Stuk 8 - Letter from T. J. Wise to R. B. McKerrow

1 folded sheet

25 Heath Drive, Hampstead, N.W.3.—Has offered the copyright in his Coleridge book to the Bibliographical Society. Praises McKerrow’s book, but wishes that he had included a description of the evolution of the half-title.

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Transcript

25 Heath Drive, Hampstead, N.W.3
4th Nov. 1927.

My dear McKerrow,

Many thanks for your letter of the 26 Oct. which afforded me much information I did not be-fore possess. I quite thought that the copyright, if any, in that Coleridge book {1} belonged to the Bibliographical Society, and I wish it did. I do not wish to own copyrights; neither do I desire that my executors should be troubled with them. I have therefore written to Pollard & offered to give to the Society the copyrights of my Catalogue & of my Bibliographies. I shall be grateful if the Society will accept them. They are probably of small use, if any; but they might be of use at some future time.

Always sinc[erel]y yours

Thos. J. Wise

I am deep in your splendid book, & I congratulate you upon the success you have achieved. I wish you had devoted a paragraph or two to the evolution of the Half-title. I have an idea regarding it.

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{1} Probably Wise’s Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published by the Bibliographical Society in 1913; but the Society also published a supplement in 1919 under the title Coleridgeiana, and in 1927 Wise printed privately Two Lake Poets: A Catalogue of Printed Books, Manuscripts, and Autograph Letters by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge collected by Thomas James Wise.