Moore, George and Pearl Craigie [pseud. John Oliver Hobbes].

i) letters to Pearl Craigie's father and biographer, John Morgan Richards, including c.40 by George Moore (1906-1916, mostly about the possible production and publication of 'The Three Lovers', on which he and Pearl Craigie had collaborated, and asking Richards not to speak of Journeys End in Lovers Meeting, "for if you do I shall have to explain how my name was taken off that play by Mrs Craigie without any authority from me") and five by Edmund Gosse (1908)



ii) letters to Pearl Craigie, including two by George Moore (one of them about his comedy The Coming of Gabrielle: "...I don't think that your writing mixes with mine naturally and I am of opinion that two people cannot write a play...My dear Pearl, don't think that I did not admire your writing: I do, but not in the midst of mine...", [1904]), five by Edmund Gosse (1899-1902, commenting, for example, on her novel Love and the Soul Hunters: "...perfectly constructed...It is pure comedy, as fine and delicate and right as anyone has written in our time. Comedy is romance. You take high impossible (but not incredible) beings of full flushed lives, and make them dance to your music...your comic detail is immense..."), one by J.M. Barrie (1898: "I have seldom looked forward to a play with as high hopes, these because of the pleasure your work has given me..."), one by Max Beerbohm and three by Ellen Terry



iii) drafts of complete acts for Moore's and Craigie's collaborations for the stage (mostly the play The Coming of Gabrielle, later revised under the title Elizabeth Cooper), comprising hundreds of autograph and typescript pages by both writers; together with related fragmentary material, including copies of letters, essays and articles

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
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The playwright and novelist Pearl Craigie (1867-1906) appeared on the literary scene in 1891 with her novella Some Emotions and a Moral, published under the pseudonym of John Oliver Hobbes. Nine further full-length novels (such as the two-volume The School for Saints and Robert Orange), several plays (including the long-running The Ambassadors) and many essays and articles were to follow, establishing her reputation in both Britain and America. A brilliant conversationalist, she was much in demand as guest and hostess in literary and political circles. She had a close but turbulent friendship with George Augustus Moore (1852-1933): it began just before the publication of one of his most successful novels, Esther Waters (for which Craigie read the proofs) and "rapidly ripened into love on his side at least" (Hone, p.189). A sudden and unexplained coolness towards Moore was followed by a succession of reconciliations and further quarrels. They also collaborated on a few plays: the first act of  'The Fool's Hour', for example, which was never staged or completed, was published in the first issue of the Yellow Book in April 1894; the one-act play, 'Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting', was first performed at the Lyceum in 1895 with Ellen Terry in the lead role; and The Coming of Gabrielle, the cause of yet another quarrel (documented in the present collection), was considered by Moore to be "one of the prettiest [comedies] ever written", although it was revised many times and seldom performed.

Literature: J.M. Richards, Life of John Oliver Hobbes, 1921 (a copy is included in this lot); J. Hone, The Life of George Moore, 1936; M.D. Harding, Air-Bird in the Water: The Life and Works of Pearl Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes), 1996