PEAKE
(Mervyn, 1911-1968, Writer, Artist, Poet and Illustrator)
Exceptional Early Autograph Letter Signed "Merve" to his old friend [Helene] Lanie Bruce "Lanie dear"
written in his tiny neat hand wondering where "this letter will find you. Maybe still in Ebury street. Have you seen any more of Leslie? The island is magical now. The flowers are like living cataracts of pure colour. Yesterday I spent the whole day painting in a warm valley. The sunlight was terrific making the grass, trees and flowers and especially the gorse almost dizzyingly brilliant. Oh Lord, the sunlight on the gorse is almost cruel in its unrelenting intensity. I took easel & paints, canvases, lunch and everything down in a wheelbarrow. It was wonderful. The trees, at least some of them are only just coming into leaf and make a faint pink blurr against the sky - like a cloud at sunset ... I cannot help constantly remembering about picking the flowers in the garden with you - not our garden. It was all so incredibly lovely. Oh I do want to see you again. Sark would be heaven, if we could wander about the cliff tops and among the trees and discuss things. The people I know here are all swell in their way but I always feel a trifle apart and could never get on with them as I do with you. Next Saturday the Gallery is opening for the first of the Summer shows they are holding here. It is going to be good ... better than the London one anyway for our work has changed a lot since last summer and autumn. Is there any chance of your coming over here and then returning with me for Leslie's wedding ... Is Bobbie in England still. If so give him my very, very best. A great guy. Please forgive the last disintegrated letter I sent you. God, it was lovely having you to see me off at Waterloo ... Well Lanie - au revoir pour le moment. Write soon and send good news if you can be coming over. I'd love you to see this place in the spring - besides of course the rather absurd and wholly unaccountable wish to see you myself ...", 2 sides 4to., c/o The Art Gallery, Sark, C.I., 14th Mary
Item Date:
1934
Stock No:
40689
£975
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PEAKE
(Mervyn, 1911-1968, Writer, Artist, Poet and Illustrator)
Fine Autograph Letter Signed "Mervyn" to his old friend [Helene] Lanie Bruce "Lanie Darling"
starting "What kind of a so & so have you decided that I am by now! The worst kind I'm afraid. How lovely it would be to meet again. Is there an earthly chance. Do write again soon, darling. I remember our last meeting with so much excitement. I've tried 5 publishers with your stories, but they all think they are too slight. I rather agree in a way - although I know they are for toddlers (never used that word before! urggh!) If you could write something with a bit more body to it, or a bit fiercer, I think it would go down better. Nevertheless I'll go on trying & maybe you'll prove the publishers and me, wrong, I hope so. Of course I'll do drawings for you if I can get a publisher to take it. Darling sweet Lanie, I would like to be with you. Your adoring cousin ...", 2 sides 8vo.,Smarden, nr Ashford, Kent, 7th January
Item Date:
1952
Stock No:
40691
£650
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"I'LL KNOCK OLD DEGAS INTO A COCKED HAT"
PEAKE
(Mervyn, 1911-1968, Writer, Artist, Poet and Illustrator)
Exceptional Early Autograph Letter Signed to his old friend [Helene] Lanie Bruce "Lanie, my darling"
written in his tiny neat hand asking if she can "guess who is writing to you? It is the last person you would expect, and one whom you have given up as an ungrateful and bad mannered young cub - yet t'is he, the very Mervyn. O Lanie, I wish you were with me now. I could talk such a hell of a lot, tous to say and everything, and I never could write. As for the not writing before, I take it that you have forgiven me ... I have written to you a million times mentally ... thousands and thousands of wild and marvellous things have happened. Ah God to see you again ... I suppose you know nothing - marriages - divorces, RA's etc. Ah well. 'Out of London, out in the wilds' as they say ... Got a picture in the Academy this year, and have sold 4 all together - total £7. 7. It's all gone - bought a corduroy suit - double breasted - damned snappy ... Had a marvellous holiday ... Went to Sark on my ownio. L+. Eric Drake and his American wife were there. Marvellous. Sark is Paradise, without any damned angels getting in the light. Paint, paint, paint. I'm doing nothing else, except drawing, modelling, & writing. Have written a 1000 line poem 'Pygmalion' and was well on in an opera 'Saul', which was better, but left it in a bus. I feel so wild. The other day I was taken to 'Romano's' restaurant in Soho. Best cooking in London - Marvellous. And he's going to hang my pics on his walls - 'O Baby - she's my cuty now'. Goodbye Old Compton Street and the Black Cat, eh! Dirty old hovel. Romano's Ho! All the fat Americans go there - Lady Dillwater, Lord Drainwater, Viscount Dishwater from Little Puddleton-on-the-Slush etc. O Boy, Lanie sweetheart - I never knew what art was or painting or drawing or anything when you were here - not that I do now, but things are beginning to move. I am going to draw Cochran's chorus girls in the Ballet school - Free permit - isn't that great, and I'll knock old Degas into a cocked hat ... greatest artist of the ballet ever. I'll never forget Kensington, the cigarettes, gas fire, being put in my place - Old Bobbie taking us to the flicks ... Great chap Bobbie - I hope you realise that. I see him more in perspective than you do ... Is there any chance of your coming back soon. I do hope so ... Lanie - all women grow dim to me after a month or two ... But I always remember you, and the one thing on God's Earth I'd like to do now is to be talking to you .. I've grown a bit - and I've just realised how I've been wasting my time ... there are such colossal things to be done ... Please write to me ... I always have adored you. From the old Romantic who ... never forgets, Mervyn ...", 3 sides 8vo., Woodcroft, Wallington, Surrey, 1st November
Item Date:
1931
Stock No:
40688
£1275
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PEAKE
(Mervyn, 1911-1968, Writer, Artist, Poet and Illustrator)
Fine Autograph Letter Signed with his intimate nickname "Muffin" to his old friend [Helene] Lanie Bruce "Lanie dear"
starting "you must think me very dreadful! I have been delighted & thrilled to know you are in England & have meant to write - but knew I'd see you & procrastinated. But how lovely to see you! I'm in town now - at 3 Trafalgar Studios & it was lovely getting your letter here ... Darling, I'll ring you ... and we'll fix when we can meet. Do you arrive from Devon at Victoria (what a sentence). If so - shall I meet you for a few minutes before you have to catch a train to Mayfield or are you going by car. Lots of the original love to you, darling ...", with a postscript that they "were awfully sorry about your little boy & that you weren't able to come to Sark. Give him my love. I hope he's better ...", 2 sides 8vo., 3 Trafalgar Studios, Chelsea, no date but circa
Item Date:
1946
Stock No:
40690
£650
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SHEPARD
(Ernest Howard, 1879-1976, Illustrator of "Winnie the Pooh")
Fine Autograph Letter Signed to Leif Dahlberg and his wife
thanking them "very much for your kindness in sending the 'Svenskav'. Such a lovely book full of charming photographs of the people and places in your country ...", 1 side 8vo., Woodmancote, Lodsworth, nr Petworth headed paper, 10th July
slight smudging around 'good wishes'
Item Date:
1970
Stock No:
40697
£175
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