Lot 309
Lascelles, Sir Alan ("Tommy", 1887-1981, courtier). TLS to Siegfried Sassoon, The Old Stables, Kensington Palace, "St. Partridge 1962", 2pp., 8vo. He refers to the Old Century, and "It must be fun to be an elderly writer, and give so much pleasure to one's contemporaries", also "The O.M. dinner at the Café Royal was not so bad as it threatened to be. John Betjeman & I filled ourselves up with gin at Boodles before it. He made a brilliant speech…so did I", with note by SS at end; ALS, Midland Bank Limited, 11.ix.62, 2pp., 8vo.,"I am torn in two over Shakespeare's tomb. I should hate anything to be done which Shakespeare mightn't like…"; ALS, Trafalgar House, Downton, Salisbury, 2.v.64, 11/2pp, 8vo., returning a TLS Sassoon has received from the BBC requesting an interview to hear his views on the First World War, "The right place for it is where the monkey put the nuts", and referring to Osbert Lancaster who has said "at some literary luncheon that he was tired of Shakespeare controversies & didn't really care if Dr. Rowse was or was not the Dark Lady of the Sonnets". SS has written "Rats - with knobs on
" on the BBC letter. With envelope re-addressed to Dennis Silk.
Sassoon makes a reference to the same BBC letter on p. 84 of Poet's Pilgrimage, 1973, a copy of which is included in the lot, along with various correspondence concerning Dennis Silk's review of the same, including 2 ALsS from Dame Felicitas Corrigan, who assembled and published the work at Stanbrook Abbey.
