Item 8 - Letter from G. C. Moore Smith to R. B. McKerrow.

31 Endcliffe Road, Sheffield.—Is indignant at the Athenaeum’s treatment of McKerrow’s Works of Nashe. A copy of Agrippa’s De Vanitate is for sale.

(Dated 18 Sept. With an envelope, postmarked 18 Sept. 1910.)

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Transcript

31 Endcliffe Rise Rd. Sheffield
18 Sep

Dear McKerrow,

I must express my indignation at the way in which the Athenæum has treated Nashe. {1} It is beyond anything.

I suppose you dont want a copy of Agrippa de Vanitate &c? {2} There is one to be had here for
10/–.

Ever yours
G. C. Moore Smith

[Direction on envelope:] R. B. McKerrow Esq | 4 Phoenix Lodge Mansions | Brook Green | Hammersmith | London W

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The envelope was postmarked at Sheffield at 8.15 p.m. on 18 September 1910.

{1} The reference is to a review of the fifth volume of the Works of Nashe in the Athenaeum of 17 September (p. 336), in which McKerrow was criticised, among other things, for his want of ‘literary craftsmanship’.

{2} Cornelius Agrippa’s De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum atque artium declamatio invectiva, first published in 1530 and frequently reprinted. There does not appear to have been a collected edition of Agrippa’s works, so perhaps the ‘&c’ indicates that the book was bound up with others.