Return Fleet, Signed (2 results)

Hard Cover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First Edition. First Edition / first printing (0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1). Signed with just his name on the first title page. Book is in fine (unread) condition with a fine unclipped dustjacket protected in a Brodart wrapper. An Attractive Copy! Please feel free to ask me for pictures or more information, Thanks. Signed.

49 lines over first 3 sides of 4pp 4to, integral address leaf, paper watermarked 1819; v. sl. rubbed at seal. A very well-preserved example, neatly sewn along inner margin into later blue cloth protective boards. In the Complete Letters (ed. by E.V. Lucas), vol. II, p.301. A long and very important letter, in which Lamb responds to uncertainties regarding the pronunciation of 'Elia', casts light on the origin of his nom-de-plume, and also offers advice to a fellow poet. Sometime in June 1821 Lamb had been sent by the publisher John Taylor some lines entitled 'Epistle to Elia', written under the signature 'Olen', but by Charles Abraham Elton. Lamb was evidently rather taken with the verses, which would appear in the London Magazine in August 1821, but suggested a couple of alterations, writing them out in detail on the second page: 'the line One in a skeleton's ribb'd hollow cooped is undoubtedly wrong. Should it not be a skeleton's rib or ribs? or in a skeleton ribb'd, hollow-coop'd?'. He also queried where the stress should lie in the word 'exoteric'. Notwithstanding these minor defects, Lamb was keen that Taylor pass on his 'gratefullest respects to the poet', and allowed himself to wonder, erroneously as it turned out, 'if it may be M----y [perhaps Montgomery]?'. E.V. Lucas notes in the Complete Letters, that Taylor and Elton corresponded several times on the subject over the next few days, recording that Elton felt honoured to receive advice from Lamb, but that he would respectfully point out that the word in the manuscript was 'esoteric' and not 'exoteric'. Advised by Taylor on the correct pronunciation of Elia (Taylor evidently passed on Lamb's missive from this letter: 'Call him Ellia'), Elton acknowledged that he was placing the stress on the wrong syllable, but was not inclined to alter his epistle, admitting 'I scarcely know how to change the emphasis of Elia without injury to the verse'. On the third page, Lamb discusses the origin of his pseudonym. 'Poor Elia - the real (for I am but a counterfeit) is dead. The fact is, a person of that name, an Italian, was a fellow clerk of mine at the South Sea House 30 (not 40) years ago, when the characters I described there existed. I having a brother now there, & doubting how he might relish certain descriptions in it, I clapt down the name of Elia to it, which passed off pretty well, for Elia himself added the function of an author to that of a scrivener like myself'. Lamb's claim had earlier been hinted at by Leigh Hunt, who in March 1821 in the pages of The Indicator, had observed that 'there was a family by the name of Elia who came from Italy'. Indeed, C.A. Prance's Companion to Charles Lamb records an F. Augustus Elia, author and clerk at the South Sea House, who died in 1820. In the final paragraph of this letter, Lamb describes calling in to see the real Elia, 'to laugh over with him at my usurpation of his name', but regrettably finding he had 'died of consumption 11 months ago'. He reasons, 'the name has fairly devolv'd to me.'. A marvellous letter, signed 'Yours truly C Lamb'.