Item 24 - Letter from H. F. B. Brett-Smith to R. B. McKerrow

1 single sheet

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.