Eliot (T.S.) 7 Autograph Letters signed "Tom Possum" or variants to Andrew Roberts, 8pp., on Faber and Faber letterhead, folds, 5 December, 1944 - 29th March 1960; with 2 autograph envelopes and a group of others, including photocopies of letters from Andrew Roberts to Eliot and copies of letters from Eliot to Michael Roberts, Autograph Letters from and to Andrew Roberts, orders of service for the funeral and memorial services of Eliot, issues of the Christian News Letter, a Cuala broadside, v.s. (a bundle)

⁂ "a complete Dickens is pretty well essential, as well as Scott and Jane Austen. I have myself found a complete Thackeray not nearly so essential as it is supposed to be."

A charming group of letters from Eliot principally relating to a proposed gift of a set of an author's works in celebration of Andrew Roberts' scholarship to Cambridge. Eliot gives lively discussion of the merits (or lack of) of various authors and reference works. He also mentions an ill-advised bilking of an auctioneer in his youth: "When I was very young I once bought a complete works of Voltaire for some very trifling price at auction and then was so terrified by what I had done that I never went back to claim and pay for them. This was a shameful act which I am still trying to live down."

Provenance:

Janet Adam Smith (1905-99) Scottish writer, literary editor and journalist. From 1930 to 1935 she was assistant editor at The Listener, where she did much to promote the work of new poets, in particular W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Herbert Read and Louis MacNeice. In 1936 she succeeded Michael Roberts as chief reviewer in Eliot’s quarterly The Criterion. She married Michael Roberts in 1935.

Michael Roberts (1902-48) English poet, writer, mathematician, critic and broadcaster. He taught at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle and while there began publishing both his own poetry as well as editing anthologies, the most celebrated of which was the Faber Book of Modern Verse.

Andrew Roberts (1037-2024), British historian of Africa, Emeritus Professor at SOAS.