TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS)

London, 29 September 1955. Letter. Some wrinkling, mailing crease. Near Fine. A 1-1/2-page single-spaced letter on both sides of 6-7/8" x 8" Faber & Faber stationery SIGNED by the poet on the verso. Addressed to poet Margaret Stanley-Wrench. In full: "I have not been able to lay my hands on the letter which you say I wrote to you a year or two ago, but that does not really matter, because I am obliged to give you a somewhat similar answer on this occasion. Your present volume of poems, THE ANCESTORS, has been submitted to other eyes besides my own, as I am no longer quite as active in this department as I used to be. I am sorry to say that our final (truncated) decision is against publication -- that is to say, against adding this volume to our own list. We have to be increasingly selective as our list grows, and nowadays, after many years of publishing more poetry than any other firm, we only take a new poet once or twice a year. I say this in the hope of convincing you that I am not merely being polite when I say that I was struck by some of the poems and that, for instance, I found "The Valley of the Answer" with its evocation of landscape in a part of the United States unknown to me, quite fascinating. I do think that your poems have a good deal of merit and I think that this volume deserves to be published, so I hope very much that you will find a publisher."

Margaret Stanley-Wrench won the Newdigate Prize in 1937 for her poem "The Man in the Moon." Her first book, NEWS REEL, was published in 1938. Her second book, A TALE FOR THE FALL OF THE YEAR, was published in 1959 and might be the book mentioned by Eliot with a different title. (Inventory #: 019428)