Item 30 - Letter from Arthur Waley to R. C. Trevelyan, including poem by Waley

1 item

13, Hanover Terrace, Ladbroke Grove, W.11. - Has signed an agreement with Constable & Co. to publish "One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems" by 1 May [1918]; it will be sold at six shillings. Has not been doing much translation recently, but researching Chinese letters; thinks these would be good. There are only seven of Po Chu-i's surviving. Unfortunately the [British] Museum is 'very poor in this branch of literature', but there is a collection of 'letters by famous men' at the Cambridge University Library. Asks Trevelyan whether he will be in town; perhaps he will see him at the 1917 Club on Wednesday. Copies out a poem he has written, beginning 'On the back of a visiting-card / On a spill picked out of the grate...' which he fears is 'rather absurd'.