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Auction archive: Lot number 99

MELVILLE, HERMAN. Autograph letter signed ("Herman Melville") to James Billson, New York, 22 January 1885. 3 pages, 8vo, in dark blue ink, traces of mounting on blank fourth page, slight (mostly marginal) red stain on second, with typed transcript.

Auction 17.05.1996
17 May 1996
Estimate
US$7,000 - US$9,000
Price realised:
US$12,650
Auction archive: Lot number 99

MELVILLE, HERMAN. Autograph letter signed ("Herman Melville") to James Billson, New York, 22 January 1885. 3 pages, 8vo, in dark blue ink, traces of mounting on blank fourth page, slight (mostly marginal) red stain on second, with typed transcript.

Auction 17.05.1996
17 May 1996
Estimate
US$7,000 - US$9,000
Price realised:
US$12,650
Beschreibung:

MELVILLE, HERMAN. Autograph letter signed ("Herman Melville") to James Billson, New York, 22 January 1885. 3 pages, 8vo, in dark blue ink, traces of mounting on blank fourth page, slight (mostly marginal) red stain on second, with typed transcript. "NEITHER PESSIMIST NOR OPTIMIST MYSELF" Charles James Billson (1858-1932), a recent Oxford graduate and English admirer of Melville's works, had first written to the out-of-fashion American author in August 1884. Melville responded in October 1884 and over the next four years wrote his young English friend a total of nine letters -- "the most consecutive correspondence we know with an admirer" (Jay Leyda The Melville Log , New York, 1951, vol. 1, p. xxiii). Billson introduced Melville by letter to other enthusiasts in England, perhaps providing evidence to the aging and neglected writer that some readers and critics, at least in the British Isles, apppreciated his books. In this, his third letter to Billson, Melville writes: "I am grateful for the last volume you kindly sent me, received yesterday [James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems , London, 1880]. "Sunday up the River" [a poem in the volume], contrasting with the "City of Dreadful Night," is like a Cuban humming-bird, beautiful in faery tints, flying against the tropic thunder-cloud. Your friend was a sterling poet, if ever one sang. As to his pessimism, altho' neither pessimist nor optomist [sic] myself, nevertheless I relish it in the verse if for nothing else than as a counterpoise to the exorbitant hopefulness, juvenile and shallow, that makes such a bluster in these days...In a former note you mentioned that altho' you had unearthed several of my buried books, yet there was one -- Clarel [New York, 1876, 2 vols.] -- that your spade had not succeeded in getting at. Fearing that you never will get at it by yourself, I have disinterred a copy for you of which I ask your acceptance and mail it with this note. It is the sole presentation-copy of the issue. Repeating my thanks for both the rare volumes you have been good enough to send [ The City of Dreadful Night and another Thomson book of poetry sent in October]..." Letters , ed. M.R. Davis & W.H. Gilman, no. 233. Provenance : H. Bradley Martin (sale, Sotheby's New York, Part VI, 30 January 1990, part of lot 2170A). The Alan L. Weiner collection contains five of the nine Melville letters to Billson (the nine formed the above lot in the Martin sale); in addition to the two offered here and in the following lot, three will be offered in a Christie's sale next fall: nos. 232, 239, and 248 in Letters . The five letters in the Weiner collection all concern the English poet James Thomson

Auction archive: Lot number 99
Auction:
Datum:
17 May 1996
Auction house:
Christie's
New York, Park Avenue
Beschreibung:

MELVILLE, HERMAN. Autograph letter signed ("Herman Melville") to James Billson, New York, 22 January 1885. 3 pages, 8vo, in dark blue ink, traces of mounting on blank fourth page, slight (mostly marginal) red stain on second, with typed transcript. "NEITHER PESSIMIST NOR OPTIMIST MYSELF" Charles James Billson (1858-1932), a recent Oxford graduate and English admirer of Melville's works, had first written to the out-of-fashion American author in August 1884. Melville responded in October 1884 and over the next four years wrote his young English friend a total of nine letters -- "the most consecutive correspondence we know with an admirer" (Jay Leyda The Melville Log , New York, 1951, vol. 1, p. xxiii). Billson introduced Melville by letter to other enthusiasts in England, perhaps providing evidence to the aging and neglected writer that some readers and critics, at least in the British Isles, apppreciated his books. In this, his third letter to Billson, Melville writes: "I am grateful for the last volume you kindly sent me, received yesterday [James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems , London, 1880]. "Sunday up the River" [a poem in the volume], contrasting with the "City of Dreadful Night," is like a Cuban humming-bird, beautiful in faery tints, flying against the tropic thunder-cloud. Your friend was a sterling poet, if ever one sang. As to his pessimism, altho' neither pessimist nor optomist [sic] myself, nevertheless I relish it in the verse if for nothing else than as a counterpoise to the exorbitant hopefulness, juvenile and shallow, that makes such a bluster in these days...In a former note you mentioned that altho' you had unearthed several of my buried books, yet there was one -- Clarel [New York, 1876, 2 vols.] -- that your spade had not succeeded in getting at. Fearing that you never will get at it by yourself, I have disinterred a copy for you of which I ask your acceptance and mail it with this note. It is the sole presentation-copy of the issue. Repeating my thanks for both the rare volumes you have been good enough to send [ The City of Dreadful Night and another Thomson book of poetry sent in October]..." Letters , ed. M.R. Davis & W.H. Gilman, no. 233. Provenance : H. Bradley Martin (sale, Sotheby's New York, Part VI, 30 January 1990, part of lot 2170A). The Alan L. Weiner collection contains five of the nine Melville letters to Billson (the nine formed the above lot in the Martin sale); in addition to the two offered here and in the following lot, three will be offered in a Christie's sale next fall: nos. 232, 239, and 248 in Letters . The five letters in the Weiner collection all concern the English poet James Thomson

Auction archive: Lot number 99
Auction:
Datum:
17 May 1996
Auction house:
Christie's
New York, Park Avenue
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