Lot 104
Dowson (Ernest) "To -----" autograph manuscript poem initialled by Dowson, n.d.
Hammer Price: £1,500
Description
Dowson (Ernest) "To -----" autograph manuscript poem initialled by Dowson, 1p., 12 lines in pencil on recto with portion of autograph letter signed "Ernest D." on verso, vertical fold, tipped into card folder and preserved in chemise and custom morocco-backed slip-case (some spotting and fading), 8vo, n.d.
⁂ A characteristic manuscript roundel by Dowson on the reverse of a typically bitter letter.
"You loved me once. I charge you sweet,/ Leave me this last, on faith, in spite/ Of broken vows & time's deceit,/ You loved me once?..."
The letter from Dowson, to an unknown recipient, finds Dowson in self-pitying and rancorous form: "I read yr. 'Fr. Proverbs'. Excellent, but what is the good of writing? What is the good of anything? I would I know a curse infinite enough to assuage the spleen wherewith I contemplate all that is or has been or shall be."
Manuscript material by Dowson is rare at auction. The roundel was first published by Desmond Flower in his Complete Poems of Ernest Christopher Dowson (1934, p.159), taken from a manuscript notebook of Dowson's, then in Flower's possession and now in the Morgan Library, and there given the title "To Helene". Included with the lot is a 1954 letter from Alexander D. Wainwright of Princeton University Library, thanking the recipient for the loan of Galsworthy and Dowson items for an exhibition and a letter from Desmond Flower, confirming the poems as being in Dowson's hand and speculating that the letter may be addressed to Dowson's Oxford friend Sam Smith.
Description
Dowson (Ernest) "To -----" autograph manuscript poem initialled by Dowson, 1p., 12 lines in pencil on recto with portion of autograph letter signed "Ernest D." on verso, vertical fold, tipped into card folder and preserved in chemise and custom morocco-backed slip-case (some spotting and fading), 8vo, n.d.
⁂ A characteristic manuscript roundel by Dowson on the reverse of a typically bitter letter.
"You loved me once. I charge you sweet,/ Leave me this last, on faith, in spite/ Of broken vows & time's deceit,/ You loved me once?..."
The letter from Dowson, to an unknown recipient, finds Dowson in self-pitying and rancorous form: "I read yr. 'Fr. Proverbs'. Excellent, but what is the good of writing? What is the good of anything? I would I know a curse infinite enough to assuage the spleen wherewith I contemplate all that is or has been or shall be."
Manuscript material by Dowson is rare at auction. The roundel was first published by Desmond Flower in his Complete Poems of Ernest Christopher Dowson (1934, p.159), taken from a manuscript notebook of Dowson's, then in Flower's possession and now in the Morgan Library, and there given the title "To Helene". Included with the lot is a 1954 letter from Alexander D. Wainwright of Princeton University Library, thanking the recipient for the loan of Galsworthy and Dowson items for an exhibition and a letter from Desmond Flower, confirming the poems as being in Dowson's hand and speculating that the letter may be addressed to Dowson's Oxford friend Sam Smith.
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