Item 16 - Note from R. W. Chapman to R. B. McKerrow

1 single sheet

Clarendon Press, Oxford.—Comments on a passage about fakes.

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The Clarendon Press, Oxford
3 January 1927.

Fakes

The faking of half-titles and the like is being practised on a pretty large scale. Pickering showed me a year or two ago a Gray’s Odes 1757 in which he said “he thought the half-title was wrong”. The “1913 Chance” (the earliest state of Conrad’s novel) has been faked in two different ways—first (if I remember right) the faker reprinted 4 pages; then when it was pointed out that the real 1913 issue had a 2-page cancel, he faked a single leaf—but failed to use the right type for the imprint.

Wise says that if he were to go to America he could pick up dozens of fakes in famous collections!

One of the happiest hunting-grounds is the rare Shelleys.

RWC

R. B. McKerrow, Esq.

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Typed, except signature and some corrections. At the head is the reference ‘Pkt. 428/RF’.