Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own | Crazy Little Things 1

A Franklin 'Meadowland Bird' porcelain vase designed by Basil Ede, 20th century

A Franklin 'Meadowland Bird' porcelain vase designed by Basil Ede, 20th century of ovoid shape, with 22 carat gold rim, marked to the underside, raised on a wooden circular stand height: vase only 29 cm., 11⅜in.

View 1 of Lot 1711: A Franklin 'Meadowland Bird' porcelain vase designed by Basil Ede, 20th century

a franklin 'meadowland bird' porcelain vase designed by basil ede, 20th century

Fine Art, Old Masters to Contemporary

gambel's quail-callipepla gambelii

basil ede (b.1931), barn owl, signed basil ede l.r., watercolour and gouache, 40 by...

basil ede (british b.1931), mistle thrush, signed, watercolour and gouache,...

basil ede (british b.1931), house martins, signed and dated 1976, watercolour and...

barn owl and young

English Literature, History, Science, Children’s Books and Illustrations

LEWIS, C.S. Series of ten autograph letters signed ("Clive Lewis", "C.S. Lewis"), to Leo Baker a thoughtful correspondence to a close friend discussing poetry, religion, pain, and other subjects, 42 pages, various sizes, Belfast, Magdalen College Oxford, the Oxford Union Society, and Washford in Somerset, 12 January 1920 to 24 June 1936 [with:] Photographic portrait of the young Lewis, full-length in the countryside round Oxford in the early 1920s, vintage copyprint [also with:] Leo Baker, typescript memoir on his relationship with Lewis entitled 'Near the Beginning', 9 pages, and correspondence relating to it and its publication in C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table, 1970s A DEEPLY REVEALING AND INTENSE CORRESPONDENCE BY THE YOUNG C. S. LEWIS. Leo Baker befriended Lewis in October 1919 when they were undergraduates at Oxford. Both men had served as officers in the trenches of World War I before returning to academic study, and both had poetic ambitions. They were introduced by a mutual friend, Rodney Pasley, and the three men were soon part of a small group of students who encouraged each other's poetic ambitions. As early as January 1920, Lewis writes with great frankness to Baker about his dislike of his family home in Belfast ("...a synonym for busy triviality, continued interruption and a complete lack of privacy..."), whilst worrying that Baker's threatened departure from Oxford would upset the delicate balance of their small poetic coterie ("...Pasley will tend gradually to modernism, I to medievalism..."). Poetry is the over-riding subject of Lewis's early letters to Baker, whether he be comparing Spenser with Milton ("...To see Milton's real greatness one need but notice the fresh joy and reality of his Eden after the over-ripe stanzas which describe the garden of Acrasia...."), attempting a definition of poetry, or sending Baker some of his own verses for comment (13 lines, commencing "Oh that a black ship now were bearing me...") They were hoping to publish a small anthology of their own poetry. Lewis was tasked with writing a preface, which elicited a significant bout of self-doubt from the future Professor in the Cambridge English faculty: "I am become more and more convinced of the futility of any theorizing about poetry. It is not by our theories that we shall stand or fall". In the end, however, it was more mundane concerns that thwarted publication: "The blow has fallen Basil [Blackwell] refuses to publish the dam' thing unless we raise some money." Religion and belief is another recurring theme in these letters. In the early 1920s Lewis was a resolute atheist, but there are glimpses in the letters of his changing attitude: "You will be interested to hear that in the course of my philosophy - on the existence of matter - I have had to postulate some sort of God as the least objectionable theory: but of course we know nothing." Baker's own struggles with religious belief are also a theme of the letters, and in one letter, fresh from a book that Baker had sent him, Lewis discusses how difficult he finds Buddhism's rejection of the idea of selfhood. At some point in the 1920s the two men argued and broke off relations - although there are no surviving letters relating to the breach. Lewis wrote to Baker on 28 April 1935 to renew their friendship, having heard that Baker was suffering from serious health problems. He sums up his own life pithily: "My father is dead and my brother has retired from the army and now lives with us. I have deep regrests about all my relations with my father (but thank God they were best at the end). I am going bald. I am a Christian. Professionally I am chiefly a medievalist. I think that is all my news up to date." He admits that "I hardly write anything these days except things proper to a don". Poetry remains a subject in these later letters, and Lewis admits that his chief love is now "old germanic poetry, which, as a friend says, sometimes makes everything else seem a little thin or half-hearted". This anonymous friend is likely to have been J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis's own career was at a crucial stage in the mid-30s and he recounts an exchange with a senior professor in Oxford who tells him that he "gone beyond the whole English school with your new book", only to discover that what he means is that The Allegory of Love is "Much the longest book any of us has written" (24 June 1936). These letters also contain powerful words of sympathy for a friend whose life is circumscribed by chronic pain: "I am told that the great thing is to surrender to physical pain - I mean not to do what's commonly called 'standing' it, above all not to brace the soul (whcih usually braces the muscles as well) not to try to ignore it: to be like earth being ploughed not like marble being cut."

View 1 of Lot 179: LEWIS, C.S. | Series of 10 autograph letters signed, to Leo Baker, 1920-36

lewis, c.s. | series of 10 autograph letters signed, to leo baker, 1920-36

comprising a highly informative archive relating to her professional dealings with publishers, literary agents, and accountants, with details of her income and financial arrangements during the greater part of her career, including:

comprising a highly informative archive relating to her professional dealings with publishers, literary agents, and accountants, with details of her income and financial arrangements during the greater part of her career, including: i) contracts Approximately two hundred and eighty of the writer's publishing contracts, variously relating to original editions, reprints, foreign editions and translations, and other rights, some signed by her, most signed on her behalf by agents or else her retained copies generally signed by publishers, with related correspondence, including contracts for the following works (with references to Gilbert's Bibliography): whose body? (1923) [A3], contract with Fisher Unwin for the American edition of DLS's first detective novel, here entitled "The Singular Adventures of the Man in Gold Pince-Nez", dated 25 August 1922, and other contracts for 1939, 1941, 1944, 1948, 1950, 1951, 1954, 1960, and 1963 clouds of witness (1926) [A4], contract dated 21 October 1929, and others for 1942, 1943, 1947, 1948, 1953, 1956, 1959, 1960, 1961, and 1963 unnatural death (1927) [A5], contracts for 1927 (2), 1932, 1936, 1937 (2), 1939, 1945, 1947, 1948 (2), 1950, 1957, 1961, 1965 and 1966 the unpleasantness at the bellona club (1928) [A6], contract dated 2 March 1928, and others for 1935, 1938 (2), 1942, 1947, 1952, 1963 (2), and 1965 lord peter views the body (1928) [A8], contract dated 31 December 1927, and others for 1928, 1933, 1945, 1949, 1953, 1958, and 1959 tristan in brittany (1929) [A9], contract dated 14 February 1928 (signed by DLS) the documents in the case (1930) [A10], contract dated 21 January 1929 (for "a novel", untitled), and others for 1940, 1949 (2), 1954, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1965 strong poison (1930) [A11], contracts for 1932 (2), 1933 (2), 1936, 1937 (2), 1941, 1947, 1953, 1959, and 1964 the five red herrings (1931) [A12], contract dated 11 February 1931, and others for 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1948 (2), and 1952 (2) have his carcase (1932) [A15], contract dated 19 December 1931 (signed by DLS), and others for 1932 (2), 1945, 1952, 1962 (2), 1968, and 1969 murder must advertise (1933) [A16], contract dated 16 December 1932, and others for 1933, 1936, 1937, 1938 (2), 1942, 1946-47 (both initialled by DLS), 1948, 1950, 1951, 1952 (initialled by DLS), 1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1967, and 1968 hangman's holiday (1933) [A18], contracts dated 4 March 1933 and 24 April 1933 (signed by DLS), and others for this or various of the stories in it for 1943 and 1963 the nine tailors (1934) [A19], contracts dated 4 January and 25 June 1934, and others for 1939, 1946 (2), 1947, 1951, 1954, 1956, 1957, and 1969 the silent passenger (1935) [E75], contract for a screen play by Basil Mason based on an original unpublished story by DLS commissioned by Phoenix Films, featuring Wimsey in a minor role, dated 26 November 1934, and others for 10 December 1934 and 15 March 1935 (2) cat o'mary (1935) [see A3.e.1], contract for DLS's unfinished and unpublished autobiographical novel, dated 1935 gaudy night (1935) [A21], contract for 7 October 1935, and others for 1936 (signed by DLS), 1937 (2), 1939 (initialled by DLS), 1956, 1959, and 1968 busman's honeymoon (the play, 1937) [A24], contract dated 26 February 1936 (signed by the co-author Muriel St Clare Byrne), and others for 4 November 1936, 1938, and 1965 busman's honeymoon (the novel, 1937) [A25], contract dated 31 July 1936, and others for 1937 (2), 1938, 1953, 1956, and 1960 the zeal of thy house (1937) [A26], contracts dated 10 April and 5 July 1937, and others for 1948 and 1949 the greatest drama ever staged (1938) [A28], contract dated 14 May 1938, and others for 1949 and 1959 strong meat (1939) [A30], dated 31 May 1939 the devil to pay (1939) [A31], contract dated 31 May 1939 and another for 1939 in the teeth of the evidence (1939) [A32], contract dated 1 November 1939, and others for various of the stories dated 1943 (signed by DLS), 1947, 1959, and 1961 he that should come (1939) [A33], contract dated 7 March 1939 begin here (1940) [A34], contract for "A War-time Essay", dated 9 January 1939, and another for 1941 creed or chaos? (1940) [A35], contract dated 23 May 1940, and others for 1946, 1948 (2), and 1950 the contempt of learning in 20th century england (magazine article, 1940) [C120], contract dated 16 March 1943 the mind of the maker (1941) [A37], contract dated 19 April 1940, and others for 1941, 1950, and 1969 the man with no face (1943) [E24], contract for a short story broadcast on Saturday Night Theatre on 3 April 1943, dated 17 May 1943 the other six deadly sins (1943) [A39], contract for "The Six Other Deadly Sins" dated 7 December 1942 the man born to be king (1943) [A40], contract dated 9 May 1942, and others for 1946, 1948 (2), 1949 (2, one initialled by DLS), and 1952 even the parrot (1944) [A41], contract dated 5 October 1943 the just vengeance (1946) [A42], contract dated 7-15 June 1946 (signed by DLS) unpopular opinions (1946) [A43], contract dated 25 March 1946, and two others for 1947 the comedy of dante alighieri (1949-62) [A48, A54, A58], contract dated 18 April 1946 introductory papers on dante (1954) [A51], contract for "Essays on Dante" dated 21 October 1949, and others for 1955 and 1964 further papers on dante (1957) [A56], contract dated 6 May 1955, and one for 1957 the emperor constantine (1951) [A49], contract dated 17 July 1950, and another for 1951 the song of roland (1957) [A57], contract dated 16 December 1954 together with a substantial quantity of other contracts for unnamed works ("next" novels, etc, 1920s-50s), including one of 18 December 1928 for "the first novel available for publication..."; one of 1 July 1929 for "three full-length detective or mystery novels, to follow the work at present in preparation tentatively called 'The Death Cap'"; one of 1932 for an "Omnibus Book" of Wimsey novels; one of 1935 for "three (3) full length detective or mystery novels (to follow the work at present in preparation tentatively entitled 'Gaudy Night')"; and one of 25 March 1946 for "a play"; and contracts for other miscellaneous works, reprints of groups of works, foreign editions, stories, lectures, broadcasts, newspaper serials, collections and anthologies, children's religious publications, etc.; approximately 280 contracts in all, several hundred pages ii) correspondence and royalty statements Large quantity (some hundreds) of letters to DLS from British and foreign publishers, agents (Curtis Brown; A.D. Peters; Pearn, Pollinger & Higham; etc.), the Society of Authors, and other bodies, with details of royalties, sending payments, sending information about enquiries concerning use of copyright, performances, and many other related matters, including an early letter by MacGowan and Reed in New York suggesting she updates her ``Who's Who'' on Lord Peter Wimsey, with her draft of this up-date and typed page of typographic errors in the first American edition of Strong Poison (1930), 1927-57; a substantial bundle of her correspondence with her agent Margery Vosper in the 1940s, including carbon-copies or drafts (some on the back of drafts of religious writings by her) of letters by DLS, discussing such matters as submitting The Man Born to be King to the Lord Chamberlain, its broadcasting, commenting that she would be rather sorry to see ``a general license issued for plays about Our Lord'', and encouraging performances of the play at a youth club, with other remarks about life in post-war ``crises''; and a series to her in the 1940s-50s by her accountant Percy Popkin, discussing her taxes and finances in detail, with carbon-copy replies by her or her secretary (one insisting that she will stand by The Zeal of thy House even though it is losing money), many hundreds of pages iii) other financial records including: a bundle of bank statements of her account with Lloyd's, 1931-56; bundles of her signed cheques and her checkbook stubs (recording payments to hundreds of people including Max Beerbohm, Eden Phillpotts, H.G. Wells, Galsworthy, booksellers, and many others), 1933-56; some miscellaneous bills; and a later ledger of royalties for her various books up to 1962, some thousands of pages altogether, in a large box, occasional wear, fraying, soiling or staining

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