Elgar, Billy Reed & Bernard Shaw.- Shaw (George Bernard, playwright and polemicist, 1856-1950) Autograph Letter signed to Billy Reed, 1½pp., 8vo, Malvern Hotel, Malvern, 17th August 1934, relating to Reed's book on Edward Elgar, Elgar As I Knew Him, published in 1936, "Perhaps I should get the enclosed typed for you; but as you are inured to impossible manuscripts I send it, to save time, just as I scrawled it. It may just serve to start you. Once started you will have no difficulty in going ahead in your own way. The book will be attractive as biography and autobiography. There is a statutory right of reasonable quotation which will, I think, cover... the use you need make of the sketch. Therefore if you can get access to the sketches (or copies) no question of copyright is likely to arise", torn at head with very small loss; Shaw (George Bernard) Autograph Letter signed to Dr Hull, 1p., 114 x 177mm., 4 Whitehall Court, London, 14th April 1939, concerning a contribution towards the cost of Billy Reed's honorary music degree ceremony by the University of Cambridge, "What does it cost to be enrobed as a Mus. Doc? I haven't the faintest notion. Will Billy have to compose a Tantum Ergo in eight real parts and hire a string quartet and a choir to perform it? I am completely in the dark, and don't know whether you want a guinea from me or a small fortune", folds, removed from an album (2).

⁂ William Henry Reed [Billy] (1876-1942), violinist and composer; after Elgar's death, George Bernard Shaw encouraged Reed to record his memories of Elgar. The book, Elgar As I Knew Him included facsimile reproductions of many of the 172 pages of sketches and also the instructions Elgar had given Reed for playing them and his guidance on where each sketch fitted into the overall work.