Mountbatten, Louis, Earl Mountbatten of Burma

friendly and personal letters, many concerning Mountbatten's involvement in Cotton's inventions and "Repeating Gramophones Limited" company, including his promotion of Cotton's gramophones to the Prince of Wales and Duke of York ("...The gramophone is a great success & H.R.H. is delighted with it. He was so pleased with it that he always used to bring visitors ... up to it and ask them if it wasn't the neatest thing they had ever seen..."), including a letter explaining his decision to resign as a company director and later letters regarding his continued investment in Cotton's troubled company, one letter announcing his engagement and another advising Cotton on his love life ("...Perhaps it is best to be absolutely faithful and always at her beck & call. If that doesn't work you can always pretend to have an affair with someone else..."), also including a letter of introduction to the composer Jerome Kern and a letter to Cotton's wife, with a break in the correspondence from 1925 to 1938 and the later letters showing a distancing of the relationship and Mostly being letters of thanks, 49 pages, 4to and 8vo, nine with envelopes, various places, 8 April 1920 to 10 June 1955; with a signed photograph of Mountbatten, letters by Edwina Lady Mountbatten, n.d., Louise Mountbatten, the Earl of Milford Haven, 1 September 1921, and Admiral Beresford, to Viscount de la Panouse, recommending Cotton ("...he has a new invention for a torpedo..."), 10 August 1916, also one letter relating to Cotton's work on torpedoes during World War II, with related printed ephemera, fold tears to one letter

Arhur Frederick Richmond Cotton was an inventor and entrepreneur who had befriended Louis Mountbatten in the Royal Navy during World War I. The two remained close in the early 1920s when Mountbatten was enthusiastic in promoting Cotton's patented repeating gramophones, giving examples to royalty and encouraging friends and family to invest in Cotton's company. However, the company's lack of success eventually put a strain on the relationship.