Given me by René Francis, the ‘Educated Ass’
The Temptation of Saint Anthony … Being a Translation into English by René Francis from the 1849-1856 Manuscripts edited by Louis Bertrand.
London: Duckworth and Co, 1910.
Price: $450.00
About the item
First Edition thus. [8], 296, [3] pp. Page 296 is numbered 269. 1 vols. 8vo. Cloth and boards, uncut. Newspaper clippings on flyleaf and back endpapers.
Item #366381
With a curious cosmopolitan and catty note on the front pastedown, “Given me by René Francis, once of E.S.R., Cairo. Known as the 'Educated Ass' by people less clever than him. After came into money, marrying an Italian Girl, who did not know English! G. Gordon Clay [once Reuter's Agent, Alex., after Sec. General E.R.A. dying of G.P.I. after living at Monte Carlo,] was best man at R.F.'s marriage. R.F. bought share with namesake, Francis, in the ‘Athenaeum’ afterwards asking me to write a book, regarding a series of reconstructive theories for Egypt, after the 'Great War'. I, however, refused. R.F. was the author of an amusing skit on the 'Turf Club' now forgotten re Lord Edward Cecil, Dr. Milton etc. I remember an amusing episode re R.F. lunching with me at Villa Celi, Carlton, Ramleh, and Shepheard's Grill. The ‘Athenaeum’ fused with the ‘New Statesman and Nation’. What became of 'R.F', I do not know. Cape Ferrat, A.M. 1936"
Translator René Francis was author of Egyptian Aesthetics (1911), and numerous travel articles and books on Egypt through the late 1940s. As the author of this note suggests, he had a connection with the Egyptian State Railways. The clippings pertain to a legal dispute in 1932 over Falubert’s autograph manuscript of La tenation de Saint Antoine; and a review of the work by Charles Whibley.
