Sylvia T. H. White: A Biography [with] two ALS by the author

by TOWNSEND WARNER

£650 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

TOWNSEND WARNER, Sylvia T. H. White: A Biography [with] two ALS by the author London: Jonathan Cape with Chatto Windus, 1967. 8vo., original brick-red publisher's cloth, backstrip lettered in gilt; upper edge black; in the original unclipped jacket with a photograph of white to the upper panel, and facsimile letter to the lower; pictorial endpapers; pp. [vii], 8-352; faint pushing to spine tips and offsetting to endleaves, else a near-fine copy, in the very good dust jacket slightly rubbed at tips and sun bleached to spine. First edition. Warner was given access to White's papers shortly after his death in 1964. Her biography was regarded by the New York Times as ""a small masterpiece which may well be read long after the writings of its subject have been forgotten." [sold with] Two autograph letters signed by Townsend, addressed to a Mr John da Silva. The first, dated 20th October 1964, is a letter in which she, having been asked to write a biography of T. H. White, reaches out to Mr da Silva, a former school pupil of the great Arthurian writer. "I should be extremely grateful to have your impressions of him at this stage in his career", she writes. "He wrote in his various books about all his activities - except teaching… he must have been a remarkable and stimulating teacher." The reply from da Silva comes just over a month letter, in the form of two typed sheets recounting his memories of being at school in the master's company. "I remember him with great affection" the l

• Binding: Hardcover

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