"I shan't mind if they don't want me to go on ..."
Autograph Letter, Signed, to Nancy Henry.
Mountain Cottage, Middleton by Wirksworth, Derby: 26 July 1918.
Price: $4,850.00
About the item
One and 1/2 pages, in ink, on recto and verso of half-sheet (200 x 146 mm) of ruled notepaper. Right margin a bit ragged where sheet was halved, a few corner creases, small pinholes in upper left corner, otherwise very good. In an attractive batik paper over boards folder, and blue folding half morocco case (sunned to spine). Provenance: James Strohm Copley.
Item #376553
To "Dear Mrs. Henry," i.e. Nancy Henry, an editor at Oxford University Press who was involved in the editorial work on Lawrence's pseudonymously published MOVEMENTS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY (1921), and it has been suggested, was an early reader of sections of STUDIES IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE (1923).
Lawrence writes: "I send you the first three chapters. They are perhaps rather long. The others, some of them, will be much shorter. I wanted to make a serious reader that would convey the true historic impression to children who are beginning to grasp realities. We should introduce the deep, philosophic note into eduction: deep, philosophic reverence. I've no doubt your people won't like this style. I shan't mind if they don't want me to go on. But please tell me your own full opinion ... I wonder what Vere [i.e. H. Vere Collins, who suggested the project] has decided. " He touches on other matters in conclusion ("...my cottage is let ... I haven't any news yet about poems. It is always so slow....") and signs: "Greetings from us both D.H. Lawrence."
Published in the Huxley edition of Lawrence's LETTERS (pp.450-1) but omitted from the Moore edition.
