kind. But I have nothing that I could offer you of the kind you suggest, & I have for some months been in a state of health which permits one to do what has to be done but precludes the elasticity necessary for new enterprise. I can only say that I will bear your wishes—& also the apparent set of English studies just now towards the Elizabethans, in mind.

Thank you for your kind words about our Jonson. I hope it may prove to have been worth waiting for. As regards Simpson’s share in it I may say without reserve & with full assurance, that it will be an event.

Your program of the first number of the Review is very attractive & promising.
Yours vy truly

C H Herford

The Shiffolds. - Thanks his mother for her letter, and the sausages, which were 'much appreciated by Julian'. Mrs Ribàr [?] is staying here for a week. Will go up to London tomorrow, and stay at 14 Great College St for a night with Molly; thinks Charles is away. Is glad his mother likes the Tagore stories; some of them are 'a bit weak. and they certainly lose something in translation; but the best of them are really beautiful, and moving'.

The 'Russian Revolution is a splendid affair, and the best news we have had in our time'; possible that it may 'prolong the war a little', though he doubts it. Hopes that 'we too in England may soon recover our lost freedom'. Very glad that Booa [Mary Prestwich] is 'getting on well [after illness]'. Sends thanks to his father for sending 'the paper by Professor Herford', which much interested him; will write about it soon. Bessie and Julian are well. They are having 'storms every few hours, but the snow does not lie'.

5 Parkfield Road, Didsbury, Manchester.—Thanks him for his letter; he trusts his remarks were not out of place. Explains the distinction made in the University of Manchester between emeritus and honorary professors.

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5 Parkfield rd. | Didsbury | M/c
20 Feb. ’24.

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

Many thanks for your kind letter. I trust you did not think my remarks out of place.

I am afraid the special ways of this university in regard to ex-professors make the business of naming them in public rather needlessly complex. A distinction is drawn between ‘emeritus’, which here is given to everyone who has vacated his chair without proceeding to any other, and ‘Honorary’, which is awarded more rarely, under special circumstances. My strict title is ‘Honorary Professor in the University of M/c’.

With best wishes for the success of the Review

Yours vy truly
C H Herford

5 Parkfield Road, Didsbury, Manchester.—Declines to contribute to the Review for the present, but offers to join the advisory panel, if older scholars have not been purposely excluded. Jonson (Herford and Simpson’s edition) is now going through the press.

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5 Parkfield rd. | Didsbury | Manchester.
11 Feb. ’24.

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

I am very glad to hear that the English Review, of which I had heard rumours, is now definitely in prospect. I would rather not undertake anything definitely for your first number, but I shall hope to be able to at any rate later on. In the meantime all good wishes for it.

Is your Board of Advisers intended to spare old stagers?—I see that it does not include names so honoured as those of Bradley & Saintsbury. But though technically on the retired list I hope I am not shelved in work; Simpson’s & my long-protracted Jonson is, as you probably know, now going thro’ the press. At any rate I am quite ready to join if you think proper.

Yours vy truly
C H Herford.

The Park, Prestwich, Manchester. - Thinks Robert may like to see this letter [19/13] from Mrs Herbert Philips about his poems ["The Bride of Dionysus"], of which Anna Maria sent her a copy last week. Professor Herford also lunched with her last week, took a copy of the book and read it on the lawn; he 'came in for tea highly pleased... and enthusiastic'. If only Robert could come during term time [at the Victoria University of Manchester]; knows he would enjoy meeting him.

31 Endcliffe Rise Road, Sheffield.—Discusses McKerrow’s plan of establishing a journal devoted solely to English studies.

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31 Endcliffe Rise Road, Sheffield
Nov. 12. 1923

My dear McKerrow,

Many thanks for your kind letter. I am rejoiced to hear that English studies are to have an organ of their own in this country, and that you are to direct it. I have written again & again—to E. K. Chambers I think among others—urging the inadequacy of the MLR to meet the demands made on it & properly to represent English studies {1}—& I have been surprized not to hear earlier of a movement for a Journal devoted to English studies alone.

I pressed on Robertson {2} some time ago (within the last twelvemonths) the desirability of breaking up the MLR so that the English section could appear as a separate Journal. He was evidently against this (believing I suppose that a MLR without English in it could not pay its way)—but said that he thought the solution was a separate Journal for English.

I have at present matter in hand and reviews due that will take all the space for several numbers to come. This means that a book often does not get reviewed in print till 2 years or more after its appearance. It also means that I have to print particularly articles so abstruse or devoid of general interest that they have no chance of getting in elsewhere—& to turn off a popular well-written article—which may be just as valuable—on to some other journal. I have just succeeded in getting an excellent article of Stoll’s on Hamlet into the Contemporary. {3}—There is such an abundance of good matter crying to be published that I hope you will not commit yourself in a hurry to including so much of the nature of Reports of Societies &c. as to limit your powers of publishing the articles & reviews you want. I hope however you will include as the German journals do a page or so of Necrology when required. It has seemed to me sad that the MLR should not be able to include a word on great scholars such as Raleigh & Ker & Vaughan & H. Bradley when they die. {4}

Of course I think the effect on the MLR will be serious. If your standard is as high as ours has been—& it is likely to be higher rather than lower—why should an English student pay for a journal in which English studies occupy only ⅓ of the space as against one in which they hold the field? This is, if the price of your Journal is the same as that of the MLR. Perhaps you will make it less in order to widen your circulation among people who are not actually scholars themselves.

Am I at liberty to send on your letter to Robertson? or are you writing to him?

I understand from your letter that your Journal will not be specially connected with the English Association. However it will no doubt attract the special interest of the E.A. That Association for the last 2 years has made a grant to the MLR to enable it to give 8 more pages to English Of course it will be important for us to know if we may depend on that grant in the future. I am pleased to see that you do not apparently intend giving another quarterly Bibliography.

I suppose you dont intend to pay your contributors—unless for some special articles.

Writing for myself, not for MLR, I look forward with the greatest interest to your Journal. The less it aims at popularity, the more it aims at representing the best English Scholarship, philological, literary-historical, & literary, in my eyes the better—I suppose you will leave articles of technical bibliography rather to the Library?

(I am glad to see that Herford in today’s Manchester Guardian accepts the conclusions of Maunde Thompson &c. as probably sound.) {5}

I dont know if it would be possible to come to any concordat in order to avoid the duplication of reviews. There are a lot of American books sent out by Milford to which justice wd be done if they were reviewed in one English journal only. On the other hand as things are, many books dont get reviewed in the MLR at all. [Footnote: ‘I have not received a copy of the Sir Thomas More book—nor of Herford’s book on Recent Shakespeare Criticism, nor of All. Nicoll’s book on Restoration Drama.’ {6}] The ideal would be for every book of value to be noticed in one journal or the other. I am afraid if this is to be achieved duplication of reviews should be avoided. It might be difficult however to come to any agreement in the matter.

Ever yours
G. C. Moore Smith

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{1} Moore Smith was editor of the English section of the Modern Language Review from 1915 to 1927. See MLR, xxxvi (1941). 246.

{2} J. G. Robertson, founder and chief editor of the MLR. See MLR, xxviii (1933), 19.

{3} ‘Recent Criticism of Hamlet’, Contemporary Review, cxxv (1924), 347–57.

{4} Sir Walter Raleigh and C. E. Vaughan died in 1922, W. P. Ker and Henry Bradley in 1923,

{5} The reference is to a review of Shakespeare’s Hand in the Play of Sir Thomas More, ed. A. W. Pollard (1923), one of the chapters of which was written by the palaeographer Sir Edward Maunde Thompson. C. H. Herford was a regular reviewer for the Manchester Guardian.

{6} The books referred to are Shakespeare’s Hand in the Play of Sir Thomas More (see the previous note), A Sketch of Recent Shakespearean Investigation, 1893–1923, and A History of Restoration Drama, 1600 to 1700, all published in 1923.