Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller - Old and Rare Books

Lewis Carroll Ephemera - Rev. Duckworth Letter [SIGNED BY ROBINSON DUCKWORTH] [WITH] The Holy Land

Duckworth, Robinson

London: Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1880. Original letter. Loose leaf. Small Octavo (7 x 4 1/2"). 6pp. Original letter penned onto heavy light blue paper, taped together at left edge.

R. Duckworth letter, with header 32. Abercorn Place (St, John's Wood), close to Regent's Park, and Abbey Road with the pedestrian crossing made famous by the Beatles, is addressed "My dear Atkinson, I received your kind letter last night on my return from Sandringham where I had been since Saturday last, & and thank you sincerely for your friendly renewal of invitation to visit you in Jersey. Since I left Westminster at the beginning of Nov. I have been paying a series of short visits by way of promising myself a little holiday, but I have only been absent on Sunday and a portion of each week. Whether I shall be able to brave the horrors of the Channel and to take the rest you so hospitably offer in January I find it is impossible to say just at present. I have already two or three engagements during the month and I doubt whether I can contrive such an absence as a visit to the Channel Islands implies. But I shall not despair of coming to you, if not then, later on in the lengthening days. My brother Dyce is on his way to India - and does not return till the end of February. We had a telegram from Malta on Monday announcing his safe arrival there after a terrible "dusting" in the Bay, which he of course enjoyed, but which would have been misery to me. I can understand your satisfaction & that of........... I had a curious experience at Sandringham on Sunday, preaching in the quiet Country church to three men sitting side by side who have lately turned the world upside down, Lord Lytton, Sir Bartle & Sir Fred Roberts. The latter is a very fine, modest little fellow, very much a soldier. - kindest regards to Mrs. Atkinson. Yrs. ever sincerely R. Duckworth."

Robinson Duckworth was a very close friend of Dodgson (Lewis Carroll); he was rowing the boat when Carroll started orating his Alice stories to entertain the Liddell sisters, and a famous presentation copy of Alice was inscribed to him "from the Dodo to the Duck." Indeed, the Dodo and Duck that Alice encounters at the Pool of Tears in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" are a reference to the now infamous boating excursion.

[WITH]

The Holy Land. Folio. [1] 36pp. Original red quarter cloth over color-illustrated boards with red and blue lettering on cover. Frontispiece color map of Palestine. Illustrated title page. Printed to tear-proof linen. Beautifully illustrated with color and b/w scenes from artwork drawn by W. J. Webb in the Holy Land. Binding shaken with spine detached from block though holding together at back joint. Several pages at front all but loose. Wear along edges of binding and and rubbed. Block lightly rubbed. Very good condition. Item #54926

The letter was written 15 years after the first Alice in Wonderland book was published in 1865 and just nine years after the second book was published in 1871.

Price: $750.00