Wednesday by Clare James (2 results)

Westminster, for the editor, 1737. Editio emendatior. 12mo. [ii],168 pp. With frontispiece. Calf, gilt spine, morocco title-shield. (front hinge slightly splitting; a few pages sl.foxed; small marginal tear in 2 leaves). Partly based on oa. 'La trappolaria' by Giambattista della Porta. (ESTC). "The play was first produced in Clare College, Cambridge on Wednesday, March 8, 1615, as part of the program of entertainments for a visit by King James I. James enjoyed the play so much that he returned to Cambridge to see it again on Saturday, May 13 of that year. (.) The term "ignoramus" acquired its English meaning of an ignorant person or dunce as a consequence of Ruggle's play."(Wikipedia).

An entertaining and characteristic correspondence. See both their entries in the Oxford DNB. The nine items (seven by Jacob and two by Macqueen-Pope) are in fair overall condition, with all text clear and complete, on lightly aged and creased paper, with slight rust-staining from paperclips, and minor wear to edges. All folded for envelopes. The first seven of the nine following entries are NJ's letters (the last four of which are addressed to 'My dear Popie'), the last two the copies of MP's. ONE: 24 June [1945]. 'ENSA Entertainments. / C/o Welfare, 6th. Brit. Armde. Div. / C. M. F.' Signed 'N J'. 1p, 8vo. Twenty-six lines. MP is not named as the recipient, but NJ ends by praising his 1945 History of Drury Lane. Begins: 'I went off to Trieste after having seen two companies leave here, and found the hostel at Trieste being excellently run. Much brighter then [sic] it was before. The "Nine to Six" Company were in, moving on to Mestre. They then go to Austria.' She continues on the subject of an 'informal' road-side 'conference' with 'Captain Roberts'. She has travelled from Trieste with Jean Webster Brough, to Udine 'where we did "A sister to assist 'er" from B.4 radio station. Apparently this went over excellently, and everyone seemed very much pleased. I go back there to do a single talk on Wednesday.' The second half of the letter touches on an ENSA hostel ('no longer shared with the D.A.R.'), another meeting with Roberts, an 'extensive programme for the station' arranged by NJ and Brough, a trip to Venice, where she met 'the Theatre Manager. The well known and universally repected "Fop". This man is probably one of the most popular people ENSA has ever had out in C.M.F.' The following six letters are all from 'Casa Micki'. TWO: 6 February 1951. 1p, 8vo. Signed 'Naomi Jacob.' On pink paper. Expressing anticipation regarding his new book. She has all his others 'up to date and, as we have no lending libraries out here in Italy that should bring a certain satisfaction to the heart of any author!' In an autograph postscript she asks him to forward a letter to Basil Dean. THREE: 11 December 1951. 1p, 8vo. Signed 'Naomi Jacob.' Twenty-eight lines. On pink paper. She has just finished his 'superb article dealing with that wonderful woman, Our Marie [Lloyd]. To be quite frank, as a rule I dislike impressions of her. Either people become fulsome or impertinent. I rank this article of yours with the one which dear James Agate wrote of her soon after her death.' After praising his 'beautifully written' piece she reminds him that she 'wrote a full length life of Marie [.] My publishers were very dubious [.] When it came out I have never had so many, such long and such enthusiastic criticisms [.] entirely due to the fact that Marie will always live in the hearts of the people who were fortunate enough to see her and still more fortunate to have known her.' She ends by offering him one of her two copies of the 'special photograph [Lloyd had] taken to send to Sarah Bernhardt [.] quite different from any other photograph she ever had taken [.] she does not look unlike Bernhardt in it'. FOUR: 18 January 1952. 2pp, 8vo. Signed 'Naomi Jacob. / (but "Mickie" to my friends)'. Thirty-eight lines. In sending the photograph she gives 'its history'. 'She had some of these photographs taken after Sarah Bernhardt had seen her on the stage and christened her "the Sarah Bernhardt of the Music Hall Stage". Marie of course was tickled to death because no-one venerated other great artistes more than she did and she had these photographs taken and sent one to Bernhardt with the inscription "To Sarah Bernhardt, the Marie Lloyd of the Theatre".' She criticises a BBC radio programme on Lloyd as a 'hotch-potch [.] I have a great admiration for Compton Mackenzie and for Max Beerbohm but what either of them knew about Marie Lloyd I cannot imagine. To refer to her voice as being harsh is of course sheer rubbish. Her voice was a little hoarse but there was no harshness about it and her diction was perfect.' Responding to Item Eight below, she reassures him over his own criticisms of his biography of Ivor Novello. 'I see your point that there was no light and shade, very clearly, and I think that you dealt with the prison incident very beautifully indeed because you neither over-sentimentalised nor did too much castigation of anyone.' She suggests a meeting on her next visit to England, adding 'both you and I have, I think, the right to call ourselves "good old-timers". Long postscript, signed 'M.', regarding Marie Lloyd's husband 'Dillon': 'It is one of my proudest memories that I was instrumental in getting that gentleman free board and lodging from His Majesty. [.] when we meet I will tell you more about that wretched little bit of God's handiwork. God damn his soul, and with that Christian thought I leave you.' FIVE: 27 July 1953. 2pp, 8vo. Signed 'Mickie'. Twenty-seven lines. Begins by praising his 'Shirt Fronts and Sables', and in particular his treatment of Marie Tempest, 'a person for whom I had a great admiration and affection'. It is however another of the book's subjects, Julian Wylie, that she is writing to him about. 'Years ago at the Middlesbrough Empire, at a time when it was scarcely considered respectable for a young woman to go to the Music Halls and I went just the same, there was a turn called the Wylie Brothers. This consisted of a man getting out of bed after an obviously very thick night, and going over to a full-length looking glass. I believe they were called Sheval glasses.' She describes the act ('The same idea of course as the Volonoffs did in their Shadow dance'), and asks if 'this was Julian Wylie and his brother'. She thinks his style of writing is 'growing so much more easy', and commends an anecdote in the book about George Dance, which made her laugh 'till I cried'. SIX: 28 January 1956. 2pp, 8vo. Signed 'Mickie'. Forty-three lines. She begins with a reference to 'Julia' and MP's 'tribute',