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THE J. M. DENT AND SONS RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS ARCHIVE: A SAMPLER OF LETTERS FROM A WIDE SELECTION OF MAJOR TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH LITERARY AND POPULAR FICTION WRITERS.
An extensive archive of correspondence from the files of London publisher J. M. Dent and Sons. Approximately 285 letters, written in the 1920s and 1930s, with a scattering of earlier and later letters, mostly giving (and on occasion denying) permission to reprint literary work in various anthologies of poetry and prose. A considerable portion of the correspondence relates to permissions and payments for work to be included in books published as part of Dent's popular Everyman's Library. Many letters are addressed to Ernest Rhys (1859-1946), the founding editor of Everyman's Library, and to Guy Noel Pocock (1880-1955). Additionally, there are letters addressed to J. M. Dent, Thomas Caldwell, John Hampden (who was compiling a book of ghost stories), and others. Overall, the letters are in excellent condition. Some have indents from paperclips or small holes where once pinned, mostly at the upper left corners. The letters have the expected mailing folds. Several of the letters have rust marks from paperclips and some have minor creases, wrinkles, closed tears or small chips. These defects have been noted. Most of the letters are accompanied by rights and permissions letters, sometimes extensive, from and to J. M. Dent and Sons. Many of the carbons on flimsy paper are wrinkled or creased from decades of storage. Nevertheless, their content adds considerably to the depth and research value of the archive. The archive includes correspondence from (among others): Richard Aldington, Max Beerbohm, Vanessa Bell, Hilaire Belloc, Arnold Bennett, E. F. Benson, Ernest Bramah, Robert Bridges, Padraic Colum, Joseph Conrad, Walter de la Mare, Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Alfred Douglas, Lord Dunsany, T. S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, E. M. Forster, Edmund Gosse, Kenneth Grahame, Graham Greene, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Houseman, Ted Hughes, James Joyce, C. S. Lewis, Rose Macaulay, Arthur Machen, John Masefield, A. A. Milne, Henry Newbolt, Ezra Pound, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Arthur Rackham, Vita Sackville-West, Siegfried Sassoon, George Bernard Shaw, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, James Stephens, J. R. R. Tolkien, Katharine Tynan, Hugh Walpole, Mary Webb, H. G. Wells, Virginia Woolf (typed signature), W. B. Yeats. J. M. Dent and Sons was sold to Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 1986. In 1991 the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, purchased the J. M. Dent and Sons Records, 1834-1986 (150.0 linear feet; approximately 210,000 items) through Bertram Rota, Booksellers, London. Many of the UNC files are incomplete as they had been "pruned," and correspondence with Joseph Conrad, Dylan Thomas, Virginia Woolf, and others had been removed and sold.
LOSER TAKES ALL.
Melbourne, London, Toronto: William Heinemann Ltd, [1955]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. An engaged couple goes to Monte Carlo where the husband to be starts gambling to pay the hotel bill. Filmed twice, in 1956 and again in 1990 as Strike It Rich. Hubin, p. 349.
THE MINISTRY OF FEAR.
New York: The Viking Press, 1943. Octavo, pp. [1-6] [1-2] 3-239 [240-242: blank] [note: last leaf is a blank], original black cloth, front panel stamped in light blue, spine panel stamped in light blue and white, top edge stained blue. First U.S. edition. "Arthur Rowe, on an aimless afternoon stroll through the streets of [World War II] London, dropped into a charity bazaar, had his fortune told and guessed the weight of a prize cake, and found himself groping his way down the obscure and unmarked corridors of the Ministry of Fear. As it happened, Mr. Rowe had for some time been incapable of being frightened, and the Ministry staff showed bad judgment in admitting him. It was their only diplomatic blunder, but it proved to be fatal" (from the jacket blurb). Fritz Lang filmed a highly moody version in 1944 with Ray Milland. Hubin (1994), p. 349. Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights, The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, pp. 316-17.
OUR MAN IN HAVANA: AN ENTERTAINMENT.
New York: The Viking Press, 1958. Octavo, cloth. First U. S. edition. Middle-aged Englishman who is a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana becomes a British agent. Made into a film directed by Carol Reed with Alec Guiness. Hubin, p. 349.
THE THIRD MAN AND THE FALLEN IDOL.
Melbourne, London, Toronto: William Heinemann Ltd, [1950]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Contains the original text from his manuscript which was the film treatment for The Third Man. The story of The Fallen Idol also served as a film treatment. Hubin, p. 349.
THE THIRD MAN.
New York: The Viking Press, 1950. Octavo, cloth. First U. S. edition. Source for the film noir directed by Carol Reed starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. Greene wrote the story specifically to frame the film and had originally not intended it to be published. Hubin, p. 349.