LEAR (EDWARD) Series of 43 letters and a postcard signed ('Edward Lear'),

LEAR (EDWARD) Series of 43 letters and a postcard signed ('Edward Lear'), to The Rev. Edward Carus Selwyn (1853-1918), written over a period of seven years, and sending a poem dedicated to him, on a wide range of subjects including: the progress on the building of Villa Tennyson and problems with the new hotel on land nearby, giving advice on mounting his pictures (with illustration), moving into his new home ('...the garden is like a rainbow pulled to pieces...'), looking after his old servant ('...a clear duty not to throw away one who has served me well... as if he were an old umbrella or chair...'), discussing a commission ('...won't do Athens or Jerusalem, having done them so often...') and suggesting a few works he might like ('...you can have a capital frame for the Cedars at no further eggspence to yourself...'), asking after Alice Liddell ('...Now as for Miss Liddell. How old is she?... I hope you will tell me more of Miss Liddell & of Liddledom generally when you write...'), on Selwyn's pupils ('...I advise you to mix them all up together & feed them with honey & mustard...'), his health ('...am pretty well worn out & noctupp...') and later apologising for speaking of the pupils '...in a runcible & ofsplivious manner...', progress of his Corsican drawings and their sale, much on his travels ('...to Pisa to get drawings of the spot wh. Shelley's body was found by Byron & Trelawney...'), illustrating Tennyson, congratulations on Selwyn's engagement to Miss Cropper ('...have one of my drawings as a wedding offering... Segesta Temple...'), a four verse poem dedicated to Selwyn (beginning '...He lived at Dingle Bank, he did:-/ He lived at Dingle Bank;/ And in his garden was one Quail,/ Four tulips, and a Tank:/ And from his windows he could see/ The otion and the River Dee...', 24 March 1884), increasing infirmity ('...I can now hardly doddlewaddle as far as the pestilential po-stoffis...'), much on Selwyns 'twinnious twins' or 'tumultuous Twills' ('...I am glad the Twins are of opposite sects, 2 boys or two girls would be silly...'), flies with '...Beelzebubbious tendencies...', the last describing a fall ('...too much champagne...') and listing twenty topographical pictures, on mutual acquaintances, visitors, his Italian servants, and much else, six with small line illustrations (including two cherubs riding a dog), with 41 autograph envelopes, c.134 pages, light dust-staining, creased at folds, 8vo (210 x 132mm.), Villa Emily and Villa Tennyson, Sanremo, Mendirisio, Recoaro, Barzario, 20 October 1880 to 9 November 1887; with thirteen letters from Selwyn to Lear, 58 pages, 8vo, Dingle Bank, Liverpool, 4 March 1886 to Christmas Day 1887, and accompanying letter from Lear's executor and friend Franklin Lushington returning them after Lear's death and listing which of Lear's drawings are still available, 4 pages on a bifolium, 8vo, Norfolk Square, W., 27 June [18]88 Footnotes: 'YOU ARE THE MOST DELIGHTFUL COVE I HAVE KNOWN FOR A LONG TIME': EDWARD LEAR'S CHARACTERISTICALLY NONSENSICAL CORRESPONDENCE, INCLUDING THE POEM 'HE LIVED AT DINGLE BANK' DEDICATED TO THE RECIPIENT. Our collection dates from the latter years of Edward Lear's life when living at the Villa Tennyson in San Remo. He met The Rev. Edward Carus Selwyn (1853-1918), a theologian and scholar, at Monte Generoso in the summer of 1880 and they became regular and frequent correspondents. As Lear noted in a letter to Lord Carlingford of 31 August 1882, Selwyn gave him '...a very pleasant commission for some small drawings, and has besides bought a small copy of my big Cedars of Lebanon, long ago left unfinished...' (ed. Lady Strachey, Later Letters of Edward Lear to Chichester Fortescue (Lord Carlingford), Frances Countess Waldegrave and others, 1911, p.268). Much of the correspondence, therefore, discusses his current projects and offers advice as to the best mounting and framing, demonstrated by line illustrations. Selwyn was principal at Liverpool College from 1882 to 1887, which inspired Lear to write the nonsense poem 'He Lived at Dingle Bank', which is written out in one of our letters, probably for the first time (March 1884) and was later published. It was a testament to their friendship that Selwyn was also the recipient of one of the copies of Lear's final nonsense poem, the autobiographical Some incidents in the Life of My Uncle Arly (see preceding lot). There is much talk about a Miss Cropper as a potential wife for Selwyn in the letters but he eventually married Lucy Ada Arnold (1858-1894), granddaughter of Dr Arnold of Rugby and niece of the poet Matthew Arnold, in July 1884. In 1885 Edward Gordon and Mary, 'the twinnious twins', as Lear called them, were born, followed by five more children in quick succession, including another set of twins. From 1887 Selwyn was headmaster of Uppingham School and, when he retired in 1907, he rented Undershaw, the former home of Arthur Conan Doyle. He was to experience great tragedy in his latter years. His wife died in 1894 at the age of thirty-six after only ten years of marriage, probably in childbirth, and he saw his twin sons Arthur and Christopher killed in the Great War, a year and a day apart. His first-born 'twill', Mary, only survived her father by two years. Whilst his handwriting in the last letters is somewhat shaky and more hesitant, Lear remained, as Selwyn called him '...the genius of nonsense... [he] revelled and romped in the absurd...' ('Later Letters of Edward Lear', Cornhill Magazine, Vol.28, 28 March 1910, pp.390). The letters are sprinkled throughout with Lear's idiosyncratic spelling and nonsense words. We have 'dooplikkit' for duplicate, 'Quinsidence' for coincidence, 'a Nenvellope' for an envelope, 'appleplexy' for apoplexy, 'pheebleness' for feebleness, and 'Phebbrorary' for February' to name but a few. Amongst the general news and complaints about his health, he occasionally drifts into nonsense and flights of fancy: '...All is well as ends well, as the tadpole said when he became a phrogg...', or '...I will now look over your last letter and make ozbervations on its points, as the monkey said when he casually sat down on the pincushion...', and a wonderfully evocative passage when complaining of recent bad weather '...Many respectable people have had their heads blown off... & owing to their hands being too cold they have not been able to stick them on again properly, & they walk about their heads in wicker baskets which they hold tightly in their hands – the heads being surrounded violets & potato leaves...'. The present group retains the vast majority of the surviving Lear/Selwyn correspondence but it is evidently not quite the entire sequence. For example, a letter from the collection accompanying a watercolour view of Cannes was sold in these rooms, 31 March 2015, lot 30. The text of our letters is not included in Vivien Noakes' Selected Letters but in 1910, Selwyn published an account of his friendship with Lear, including '...some of the less intimate portions...' of a handful of our letters in the Cornhill Magazine ('Later Letters of Edward Lear', Cornhill Magazine, Vol.28, 28 March 1910, pp.389-398). Provenance: The Rev. Edward Carus Selwyn (1853-1918); his son The Very Rev. Edward Gordon Selwyn (1885-1959, one of the ''eavenly twins'), the grandfather of the present owner. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing