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Apartment 303, 120 Central Street, North East, Washington, D.C.—Sends proofs of the Supplement to the reprint of McKerrow’s edition of Nashe.

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Transcript

Apt. 303 120 C Street NE {1}
Washington D.C.
3 Dec. 1957

My dear Blackwell,

I am sorry if you have been impatient for these proofs. One reason for the delay has been that I have been travelling about {2} a lot lecturing—as far north as Maine & south to N. Carolina & as far west as Missouri. Also I have had to wait until I got answers to several queeries†. But here at last they are, and I hope you will think they are pretty clean proofs.

The Introduction to the Supplement should go before the Supplement. I don’t know if you in-tend a title-page to it, and I don’t know if you intend to page the Introduction or to mention the Supplement {3} in the general page of contents before vol. V. May I leave all this to you?

The cost of sending this to you by air mail—and if I sent it by surface mail you might not get it till after the New Year—is high, and reminds me that I have been put to a good deal of expence for postage. If you felt inclined to make a contribution, will you send £4 (say) to be paid {4} into my account at Barclays Old Bank, High St. If you don’t feel inclined, do nothing and say nothing, and no offence taken (or, I trust, given).

Our time here is nearly at an end, & we begin to drive to California on Jan. 4. I daresay we shall be three weeks on the way, but short of earthquakes, tornadoes etc we should arrive at the Huntington Library by January 25. {5}

Every good wish to you and Lady Blackwell for Christmas & the New Year

Yours ever
F. P. Wilson

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{1} i.e. Apartment 103, 120 Central Street, North East.

{2} There is a scribble in green biro across the words ‘I am sorry … travelling about’, the significance of which is unclear.

{3} There is a cross in the margin, apparently referring to the words ‘A Supplement to McKerrow’s Edition of NASHE’ at the head of the page, which were presumably added by Blackwell.

{4} The two lines ‘of expence … to be paid’ are marked with a line in the margin, in the same bright blue ink as the inscriptions described in the previous note.

{5} Followed by a tick in green ink.

† Sic.

17A Northmoor Road, Oxford.—Refers to the preparation of forthcoming Malone Society volumes, and to his own Clark Lectures.

17A Northmoor Road, Oxford.—Discusses the grounds for attributing Respublica to Udall.

30 Cumnor Hill, near Oxford.—Comments on the letter to himself in Greg’s book (Some Aspects and Problems of London Publishing).

Lincoln College, Oxford.—There is a second edition of A Wonderfull, Strange, and Miraculous … Prognostication (1598), attributed by some to Nashe, in the Bodleian.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Lincoln College | Oxford
Nov. 20

Dear Sir,

I have recently chanced upon a copy of a second edition of “A Wonderfull, strange and miraculous . . . . Prognostication” (1591), {1} attributed by some to Thomas Nashe. I thought you might be interested to hear of this, as you do not appear to mention it in your edition of Nashe.

The copy of the second edition is in the Bodleian (the press-mark is G. Pamph. 2156). It is not catalogued under ‘Nashe’ or ‘Fouleweather’ or ‘Wonderfull’, but under ‘Astrologia’. On the title-page are the words ‘Newly corrected’. This copy is imperfect, wanting all after Sig. D1v. As far as I can see it contains no new matter up to this signature, but the text is divided into many paragraphs, and in places offers better readings than those of the first edition. In particular, you may be interested to hear, the 2nd edition substantiates several of the emendations you have introduced into the text.

If you are not already acquainted with this edition, I shall be happy to furnish you with any particulars you may desire. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking you for the help which your edition of Nashe and your article in Bib. Soc. Trans. XII {2} have been to me in some work I am doing on Dekker for the Clarendon Press. {3}

Yours sincerely,
F. P. Wilson

R. B. McKerrow, Esq.

[Direction on envelope:] R. B. McKerrow, Esq., Litt. D., | 4, Phoenix Mansions, | Brook Green, | London, W.

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The envelope, which was postmarked at Oxford at 8 p.m. on 20 November 1914, has been marked by McKerrow ‘Nashe note’, and the postage-stamp has been torn off. This letter was formerly inserted after p. 198 of McKerrow’s annotated copy of his Works of Nashe, vol. v (Adv. c. 25. 76), though the letter relates in fact to vol. iii, p. 377, where, in his own copy, McKerrow has added the following note at the foot of the page: ‘A later ed. is in Bodleian, G. Pamph. 2156 or 215b, catalogued under ‘Astrologia’, called ‘Newly corrected.’ Impf. wanting all after D1v. (Letter fm F. P. Wilson, Lincoln Coll., Oxford. 20/11/14)’.

{1} STC (2nd ed.) 11210. The book is attributed on the title-page to ‘Adam Fouleweather, Student in Asse-tronomy’, an obvious pseudonym.

{2} ‘Notes on Bibliographical Evidence for Literary Students and Editors of English Works of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, vol. xii (1914), pp. 213–318.

{3} The Plague Pamphlets of Thomas Dekker, not published till 1925. Wilson made a similar acknowledgement in his Preface.

7 Moreton Road, Oxford.—Is too busy to review the Nonesuch edition of Congreve for the Review, but suggests others who might be able to do it.

(Letter-head of Corpus Christi College.)

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Transcript

7 Moreton Road,
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
25 April 1924.

Dear McKerrow,

I have your letter of the 8th of March before me, and I have been reminded of it by Greg, and I am really ashamed of myself. For what they are worth, I had better give you the extenuating circumstances; after your letter arrived I was worried for a fortnight by an abscess in the eye, and read very little and wrote not at all. And I put off replying, as one does, until I could find the man for this job; and I haven’t found him. And I have just finally finished off the proofs of six various volumes for publication this spring, which has been a heavy task. None the less, I owe you a sincere apology.

You had not told me anything (before your letter) about the Review of English Studies, but I am delighted to hear of it, and wish it success: it is certainly wanted. It would be an excellent thing to have an article on the editing of the Nonesuch Congreve; {1} I would (as you guessed) have loved to do it myself if only I had time; but the only man I could think of was F. P. Wilson, who is competent enough, though Congreve is a little late for him. But he’s just got married and been on his honeymoon and is sure to be busy; {2} I’ll mention it to him when I can catch him (he has the book—I gave it him for a wedding present!) but I am not very hopeful. If he won’t, I think Isaacs (now a Lecturer in Wales—an old pupil of mine here) would do it well, if I could get him to. {3} But probably by now you may have got someone yourself; will you send me a card?

Put me down as a subscriber, of course; and I’ll try to get you others. And all good wishes for your editorship!

Yours very sincerely
H. F. B. Brett-Smith.

I was glad that your letter appeared in the Mercury. I haven’t managed to get up to London yet.

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{1} Montague Summers’s edition of The Works of William Congreve had been published in four volumes by the Nonesuch Press the previous year. A letter about it by McKerrow (see the postscript) was printed in the March number of the London Mercury (ix. 526), but no review ever appeared in the Review of English Studies.

{2} Wilson had married Joanna Perry-Keene, one of his pupils, on 15 March. See ODNB.

{3} Jacob Isaacs was an undergraduate at Exeter College between 1919 and 1921, but was assigned Brett-Smith as his tutor because there was a shortage of Fellows at his own college. From 1921 to 1924 he was assistant lecturer in English at the University College of North Wales, Bangor. See ODNB.

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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Transcript

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.