ADVENTURES OF A RUBBERNECK by R.A.J. Walling, with a letter from Eden Phillpotts to Walling's daughter.

A book recounting Walling's experiences as a traveller in America, reprinted from the 'Western Independent'. Printed for Private Circulation. 149pp, bound in marbled boards, 12mo, cloth spine. Small scratch on paper on front board. Walling was part of a group of journalists invited by the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace. Loosely inserted is a letter from Eden Phillpotts to Walling's daughter at Budleigh Salterton, in envelope with postmarked 17th July 1959. 24 lines in a small shaky hand, on one side of headed paper of Kerswell, Broadclyst, dated 16th July 1959. He hope she will enjoy her new home at Budleigh, and praises her father 'one of my most valued friends. he was a humanist of the noblest type and left the world a better place than he found it. Isaac Foot felt great admiration for him, 'Plymouth however did not honour him as it should have'. Walling worked as a reporter on the Western Daily Mercury in Plymouth and later in Cornwall. He became manager of the Western Newspaper Company in 1904. He later wrote numerous detective novels and some non-fiction works including a life of Sir John Hawkins, 'Some Cornish Characteristics', etc. Eden Phillpotts died in 1960. He wrote novels with a Dartmoor setting such as 'Widecombe Fair', as well as mysteries such as 'The Thing at Their Heels'. Agatha Christie was an admirer. -- - Please e-mail for one of my FREE CATALOGUES which include DEVON [ Manuscripts, Maps, Ephemera, Views, etc., etc. ] ---.