Licensed to Sell…

‘ The pub and the church are twin symbols at the heart of every English community, the signs of an integrated social life, and they have been so throughout our recorded history from Chaucer’s time down to the new Elizabethan age’.

So wrote the anonymous author of ‘ Licensed to Sell ‘ in the September/October 1952 issue of Today (Photo World).With congregations plummeting year by year, the Church ‘s position in the community may have lessened considerably since the year in which Elizabeth II ascended the throne, but the friendly local remains the favourite meeting place for many men and women, whether they actually drink alcohol or not.

However, back in 1952, when bitter, mild and porter were dominant, lager frowned on as a European interloper, and when to order a coffee as an alternative to alcohol in a pub was almost an insult. As the author put it

‘ Beer is complementary to the Englishman’s character and has therefore set the seal on the local pub as the very hub of every social activity. Certain town councils used to hold their village meetings in the local, and as late as 1794 not only orthodox churchmen but Nonconformists as well did consider it blasphemous to old their meetings within tavern walls and round off their discussions with flagons of good old ale’

‘In the middle ages the people wanted ale, cheap ale, and the sovereigns saw that they got it. There was no tea or coffee and wine was scarce and dear, so ale was the necessary concomitant of harvesting, feast days, births and marriages. Even when the making of ale passed from the hands of the private householder into the province of the professional brewer, laws were promulgated to protect the public and control the price and quality of the national beverage. The first licensing statute passed in 1495 under HENRY VII empowered any two Justices of the Peace “ To reject and pout away any common ale selling in towns and places where they should think it convenient, and to take sureties of keepers of ale houses in their good behaviour.”

‘ Court and common folk ‘ drank ale, apparently. Look at the allowance given to Lady Lucy, a maid of honour at the court of Henry VIII

“ Breakfast—a chine of beef, a loaf, a gallon of ale. Luncheon—bread and a gallon of ale. Dinner—a piece of boiled beef , a slice off roast meat, a gallon of ale. Supper—porridge, mutton, a loaf and “—you’ve guessed it—“ a gallon of ale “.

Incidentally, this Lady Lucy (1524 – 1583 Pic Above) was the daughter of Henry Somerset, 2^nd Earl of Worcester. She served as a Maid of Honour to Katherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife, who was executed for adultery. The King considered marrying Lucy, but instead took Katherine Parr as his sixth and final wife.

Even Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth, had her gallon of ale for breakfast. The alcoholic regime didn’t seem to do either woman much harm. Lucy reached the age of 59, while Queen Elizabeth died at 70.

At this point the author doesn’t make it clear that this gallon of Tudor ale must have been very weak indeed. After all, how could any human being glug down four gallons of ale ( ie 32 pints ) a day ? That’s if the ration was a daily amount rather than a weekly one. Nor did this ale taste like the beer that we drink today. Beer, according to the learned Dr Bottomley in his Inn Explorer’s Guide ( 1984), was brought to England by the Dutch in the early fifteenth century. It was much stronger than ale and had a bitter taste provided by the addition of hops.

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Lost London landmarks

1) The Kingsway Tram tunnel

The Kingsway, an unlovely London thoroughfare which was built in 1906 by London County Council to link High Holborn to another new thoroughfare dubbed Aldwych at the end of the Strand, smashed its way through one of the capital’s notorious slum districts, including Holywell Street, which for years had been the haunt of men looking for pornographic literature. The complete thoroughfare was three-quarters of a mile long and a hundred feet wide for most of its length.

At the same time the LCC also constructed in the centre of Kingsway a large tunnel running from the bottom of Southampton Row carrying trams from north London to the embankment and beyond. This tunnel, which opened in 1906 and was the only one of its kind in Britain, had stations at Holborn and Aldwych and proved very popular with Londoners.

At first only single-decker trams used the tunnel, but in 1930 it was decided that double-deckers might significantly increase revenue and so the height of the tunnel was increased.

In the April – May 1952 issue of Today ( Photo World) featured a photo showing packed trams at Holborn station on April 6^th and crowds waving them off on their way southwards on the last journey through the tunnel. The unnamed journalist, a frequent customer while a child on this particular tram recalled the experience:

The last of the North London trams has rumbled through the Kingsway for the last time , and the rest is silence. Rickety, shatteringly noisy, though they were, it is not hard to feel sentimental about the death of the tramway, with its peculiar smell of leather and varnish, and its air of gentle melancholy as of an old-timer who had known better days. But, once the kings of the road as they were, they have gone —-and only six routes ( all south of the river ) are left to mourn the loss of their clanking colleagues of the dying Iron Road.

But, even more than the departure of the trams themselves, we mourn the delights of the Kingsway tunnel. There was something glorious and improbable about that headlong plunge though the roadway, that swaying cavalcade past the subterranean stations along the link, the darkness and the light, which made such a journey unforgettable when once undertaken. Who, for instance could ever lose his sense of surprise at that sudden emergence from the murk of the tunnel into the sunlit sweep of the Embankment?

Certainly not the present wrier, who spent every available Saturday afternoon between the ages of six and eight shuttling up and down this magnificent, fairylike line, with its powerful suggestion of the transformation scene at the very best Christmas pantomimes.

Now, however, having served London whimsically ever since 1908, the Kingsway subway and its thundering vehicles have passed into the oblivion which waits so ungratefully for all the old—whether they be trams or men, and that is that….

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The Richest Man in the World

We know who the richest man in the word is today. A few years ago, before he gave away most of his money it was William Gates Jr. Back in the sixties it was Paul Getty. Today, it is Mr Elon Musk, But who was the richest man in the world back in 1947. Rockefeller, Howard Hughes ? They were extremely rich, but not as rich as the Nizam of Hyderabad, otherwise known as Mir Osman Ali Khan.

In 1947, just months before India gained its independence, the Nizam ( or ruler) of India’s largest state ( the size of England and Scotland combined and heir of the great Mogul empire which once bestrode India ), was, according to Kenneth Mills of Today ( Photo World), who obtained an audience with the great man , worth £500m. Today that would be worth around $210.8bn.Actually, at the time of this meeting, no-one was quite sure how wealthy the Nizam was. Let Mr Mills explain:

The value of his fortune increases from hour to hour, and investigators find caches of precious metals and jewels tucked away and forgotten, which upsets all calculations. Experts from Britain were once called in and after several months of counting they failed to agree. Finally, they settled on five hundred million pounds—with a hundred million either way as a safety margin.

The enormous Falakuma Palace, official residence of the Nizam, is a treasure house. British airmen recall the time when all the flat roofs of the royal compound shimmered with millions of pearls, when the Nizam thought they might lose their lustre and ordered an airing. The rooms of the Palace are choc-a bloc with gold plate and cases full of jewels. There is the solid gold plate service for 150 people. There is the Jacobs diamond, cut to the shape of a camel, one of the largest diamonds in the world, used as a paperweight by the Nizam; the egg-diamonds set egg-like, not only in shape but in size; the largest emerald collection known; and all along the walls gold is stacked, in bars, in coins, and large keg-shaped blocks. Once, when the Nizam had his servants take down some tapestries of which he had tired, scores of boxes filled with gold coins were found behind them.

But the ruler of Hyderabad no longer lives in his great palace…(but in) King Kothi, his private residence…King Kothi is a rambling collection of about a dozen ill-assorted buildings. A high wall surrounds the residence and there are guards from the Nizam’s own 100,000 strong army continuously on patrol. Inside is shabbiness cheek-by jowl with the inevitable fairy-story wealth. In one of the yards stands a gaudy Rolls-Royce, which some British statesman presented to the Nizam at his accession. It has been rusting for years. The royal elephants contentedly munch hay day after day, year after year. They are never used. For the Nizan drives in an ancient Ford tourer or uses an old Humber.

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A final helping of French slang from 1894

Poule mouillee Milksop

Profonde Pocket.

Quart d’oeil. Peeler; copper.

Qui-qui. The throat. Derivation unknown.

Faire du rabiau. To be punished.

Racaille. Rabble; a bad lot.

Raccourcir. To behead.

Raseur. Today this still means a bore or a drag.

Reluquer. To make eyes at.

Pincer un rigadon. To dance in a humorous way. Still used of a baroque dance

Rigolarde. Lark; fun.

Rigolo. Jolly; larky.

Rousse. The police. Today it means a redhead.

Sabote. Bungled ( presumably derived from sabotage).

Avoir le sac. To have plenty of money.

Sainte.Toute la sainte journee. The whole blessed day

Boire sec. To swill; to get drunk.

Sapin. A cab. It has always meant a fir tree.

Jouer comme une savate. To play badly.

Serin. Duffer. Faire le serin. To play the fool.

Payer en monnaie de singe. To let ( ) whistle for his money.

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Christmas book collecting 95 years ago

The well-heeled readers of the special Christmas edition of The Bookman in 1930 who were looking for presents for their nearest and dearest might have been tempted by some of the items described in the magazine’s Book Collecting feature.

Catalogues of books and manuscripts ranging from their own time to past centuries feature in this article, but it is noticeable that the latest craze for modern first editions is well catered for. Readers today may well be puzzled by the high prices quoted for books published by writers that are now largely forgotten, or at least, downgraded, but that’s the nature of collecting. Doubtless, many writers celebrated today ( no names, no pack drill) will, in decades to come, suffer the same fate as people like Lascelles Abercrombie and Gerald Bullett.

Luckily, medieval manuscripts will never be subject to passing fashion, mainly because factors such as scarcity, historical significance and a reverence for the lost art of calligraphy, are the presiding reasons for their popularity among a certain class of wealthy collector.

One of these manuscripts for sale is the fifteenth century ‘ Les Dites des Philosophes’ translated from Latin into French by William de Tignonville. Covering 159 leaves of vellum, with five illuminated miniatures within borders of flowers and grotesques in gold and colours, it was available from the famous antiquarian booksellers Ellis at £900 ( today around £150,000 ).

Now come the modern first editions. Bertram Rota ( still going) offered a ‘ good ‘ collection of works by Brett Young, the Midlands novelist who is still revered in that part of the world, but not elsewhere, for £3.10s, books by Hugh Walpole, then highly prized, for 25/- and ‘ many works’ by J. B. Priestley, then still riding high. Actually, the article doesn’t explicitly maintain that all, or even many, of these books are firsts.

Much more interestingly, mention is made of modern manuscripts for sale, including those by D. H. Lawrence, who had just died. Such a pity that no details are given regarding the Lawrence manuscripts. Were they letters, and were they included in the edition then being prepared by Aldous Huxley ?

There are more modern firsts with fancy prices included in a catalogue published by a certain Mr Halewood. Among these are firsts of J. M. Barrie’s Window in Thrums at 16 guineas and Coppard’s Adam and Eve and Pinch Me at 6 guineas. From another bookseller we find a first of Arnold Bennett’s Old Wives’ Tale at £50 ( about £9,000

today) and Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree at £105 ( about £18,000 today). Both are priced at well over what they would fetch in 2025.

One remarkable fact gathered from this article concerns W. H. Smith. Far from being dominated by chicklit and celebrity memoirs, as it is today, the branch in Southport back then sold modern firsts. I kid you not. Unfortunately, no details are given. The writer seems more impressed by the very lengthy catalogue brought out by Maggs Bros ( still there) , which contained ‘ collections ‘ of H. G. Wells, Walter Scott and

Alfred Noyes, the latter, rather amusingly, being bracketed with other ‘ great writers ‘ in English Literature.

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More London pubs of the 1960s and how they are today

Inspired by The New London Spy (1966)

The Grenadier, Wilton Row.

‘ This serves very decent food, far better than the average pub meal ( though naturally priced accordingly) .It does have a great deal of physical charm, in a particularly nice setting. Its connection is more to do with the Duke of Ellington than with the Grenadier Guards ( though a Colour Sergeant is detailed to pose for the inn sign whenever it needs repainting, and the barmen wear mess jackets). It used, in fact, to be a mess for the Duke’s officers , and Duke himself is alleged to have played cards there.’

Today, the pub is owned by Sir Jim Radcliffe, the chemical engineer who became boss of INEOS and is now the major shareholder of Manchester United. It was Radcliffe’s favourite pub and it was here that he and his friends planned from scratch the Grenadier car that bears the name of the pub, which he bought from Greene King in 2022. Madonna and William, Prince of Wales have been recent customers. The pub is said to be haunted by a subaltern nicknamed Cedric who was beaten to death for cheating at cards in 1818.

The London Spy was correct about the price and quality of the food served here. Dishes from the main menu are still expensive, like all pub meals served in Mayfair, but the food is very appealing. Starters range from £10 to £16.25, while the ‘famous Beef Wellington comes in at a bargain £39.95.

The Star Tavern, Belgrave Mews West.

‘…This belongs to no clique that can actually be pigeon-holed, but you get the impression that if the master-minds behind the Great Train Robbery ever used a pub, it would be one remarkably like the Star. There is the atmosphere of discreet opulence about the place, and inevitably a Jaguar or two outside…’

Well, rather bizarrely, the speculation of 1966 regarding criminal activity, is repeated as fact by those marketing the pub today. According to this:

‘ Bruce Reynolds, who coordinated the robbery, regularly drove his Aston Martin from his Streatham home to meet (Buster) Edwards and one or two other members of the gang in The Star to go over details during the run up to the robbery…’

Arty pubs

Queen’s Elm, Fulham Road. Chelsea.

‘One of the most famous ‘ arty’ pubs in Chelsea is the Queen’s Elm, where the importance of the customer can be gathered by the way he is greeted by the landlord, who will rush forward if he is a famous novelist or actor, but who will also—let it be said—cash a cheque for the odd poet ( Patrick Kavanagh, the Irish poet, used the pub when in London).’

Alas, the Queen’s Elm no longer exists, having closed its doors in 1990s.It is now yet another clothes shop. The publican referred to in the New London Spy was the Irishman Sean Treacy, who was one of those rare creatures, a chronicler of his own pub. To one commentator, his memoir, A Smell of Broken Glass was a ‘ masterpiece’. To another writer the pub was a refuge for those barred from the Chelsea Arts Club. The film director, Joseph Losey, liked the place and used it as a location for ‘The Servant’ (1963), which starred Dirk Bogarde.

Finch’s ( aka The King’s Arms), Fulham Road.

‘ Finch’s is slightly less pretentious than the Queen’s Elm, and is excellently staffed …It is patronised by actual painters and sculptors, Frank Bowling and Elizabeth Frink, for instance. There is also a hard core of regular locals, being the kind of place you could return to after ten years in Tangier and be sure of running into people you used to know in Finch’s in the old days.’

Today, there is a reference in the online entry to ‘ thespian hell-raisers ‘ ( whatever that means) in the sixties when this pub was known as Finch’s, which is perhaps the reason why the owners decided to drop this name and return to the King’s Head. It is now a pretty standard Victorian pub with the usual period fittings. There are no references to Liz Frink and Frank Bowling, whoever he was.

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More French slang from The Continong (1894)

Escoffier. To do for, to settle. M. Escoffier was, of course, a famous French chef.

Piquer un fard. To blush.

Avoir la flemme. To feel lazy.

Faire un four. To fail miserably.

Fripouille. A dirty lot.

Froussard. A funk.

Fumiste. A practical joker.

Furibard. Wild ( angry).

Faire une gaffe. To put ones foot in it. This has remained slang in English

Gate-sauce. A scullion; a bad cook.

Gniaf. A bungler; a botcher.

Gnon. Thumb; knock.

Se Gober. To fancy oneself.

Gobeur. A man who will swallow anything ( to believe).

Goddam. An Englishman.

Gogo. Fool; simpleton.

Goguenots. Water-closet.

Grue. Street walker.

Houp. Gee up ! Get out! Move on !

Hure. Pate; nut; noddle.

C’est kif-kif-bourico. It is six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Lacheur. A shabby, cowardly friend.

Lanterner. To humbug; to talk rot.

Mon petit lapin. Ducky! C’est un lapin. He is a brick.

Larbin. Flunkey.

Macchabee. Drowned person

C’est sa marotte. It is his hobby.

Mastroquet. A small wine shop.

Mazagran, or simply maza. Coffee served in a glass.

Il n’y a pas meche. It’s no go ( impossible).

Megot. A half-smoked cigar.

Mince. O lor! My eye !

Manger le morceau. To confess. To acknowledge the truth.

Muffle. Cad; scamp; blackguard.

Il est nettoye. He is done for.

Perdre le nord. To lose one’s head.

Un oeil au beurre noir. A black eye.

Tourner de l’œil. To kick the bucket.

Se ficher le doigt dans l’œil. To make a bad speculation.

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London pub culture in the 1960s/today

Extracts from The New London Spy (1966)

‘Pubs are what other countries don’t have. In England, country pubs are perhaps nicest of all. After that come the London ones.

Pubs change character as you tipple down from the top of Britain. In the dry areas of Skye you have none at all. In Glasgow they are just drinking shopos. In Carlisle they are cheerless and state controlled.

But in London, there are pubs for all men and for all seasons.’

…if you took the pub away from London, social life in public would almost cease to exist…’

ROUGH PUBS

…London has its quota for the enquiring drinker who likes a barney, or the proximity of physical violence and available women. The most obvious in this category are those around the docks where seamen drink. On of the nicest pubs, though mot kind of place you’d take a maiden aunt, is the Custom House Hotel, known as ‘ the Steps’, Victoria Dock Road. This is a vast sprawling pub, with a raised bar a the back. It provides live music, as well as throwing in a couple of juke boxes. There are other lively pubs nearby, including the Freemasons Tavern an the Railway Tavern, but the Steps take pride of place. You could be in a waterfront bar anywhere in the world, and the atmosphere would be much the same. It is not unusual to see someone almost kicked o death outside, so unless you are on the look-out for a rough-house or know how to ake care of yourself in a fight, avoid getting into an argument.

A better known, and almost as rough, pub is Charlie Brown’s ( actually called the Railway Tavern, but known generally by its nickname, West India Dock Road, which boasts a splendid museum of curiosa from all over the world, collected by one of the landlords. Another guv’nor was stabbed through the glass door, trying to get rid of an argumentative customer. It is also very handy for one of the best Chinese restaurants in London, the Old Friends, almost next door.

Nearer central London is the Admiral Blakeney’s Head, just beyond the Tower in the now rapidly disappearing Cable Street. Cable Street still manages to hit the headlines with the odd murder and the Blakeney’s Head is as virile as ever. Juke boxes, spades, seamen, tarts mingle in a remarkably friendly atmosphere and there are cafes nearby catering for all nationalities. The police still patrol Cable Street in twos.

For those who like their squalor without the atmosphere of violence, there is Dirty Dicks opposite Liverpool Street Station. This has dead cats, cobwebs and sawdust by way of décor. But is in fact a genuine old pub keeping up the tradition of its founder, who amassed a fortune and refused to spend money on clothes. There is a curious collection of postage stamps on which couple have written their names.

In the West End there are a number of well-established rough and ready pubs. Much the famous is the Duke of York’s, Rathbone Street, the beat meeting place in London. This marvellous pub, superbly managed in the face of terrible odds, has a fine and bawdy museum, with a portrait of the late ( and lamented) guvnor, Major Alf Klein, framed by a lavatory seat. Every available inch of the wall and ceiling is taken up with paintings, seaside postcards, ties, sailors’ hat bands and other totally obscure objects. Nearby, in Goodge Street, is the One Tun, known simply as Finch’s, which offers an escape from the beats, which have recently been barred the premises en masse.

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Junk stalls in 1966 and as they are today

The New London Spy (1966)

‘ Junk is other people’s left-overs, which they never usually wanted in the first place anyway. Junkards collect these left-overs, which they never usually know they wanted until they suddenly see them…’

‘…Everybody gathers a lot of junk. It is the diversity of personal litter that gives a room its ‘lived in’ character. The junk-hunter recognises this phenomenon and plays it . Instead of limiting his choice to beautiful things, he mixes them with objects that are attractive for other reasons. The skill is in the mixing, and the end product is a true expression of personal taste.

The good taste market has long ago been cornered by the antique dealers, the art-craft enthusiasts and the ‘contemporary’ Scandinavian designers. Their prices are as elegant as their goods. Junk is cheap: the problem is not how to afford it, but where to find it.

Modern junk abounds, particularly in the souvenir shop that cluster round the travel termini and the Places of Interest. You may occasionally find bits of new rubbish worth a nicker in your scheme of things. They may mellow with time, and accumulate charm; bit it is the old, démodé stuff that is most worth going after, because it is unfamiliar and has to be hunted for…

Market stalls can be deceptive. There is something about an open- air display that suggests cheapness and bargains. Dealers know this as well as shoppers. When a market has won a rotation among the connoisseurs, the pricier dealers join the bonanza and establish what are in effect branch businesses there.

This had already happened to the Caledonian Market before it was moved to its present pitch besides Tower Bridge Road. It has long been true of the Portobello Road, certainly at its southern end. When a dealer takes a stall in the Caledonian Market , he adds 20% to his prices, and the Portobello Road 40%. ‘

Junk stalls in 2025.

Caledonian and Portobello Road Markets.

It’s not true about the 20% and 40 % price rises. To your Jotter, who has acquired many a bargain at the Caledonian and Portobello Road Markets over the years, the prices are very fair, mainly because few dealers have the overheads that come with running an antique shop, but buyers must beware. The Caledonian, which opened in Bermondsey in 1950, was for many years an infamous ‘market overt’ , which meant that ‘ hot ‘ goods could be sold there in good faith between designated hours. This loophole was closed in 1995. After noon many dealers packed up their stalls, possibly for fear of being nabbed by the police, though for obvious reasons this seldom happens. When the New London Spywrote about the Caledonian, it was a very high quality antique market which occupied the whole of the square in Bermondsey village. Then, eighteen years ago everything changed. A towering hotel was plonked right in the middle of the square, taking up valuable space. As a result, many stallholders decided to decamp elsewhere, leaving behind a rump of devoted dealers determined to remain. But it’s not the same in 2025 as it was in its heyday. The number of stalls has diminished and the quality of the stock has declined and if it is visited at all by collectors, these are generally tourists attracted by the reputation it once had, rather than serious lovers of antiques.

As for the Portobello Road, the smartest dealers have either snazzy shops or only slightly less snazzy indoor cubicles that are often ( like the junk shops in the poorer parts of London ) ‘permanently shut’. But it is true that the junk is concentrated on stalls at the northern end of the Road, particularly Golborne Road, where, as well as decent antiques, there is real junk at very low prices of a quality similar to that to be found in your average village jumble sale. And yes, I do suspect that some of the ‘ here today and gone tomorrow’ traders in Golborne Road do indeed ‘destroy most of what they have not sold at the end of the day.’

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A 1966 Guide to London

With these popular paperback ‘lowdown’ guides to London the trick is to date them without looking at the title page or other publishing information. What is needed is a perfunctory whiz through some of the contents and then a guess. I guessed at 1968. It turned out that it came out in 1966, when its well informed editor was in his twenties. I say ‘well-informed’ but ‘Oonter ‘ Davies ( as Private Eye dubbed him) does call on a long list of specialist contributors, including such household names as Dominic Behan, David Benedictus, Chaim Bermant, John Betjeman, Anthony Blond, Quentin Crewe, Maureen Duffy, Martin Green, Tim Heald, Michael Horowitz, George Mikes, Philip O’ Connor, Jonathan Routh, and a few less well known writers.

One party game might be to identify who wrote what. Some are pretty easy. John Betjeman almost certainly wrote on London churches. I would guess that the surrealist poet Philip O’Connor wrote the chapter on the Underworld or Down and Out, mainly because he was down and out for most of his chaotic life. Dominic Behan, brother of Brendan and an active IRA supporter as well as a prolific songwriter and playwright, probably contributed the bit on Irish London and possibly some of the material on pubs, since he liked a pint or three. Jonathan Routh, humorist, prankster and the man behind the British version of ‘ Candid Camera’ , could have written on a number of subjects, but it’s possible that he wrote on ‘ homosexual London’, since he published several little books on the subject of the best loos. His first book on this subject is actually mentioned under ‘ Lavatories ‘ on page 147. Chaim Bermant must surely have written the very scholarly piece on Jewish London and may have contributed to other chapters. The highly successful publisher Anthony Blond , a bon viveur who lost his exhibition to New College Oxford through his over indulgence in ‘ the joys of drink, people, parties, fancy waistcoats, foreign travel and falling in love—mostly with young men ‘ could have contributed to the chapters on restaurants and night clubs, but may also, as a bisexual, have been the author of the piece on homosexual London, which shows a very sympathetic view towards the plight of gay men just before homosexual relations were made legal in 1967

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More famous lost City taverns

*14 Fleet Street the site of the Rainbow Coffee House*

The Rainbow and Sweeney Todd’s

At 14, Fleet Street, stood ‘The Rainbow’, which opened its doors in 1657 as one of the earliest coffee houses in Britain. It thrived as a coffee house into the eighteenth century, but it does not figure in Ralph Rylance’s The Epicure’s Almanack (1815), either as a coffee house or a tavern offering food. In 1866 John Timbs ( Curiosities of London ) reported that ‘ it has long been a tavern; all the old rooms have been swept away and a large and lofty dining- room erected in their place’

By 1897, when the novelist Arnold Bennett paid a visit, it had settled into its role as an old fashioned City pub and restaurant. Here is his diary entry for July 13^th 1897:

‘I lunched at the Rainbow, a type of City restaurant which is passing away. A large dark room sombrely furnished in mahogany and gas-lighted , even in the sunshine of a hot July day. In the centre a table at which a stout carver in white cap, coat and apron, carves the saddle of mutton and the sirloin of beef—dishes which are never varied and of which the customers seem never to tire. Here come lawyers and other homes d’affaires of middle-age to who luncheon is a serious meal, not to be ordered without minute obstructions to the obsequious water. ‘ Do you call this underdone ?’ , a portly customer asks sharply. ‘Yes, sir‘. ‘Well I don’t. Take It back’. ‘Yes, sir’. Here one drinks either stout from a tankard, or some sound wine; but if one orders wine, one gives the waiter directions as to the temperature. It is de rigeur. The door leading into the dining-room is labelled ‘coffee-room‘ and there is a significant notice ‘ Ladies dining room upstairs ‘. Ladies are not willingly admitted to the ground floor, and those women, if any, who dared to pass that door labelled ‘ coffee-room’ would be requested to leave , or at least pointed at as unwomanly. This is one of the last strongholds of the conservative male. Yet we males respect ourselves; or we have a regard for the decencies. ‘Gentlemen are requested not to smoke pipes in this establishment.’

Writing in the era of the ‘ New Woman ‘, Bennett is conscious of the discrimination against women in the public sphere, but it is to his credit that he pointed this out, even though the comment was made in a diary.

In the 1920’s the journalist Anthony Bertram ( see earlier Jot ) was another writer who haunted the ‘Rainbow.’ J. C. Squire and Hilaire Belloc were fellow drinkers and both favoured whiskers. According to Bertram, Squire was very difficult to identify.

‘ Whiskers and moustaches grew on and off him with amazing rapidity. Once in the Rainbow…Squire came in particularly hirsute, and Priestley said to me: ‘ I don’t think a man has any right to muck about with his face like that. A man’s face belongs to his friends. I’ve got to make up my mind all over again whether I want to know Jack Squire.’

Belloc used to come into the ‘Rainbow’ too, delicately and permanently whiskered, and often accompanied by Beachcomber, about who I could tell so many stories that I cannot begin: of how he listened at a pillar box till a crown collected; of how he posed as the man in charge of a charabanc; of how he made barbers sing in chorus; of how he jumped on his hat in the middle of South Harting High Street and shook the local grocer by the scruff of his neck; of how he roared like a lion in the Strand; of how, in short, he lived up to his fantastic imagination .’

The journalist ‘ Beachcomber’, alias J. B. Morton, wrote the ‘ By the Way’ column for the Daily Express from 1924 to 1975. At first he wrote the column in the offices of the Daily Express in Fleet Street. As the column only took a few hours, and he always wrote a week in advance, his afternoons were free for socialising. However,

following his marriage in 1927 and his subsequent move to Sussex, his drinking days with his fellow journalists were severely curtailed. Nevertheless, he became friends with another Sussex resident and fellow Catholic, Hilaire Belloc, with who he shared some political views. The pillar box anecdote is certainly true. According to one source, ‘while walking through Guildford one day with Gerald Barry, Morton stopped at a pillar box. He talked into its opening. ‘Are you alright, my little man? Don’t worry, we’ll soon get you out.’ Soon, a concerned crowd gathered to see who was trapped inside. Someone summoned the fire brigade to help, while Morton and Barry made a discrete exit. Events like this were quite frequent: on another occasion he littered Virginia’s Woolf’s front doorstep with dozens of empty, quart-sized brown beer bottles.

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Upper class jokes

Taken from Best Upper Crust Jokes by Edward Phillips (1974)

Don’t see much of Chauncy de Pugh these days, old boy .’

‘ No—he’s become a tremendous snob since he succeeded to the title.’

‘What’s that go to do with it ?’

‘ Well, he refuses to travel in the same car with his chauffeur’.

Noticing that his friend had a very handsome-looking red setter with him, the first nobleman said, ‘ I say, old chap , you’ve got a new dog!’

Yes, relied the second, ‘ I got him for the wife, actually.’

‘By jove, said his friend. ‘ That was a damned good swop.’

Did you hear the one about the very rich aristocrat who bought his son a slum?

He wanted him to have the things he’d missed when he was a child.

A prospective Tory candidate for Parliament was addressing a constituency meeting and was being continually interrupted by a Socialist heckler.

‘ Let me ask you a question’, shouted the heckler.’ Have you ever earned a penny by the sweat of your brow?’

‘Certainly not, answered the nobleman. ‘Our family never perspire ‘.

Remind you of a certain member of the Royal Family ?

Did you hear the one about the neighbourhood that’s so high-class, when the children write rude words on garden walls, they’re in Latin ?

Remind you of a certain former Tory MP ?

An old lady was explaining her duties to the new maid.

‘ Now from time to time’, she said, ‘ you will have to help the butler upstairs’.

‘ Oh, that all tight, ma’am, said the maid’. ‘I like a drink myself occasionally’.

An English nobleman registered at an hotel in Mexico. The receptionist, looking at the register, said pleasantly in English, ‘Ah—-you are a foreigner.’

‘Certainly not’, said the nobleman. ‘I’m English !’

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Some recollections of Yeats and other characters in early twentieth century London

In ‘ Letters to my Great-Grandson ‘ ( in The Book of Fleet Street, ed. T. Michael Pope,1931) the journalist and art historian Anthony Bertram (1897 – 1978), pretends to be writing to his grandson in 1985 when he recollects seeing and hearing W. B. Yeats in 1921.

‘I remember going to tea with him when he lived in the Broad ( the old name for Shorthand Street at Oxford, before the University was absorbed by Pitman’s). The house was pulled down as long ago as 1929. I followed a servant up a steep flight of stairs and was introduced into a dim book-lined study in the attic. Yeats, with flowing tie and white hair straying forward, was standing before a high reading desk with tall candles burning on either side, and he was reading the Kelmscott ‘ Chaucer ‘. He signed to me without speaking, indicated the illustration before him and then proceeded slowly and reverently to0 turn the pages…’

‘I remember he came to lunch with me once in college. Oh, I was aware that Yeats was a celebrity all right. You see, he was of the older generation. So, I had the best college silver and ruined myself on wines and borrowed a coffee machine like an alchemist’s retort, a wonderful contraption of glass globes and spirit- lamps .My other guests were Father Martindale, a Jesuit of some notability, and Wilfred Childe, a delicate taper-like poet who afterwards became frightened by the vice and riotous of life and retired to Leeds. Yeats talked about fairies and just when he was quoting with wonderful sonority, the coffee contraption burst. Yeats did not even pause in his quotation, and I sat watching the black flood spread, not daring to interrupt. I do not know whether he failed to notice the calamity or mere ignored it. In either case he was superb.

I was very young then and I find that I made notes of some things that Yeats said on that occasion. Here they ae fo0r you, just as they were written down in 1921:’

‘Life is a striving after the antithesis. The passionate Landor wass the Phidias of poetry; the gregarious Shelley worshipped solitude; the active, quick Morris created men vague and detached.’

‘Christ was the antithesis of classicism.’

‘The man who gives up seeking for his antithesis becomes a don, a journalist or a country parson—something not quite human.’

‘The antithesis of a man is that virtue which is mo0st remote from him, yet not unattainable.’

‘The canker of modern art is the failure to recognise evil.’

‘Without horror there is a weak perception of beauty. Horror is a foil to beauty.’

‘Morris would not produce drama because the actors would not chant.’

‘Lionel Johnson remarked to me that not to believe in eternal punishment is to be grossly vulgar.’

‘Wisdom’s life is bitter. I have striven all my life to drug my intellect with philosophy. If I only read and thought about literature I should have nothing to write about.’

‘The key to philosophy is the law of history.’

‘ I am convinced that there are minds without bodies. I feel their presence and sometimes they are greater than me and dominate me.’

‘Milton is not enjoyed because of bad poets and worse theologians.’

So you see the sort of conversation it was and why the bursting of a coffee-contraption could not be allowed to interrupt…’

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Literary pubs of the Square Mile

3) The Red Lion, Poppin’s Court.

Among London’s ‘ lost pubs ‘ The Red Lion, which was tucked away in Poppin’s Court, off Fleet Street, just before Ludgate Circus, is one of the least known, although, as we shall see, it ought to be celebrated. A frequent haunt of writers and journalists working in the Street of Shame, it is the subject of an affectionate portrait in The Book of Fleet Street ( 1931), by Clennell Wilkinson, who wrote for The London Mercury. Clennell christened it ‘ The Compositor’s Arms due to the fact that it stood close the Head Office of the printers’ union. The author was a frequenter of this pub from October 1921 to August 1925, but after he had finished going there he never returned.

‘ It was the discreetist little pub you ever saw…and formed part of the great estate of the Bishops of Ely, stretching southwards from Holborn to the very banks of the river at Blackfriars. But you might go past the entrance to that court without noticing that there was a pub there…’

‘The proprietor, a sturdy forthright fellow, who rather liked to have us about the place—would in fact do anything for us except read us—is now alas, dead. So are George Mair and Jimmy Allison, and Bohun Lynch, and John Freeman, and too many others of his customers of those days. But I like to think that the Perfect Barmaid, who afterward became his wife, is still presiding with that gentle, dignified efficiency of hers, of not over this establishment, then over some other…

The connection between pubs and literature is less marked today than it was in the days when Englishmen could really write. Shakespeare would be utterly puzzled to understand why even now I feel I ought to make some apology for mentioning The ( London) Mercury in this connection; he would be astonished if he could see the thin sneer with which these lines would probably be read by some of his most enthusiastic modern admirers. Big drinks are out of fashion—that’s the truth. If they had served American cocktails in Poppin’s Court—but I digress…’

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Fleet street in the early twentieth century

It is hard to believe, sometimes, that the Fleet Street of today was once, even as recently as the late nineteen sixties, the thriving hub of the newspaper industry. Today, walking down the thoroughfare that links Ludgate Hill with the City and the West End– one comes across familiar names and images celebrated in the annals of journalism—El Vinos, the Old Cheshire Cheese — and shapes such as the domineering Art Deco ‘ black Lubyanka’ once home to the Daily Express, and the former Reuters HQ at number 85, as well as name plates that are still speak of twentieth century journalism But compared to 1968 when your teenage Jotter first explored the area, Fleet Street and its side streets are almost unrecognisable.

Various books published during its heyday capture some of the excitement of working in Fleet Street, but one stands out. The Book of Fleet Street, edited by T. Michael Pope in 1931 collects together recollections of some the big hitters who cut their teeth in the Street and who went on to even greater things—men like Hilaire Belloc, Gerald Bullet. D. B. Wyndham Lewis, Robert Lynd, Arthur Machen , J. B. Morton, J. B Priestly, Gerald Barry, Edward Shanks, J.C Squire, Alec Waugh and Henry Williamson —but also gives space to the memories of lesser journalists, such as George Blake ( not the spy) , Christopher Saltmarshe, Edith Shackleton. T. Earle Welby and George Stern. Although the book’s editor, T(homas) Michael Pope ( 1876 – 1930), did not supply his own recollections, this may have been through modesty, as one of the contributors suggests, or more likely because he was ill at the time. Sadly he died before the book came out.

Pope was a lesser figure than any of these, and one with a very different background. Son of a Kennington grocer, he did not attend university and by 1901 was working as a ledger clerk, while earning extra money contributing to such magazines as Academy, The Boys Own Paper ,The John O’London weekly and the Daily Graphic, where he was a leader writer. In this role, his contributions were beginning to impress Gerald ( later Sir Gerald ) Barry, then a schoolboy in Lowestoft, and Pope’s junior by twenty-two years. In his recollection Barry paid tribute to the older man who had made him a journalist.

‘ My whole reading was his and his colleagues; half my thoughts were theirs; even in school hours we were not divided, for the dictation we received was chosen from his leading articles, and I remember he displayed a creditable fondness for long and difficult words…

Before we examine some of the recollections of Fleet Street it might b instructive to compare the memories of yet another hack, the gifted poet and critic Geoffrey Grigson, who when the book came out was working on the London edition of the Yorkshire Post. In his wonderfully funny, often moving, and brilliantly written Crest on the Silver (1950) Grigson cast a baleful eye on Fleet Street and its denizens. While Barry may have been impressed by the older Pope, the young Grigson, fresh out of Oxford, was not enamoured of his senior colleagues on the Post. Some he selected out for particular scorn:

‘ Some would accept any ruling, write anything, condemn or praise anything, knowing to a nicety the prejudices of the editor. One of them, an old man again, well educated, well paid, always in trouble over money and his children, on whose education he had spent almost nothing of his high earnings, appeared to have only one desire left as a journalist: to slip past the subs, the assistant editor, the editor, all of whom he despised, some half-concealed indecency which read a second time would refer beyond cavil to the female organs of sex..’

‘ I began to learn something of the pitiful nastiness and dirtiness of one man towards another. I watched a case rigged against another young journalist to remove him and make a place for an elderly and useless and inoffensive little drunk who was out of luck but had been a colleague once of the intriguer. I watched with surprise machinations against myself—with surprise not because they were against me, but because I had not met, even at a public school, the deliberate planning of evil for the sake of advantage…’

Another experience which I had was of the enmity of a middle-age woman long connected with journalism but worried by a husband who not longer earned much and by a family who had still to be educated. I seemed in her way and in the way of one of her favourites. But her enmity was more sinister, more direct and more difficult to counter. I was too intolerant ( by this time I was editing the London Letter) to accept the badness of her work and to disregard her as one of the irritants inseparable from any job. So we fought. I might as well have fought with a female troll whose eyelids opened from top to bottom. I underestimate her tenacity and her sense of power and knew nothing then of the extreme difficulties which egged her to defend her power of earning at any cost…’

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Don’t ! An Anglo-American edition of 1880

A few years ago we featured a selection of ‘ Don’ts’ from a manual published in the mid twentieth century. This time we are looking at a reprint of an Anglo-American edition dating from 1880 of a best-selling manual of ‘Mistakes and Improprieties ‘ that appeared from the famous publishing house of Field and Tuer. Some of these extracts are accompanied by comments from your Jotter.

At Table

Don’t, as an invited guest, be late to dinner. This is a wrong to your host, to other guests, and to the dinner.

Don’t seat yourself until the ladies are seated or, at a dinner party, until your host or hostess gives the signal. Don’t introduce, if you introduce at all, after the company is seated.

The advice regarding ladies has been redundant for many decades, as sexual equality is now generally recognised.

Don’t tuck your napkin under your chin, or spread it upon your breast. Bibs and tuckers are for the nursery. Don’t spread you napkin over your lap; let it fall over your knee.

What purpose, one may ask, does a napkin serve on someone’s knee ?

Don’t serve gentleman guests at your table before all the ladies are served, including those who are members of your own household.

Regarding the advice of serving ladies first, this again is outdated.

Don’t eat soup from the end of a spoon, but from the side. Don’t gurgle or draw in your breath or make other noises when eating soup. Don’t ask for a second service of soup.

It’s quite awkward, actually, to ‘eat ‘ soup from the end of a spoon. Try it, if you don’t believe me. I agree fully with the ban on noisy eating, especially the use of the expression ‘ Aaaaaah ‘ to denote pleasure.

Don’t bite your bread. Break it off . Don’t break your bread into your soup.

Good advice. Depositing bits of bread into your soup is the equivalent to ‘ dunking’ biscuits into cups of tea. An abhorrent practice tolerated when children do it, but intolerable when done by adults . Grow up.

Don’t eat with your knife. Never pout your knife into your mouth. Go into any restaurant and observe. Don’t load up the fork with food with your knife, and then cart it , as it were to your mouth. Take up the fork what it can easily carry, and no more.

Any restaurant ? This may have been the case at Simpson’s or the Savoy in 1880, but visit a ‘ greasy spoon ‘ today and you might see a number of knives in mouths, especially when there is no spoon handy to gather up that lovely Bisto gravy. Mmmmm.

Don’t use a steel knife with fish. A silver knife is now placed by the side of each plate for the fish course.

In the era before stainless steel was perfected for culinary use (c1915) posh knives often has steel blades and silver handles. Naturally, ordinary steel immediately discolours and corrodes when it come into contact with even mildly acidic food. But fish is not acidic, so it is unlikely to affect steel fish knife blades. Moreover, it is very difficult to get a cutting edge on silver, so one would not use a silver knife to cut up meat. But it cannot be denied that special silver fish knives were used in up- market Victorian households.

Don’t eat vegetables with a spoon. Eat them with a fork. The rule is not to eat anything with a spoon that can be eaten with a fork. Even ices are now often eaten with a fork.

Sound and sensible advice in 1880 as it is in 2025. That is except the bit about eating ices with a fork. Cake, yes. But ice cream? Surely, if it is starting to melt, it would drip through the tines of the fork.

Don’t leave your knife and fork on your plate when you send it for a second supply.

This is pretty obvious practical advice. These implements get in the way of the second helping of food, which is an inconvenience to your host or hostess.

Don’t apply to your neighbour to pass articles when the servant is at hand.

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A further helping of G. F. Sims

George Eliot, The Legend of Jubal and other poems (Blackwood 1874). First Edition. Spine faded and some foxing on the endpapers, otherwise a very good copy. Bookplate. £8.50.

J. W. Cross (ed), George Eliot’s Life as related in her Letters and Journals. Arranged and Edited by her Husband J.W.Cross. In three vols. Blackwood 1885. Original cloth marked and worn, and the hinges strained. An uncommon book, and one that is much in demand. £10 No copy found online

Too right ! The condition of this copy attests to its value as a source of information on Eliot’s life. The novelist is worshipped by her legion of fans to the extent that the longstanding George Eliot Society is one of the best supported members of the Alliance of Literary Societies, of which your blogger is a committee member. She may not be as trendy as Jane Austen nowadays, but as a female novelist and intellectual she is internationally esteemed.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chatto 1926. The scarce first English edition. Spine slightly faded and worn. Name on the endpaper. £15.00 . A copy rebound in modern leather is currently priced online at £3,300

This year is the centenary of one of the greatest American novels. Actual firsts can change hands for six figures and although the item for sale is only a first English edition, without it appears, a jacket, its value has jumped from £15 to over £1,000 for one copy online in poor condition since this Sims catalogue appeared.

Ian Fleming, Diamonds are Forever, Cape 1956. First edition. Presentation copy to his friend Leonard Russell : ‘ To Leonard on whose back I ride. With affection from Ian’.

Fine copy in d.w. £30.00 £3,000 – £10,000

An early, sought after Bond title. Russell was a journalist and a champion of Fleming’s work.

Ian Fleming, For Your Eyes Only, Cape 1960. First edition. Presentation copy to his friend Leonard Russell, the literary editor of the Sunday Times. Inscribed: ‘ To Leonard whom I miss from Ian’. Fine copy in d.w. £30.00 £3000+

Lucky Leonard to have two Flemings presented to him by the author.

Ludovico Maria Sinistrari Frier Minor, Demoniality. Translated into English from the Latin ( with introduction and notes by the Rev. Montague Summers. Fortune Press N.D. This is the special issue of 90 copies on Arnold unbleached had-made paper, numbered and signed by Summers, bound in full vellum, gilt with yapp edges. Rare. In perfect state. £20.00 £800 unsigned.

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Firsts Among Equals

Sometimes there is disagreement among specialist book dealers concerning which books by modern authors who later achieved fame were the first to appear, as opposed to which books by authors who achieved some sort of press attention early in their career. It all depends, I suppose, how one can judge fame. In a catalogue issued by Firsts & Company of New York City around the mid eighties, and subtitled ‘ 100 First Books of Authors ‘, the authors selected are not all famous. One thing is certain, however, all the authors ( famous or not ) are arranged in alphabetical order.

1) Margaret Atwood. The Edible Woman. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969. First edition, in d.j. Small, almost invisible tear lower edge of front panel, slightest wear to jacket, else fine. $250.00 Today £152

Certainly a famous by a now celebrated writer whose novels have been televised and adapted for the silver screen. As the Ahearnes point out, she published eight titles in limited editions between 1961, when Double Persephone appeared, and 1969. The Edible Woman, therefore, is her first ‘ regular’ novel.

2) W. H Auden, Poems. London: Faber, 1930. First edition. Blue-green wrappers. Unusual fine state of this fragile book, generally seen in poor condition. With publisher’s announcement laid in. In a slipcase. $ 600.00. The Ahearnes have it at $350.00 in 1986. Today it might fetch £350.

A case in point. This is not Auden’s ‘ first’ book, but his second. The first was the legendary Poems of 1928, which was printed by Stephen Spender on a clunky machine designed to print chemist’s labels. After printing a few copies the machine broke down and Spender was forced to complete the tiny edition by running to the Oxford University Press, who duly obliged. Poems is exceedingly rare– so scarce that copies change hands at over £30,000 each, if you are lucky enough to find one.

It is puzzling to learn that Auden’s second book was ‘ fragile ‘ and ‘generally seen in poor condition ‘. Though it is true that the book was such a sensation when it appeared that many who bought a copy may have read it ‘ to death ‘, it wasn’t particularly fragile’, unlike the Poems of two years earlier. If any book of poems deserved a slipcase to protect it, this is this one.

7) Saul Bellow, Dangling Man. London: John Lehmann, 1946. First English edition, in d.j. Fine. Bixby A1b. $300.00. Today £190.

So not the true first edition , which was published in America.

9) Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky. London: Lehman, 1949. First edition in d.j. Slight clipping to top and bottom of jacket spine, and jacket price-clipped, else very good. $200.00

10) Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. London: Smith, Elder. 1846. First edition, second issue, being the remaindered sheets of the first state issued by the new publisher, with cancelled title-page and ads for the Bronte’s books at the rear. Spine and edges darkened, chipping to head and tail of spine, else fine. $400.00 Today £2,000.

According to the Ahearnes, copies of the true first, which was published by Aylott and Jones in 1846 and valued at $7,500 in 1985, was published by Smith and Elder , using the remaindered sheets, in 1848. As Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights had both appeared in 1847, this would explain why Smith and Elder were proud to advertise these best-selling novels in their 1848 edition of Poems. As the Aylott and Jones issue of Poems is now prohibitively expensive, even for well-heeled Bronte fanatics, most fans would be glad to have the Smith and Elder second issue.

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G. F. Sims once again

Ralph Chubb, Woodcuts ( Andrew Block, 1928). One of 200 copies. Small 4to. Original lilac marbled boards. Slightly marked, but a nice copy. £5.00. Today £200 +

There has been a revival of interest in this poet and illustrator in recent years. Back in the early seventies he was hardly known beyond a select circle of admirers, hence the low price. Chubb ( 1892 – 1960), like his contemporary E. E. Bradford, a parish priest in the Fens, is now a gay icon whose extraordinary life and celebration of ‘ lads love ‘ has attracted many to his work, which has echoes of William Blake, though his verse is nothing like as inspiring. Chubb’s home in Berkshire is still there and the shed in which he printed his books and pamphlets also remains. See a previous Jot for a fuller account of his life and work. It is unlikely that there will ever be a blue plaque to him somewhere in his native Harpenden.

A. E. Coppard, Silver Circus (Cape, 1928) Special edition of 125 copies on hand-made paper, signed by the author, bound in full velum with a green leather lettering piece, gilt. Fine copy of this scarce book. £10.00. Today £200 +

A hundred years ago, at the advent of the craze for modern first editions, Coppard was King of the Pile. Articles were written on him and his rather enigmatic short stories. Most of his books seemed to be printed in tasteful ‘ special editions ‘. All the experts agreed that here was an author worth investing in. Though his reputation waned somewhat in the late ‘thirties, he was still admired in the late sixties, when some of his short stories were televised. Fast forward to the noughties and Gen Z has blank faces at the mention of his name. Still, for all this, he is still arguably the most famous person to hail from Folkestone.

Note: Sims offered five other copies of Coppard titles, nearly all ‘ special ‘ editions, priced at between £7.00 and £15.00. Don’t expect them to rise much in value in the future, though.

Frances Cornford, Travelling Home and other poems. Illustrated by Christopher Cornford. ( Cresset Press, 1948) . First edition. Fine in d.w. £1.50. Today £20

Baron Corvo, “ Lytel Seynt Hew”. Contained in The Universal Review edited by Harry Quilter, September- December 1888. Pp 585 -591 contain this poem by the “Rev. Frederick Rolph”, each page being decorated by one of his drawings. Thick 4to, original red cloth, gilt. £12.50.

C. Day Lewis, Ten Singers. An Anthology. Fortune & Merriman, 1925. First edition. The Poet Laureate’s first publication—a scarce anthology published in the early days of the Fortune Press. Printed on hand-made paper and bound in hand-made paper wrappers. Fine Copy. £7.50. Today £ 25.

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Another catalogue from G. F. Sims, rare bookseller extraordinaire

This is the second catalogue of rare books issued by G. F. Sims that we have reviewed in Jot 101.Sims was regarded as a particularly rara avis among dealers, principally because his catalogues were chock full of scarce and interesting items—not only printed books, many of which were signed and uncorrected proof copies, but manuscripts. In the eyes of some collectors these catalogues were worth collecting in themselves.

In this catalogue No. 79, seemingly dating from the early seventies, there are several delectable items, including a number of titles from the Fortune Press and many others containing inscriptions from the author. Some of Sims’ prices seem pretty reasonable today—so reasonable that we have taken the liberty of including the prices that they might fetch in 2025. However, one annoying feature of this particular catalogue is the absence of information regarding pagination. Most potential buyers would surely be interested to know how many pages an item contains. For instance, how long is The Atlantic Anthology? If one was shelling out £25 in 1972, this is critical information.

1) We should start with an author whose letter interleaved in the inscribed book boasts about the rising market value of this particular volume. The author is Paul Ableman and the book is I Hear Voices ( Olympic Press, Paris 1958). Today £8. 24p.

‘ …it is a first edition, and actually, I gather, it is acquiring slight bibliophile value—someone told me that on the NY second-hand market, it was fetching twenty-five bucks…’

Actually its rise in value ( if true) is genuinely surprising considering it had only been published fifteen or so years before. Ableman ( 1927 – 2006) was an experimental novelist who also wrote plays and specialised in that very modern genre, TV novelisations. He was responsible, for instance, for turning ‘Porridge’, ‘Dad’s Army’ and ‘Shoestring’, into novels. He also wrote non-fiction, including a rarish pamphlet which argued that feminism had betrayed its roots and had turned into an anti-men campaign. Ableman, by all accounts, led an extremely bohemian life in his Hampstead eyrie. His friend Margaret Drabble, who provided a preface for a reprint of I Hear Voices, painted a very amusing picture of life chez Ableman.

2) Christopher Whitfield, The Village and other poems ( Alcuin Press, 1928). No. 1 of 100 copies on handmade paper. £5.50. Today a signed copy is a small bargain at £36.

Whitfield ( 1902 – 67 ), a budding poet, migrated to Chipping Campden, possibly to be close to the town’s greatest resident, F. L. Griggs, the visionary etcher and Arts and Crafts champion, whom he befriended and helped during his later years. While there he kept a fascinating diary which was published by his son Paul in 2012. In his superb biography, F. L. Griggs, the Architecture of Dreams (1999) Jerrold Northrop Moore refers frequently to Whitfield and his diary, which was then unpublished. Griggs died in 1938 and Whitfield followed him twenty-nine years later.

3) Atlantic Anthology ( Fortune Press, 1945). Uncorrected proofs for the first edition. ‘This the publisher’s first page proof without the contributors’ names on the title page or the illustrations… Quite likely a unique state of this interesting anthology with contributions by Lawrence Durrell, John Peale Bishop, Henry Miller, Allen Tate and Wallace Stevens…’ £25. Today £57.

A pretty big price for this anthology, but Sims is probably right about its rarity. In contrast, the next Fortune Press item from Sims is A Fortune Anthology (n.d.), which contains contributions from at least three of those writing for the above, but is priced at just £5.

10) Light Blue Dark Blue (1960). First edition. Contributors include Ted Hughes, Dom Moraes and Sylvia Plath. £7.50. Today just £7.00, somewhat bizarrely.

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