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Entitled 'A Housman Couplet'.

Illegible inscription on reverse.

Notes on Theocritus 14-18.

Trinity College - Points out that the University has given him a holiday for the term, and suggests that the natural functionary for the occasion (not specified) is the Vice-Master.

Admy. - Thanks WW for the tide papers - 'acceptable presents to many naval men'. FB hopes WW will collect and arrange all his papers on this subject into one volume.

Christ's College Lodge - At a Meeting of the Syndicate it was agreed to accept WW's offer to prepare for the Syndics of the Press an edition of Bishop Sanderson's De Obligatione Conscientiae Praelectiones Decem.

Eton College - ECH looks forward to seeing WW and Cordelia Whewell on the 18th of May. If Lord John Russell is not careful with regard to his investigations concerning the University, he will 'excite a spirit of extreme dislike to his government in a Body of very great and very just influence in this country'. ECH is delighted to hear that Sir James Stephen's lectures are so popular. He has just received a paper outlining a series of charges against JS's opinions on several mysterious points. 'Stephen is the best of men, and it is nothing but his boundless love for all that is good among men of various sects and opinions that has led him to assume a latitudinarianism in his Essays which, I believe, greatly exceed his private convictions'.

In an unidentified hand.

(Shanks’s article is headed, ‘Professor A. E. Housman Dies, Aged 77. Wrote “A Shropshire Lad”.’)

Attributed to Georges Reverdy and to Giulio Bonasone

Stamp on back of H. Parker, Photographer, 26 Lloyd St, Greenheys. MS endorsement: 'Taken at Pisa from life | By Bartholini 1822| Byron he parted his hair in front'.

Box 13, Department of English, University of Chicago.—Praises his book, and suggests arrangements for reviewing and promoting it in America. Thanks him for reading her manuscript on Spenser and Lipsius, and refers to her forthcoming article on the date of the Mutability cantos.

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Transcript

Box 13 The University of Chicago, Department of English
November 13. 1927

Dear Mr. McKerrow:

Your fine book, Introduction to Bibliography, came yesterday, and I am delighted with it. I have read it in part already, but lent it for a few days to Professor Tom Peete Cross, so that he could recommend it in a new manual on bibliographical method (a beginner’s book for first year graduate students) {1}. By the way, I think Professor Cross would be the best reviewer in America for your book and that it is the kind of book he would like to review. If your publishers have not already sent to Modern Philology a review copy, I would suggest designating Professor Cross as reviewer, & that the copy be sent to him directly. Professors Manly and Crane will help recommend to students, and so shall I. Modern Philology and Modern Language Notes seem to me the most important reviewing places to reach scholars & text editors in this country. Of course, if your publishers would insert paid advertisement†, the Publications of the Modern Language Association would be the best place, as it reaches more interested people than any other publication. I’m not a member of the American Bibliographical Association, and I don’t know how useful they would be in advertising foreign works; but their membership is much smaller than the M.L.A., anyway.

I have ordered several copies for Harper Library at the University of Chicago, and I think more will be ordered later. All the libraries ought to buy it. It would help to have it recommended by the American Library Association, which issues from Washington lists of books desirable for libraries to buy. I don’t know the details of how this is worked, but, if I hear, will drop you a note. You ought to get a good American sale to add to the English. It’s a fine book. I shall study it carefully and thoroughly, and it will help me greatly. Thank you for remembering me.

I received the manuscript on Spenser and Lipsius {2}, and thank you for your kindness in reading and criticising it. I am aware of the difficulty of proving that Lipsius’ Constancy was known to Englishmen before the edition printed in London in 1586. It was written in the 70’s, however. I shall pull in the horns of the argument and try to suggest no more than evidence warrants, and offer it to an American journal later. As to the date of the Mutability cantos, I am practically certain they were written 1579-80, and an article on that will appear in April Studies in Philology. {3}

I am sorry I wounded your feelings by calling you “Professor”. Our new President in a speech recently assured us that Professors are no longer branded as such by their poverty and eccentricity, etc., but that the best of them in a crowd could pass for merchants! So you see my hailing you as Professor isn’t quite so bad as it seemed.

The antics of Mayor Bill Thompson of Chicago keep us all amused. He is too funny to weep or fume over.

Thanking you cordially for the gift of your very attractive and useful book. I remain

Sincerely yours,
Evelyn May Albright

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{1} Presumably a revised edition of his List of Books and Articles designed to serve as an Introduction to the Bibliography and Methods of English Literary History, first published in 1919.

{2} Presumably Albright’s article on ‘Spenser’s Mutability and Lipsius’s Constancy’, which was still ‘not yet published’ in 1929 (see Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. xliv, no. 3 (Sept. 1929), p. 722), and seems never to have seen print. Albright may have submitted it to McKerrow for possible inclusion in the Review of English Studies.

{3} ‘Spenser’s Reasons for Rejecting the Cantos of Mutability’, Studies in Philology, vol. xxv, no. 2 (Apr. 1928), pp. 93-127.

Reports that Mr [G. G.?] Bradley told him that he forwarded Henry's watch to him at Wellington College, and suggests that she [Minnie] has pawned it. Asks her to send it to him at Trinity College, where is going on the following Saturday, if it is 'hanging about [Wellington] College anywhere'. States that he arrived at Rugby by Calais. Claims to like the house at Rugby very much. States that the dining-room can only hold twelve people, but that the drawing room 'is very nice.' Reports that there are 'an extraordinary number of new masters' there, with the result that 'the time-honoured arrangements are undergoing much criticism.' Hopes that Ada [Benson] got safely to Weston that day 'without having another attack.' Does not think that their mother looked very well. Claims that Mr Ladkin 'behaved like a Beast.' Reports that they have just been consulting Mr [Charles?] Waterfield as to the advisability of going to [Law] with him. States that he bought a print of his favourite Correggio 'with the jolly little cherub astride the cloud.' Asks whether Edward has filled up the vacancies satisfactorily, and sends his love to him.

In German.

2 Park Street - Could Mr Bancroft, the newly arrived American Minister, attend the celebrations surrounding the tercentenary of the foundation of Trinity College?

'Ashkenazic hand' [description of MS from Add.MS a 40/25].

Chetwynd House, Selly Oak, Nr. Birmingham. Dated Oct. 22/03 - There is no convenient text book for the Calendar: he uses [Nicolaus] Nilles, 'Kalendarium Manuale', the printed Synaxaristes and the Acta Sanctorum; has some material on rain-charms and other things from Armenia, and asks if Frazer wants notes or something more formal.

Newnham College, Cambridge - Is sending the two reprints [not present], Mr Bosanquet's and her own; admires [F. M.] Cornford's grasp of mythology and ritual; asks if there is a parallel to the cannibal feast of Tantalus in initiation rites; thinks his lecture clears up the dispute between Cook and Cornford and Ridgeway; discusses mythical ancestors vs Ridgeway's insistence on historical persons; hopes he is coming to Ridgeway's lecture on Monday at which 'he proposes to demolish both Mr Cornford & me!'.

9 Esplanade, Lowestoft - Sends detailed instructions to the use of a hanging desk to enable an invalid to read in bed, which he and Mrs Blakesley have devised for him.