DOWSON, Ernest (1867-1900) - photo 1

DOWSON, Ernest (1867-1900)

Lot 106
13.02.2025 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
ID 1362944
Lot 106 | DOWSON, Ernest (1867-1900)
Estimate value
£ 3 000 – 5 000
DOWSON, Ernest (1867-1900)
Twelve autograph letters signed ('Ernest Dowson') to [Victor Plarr], Bridge Dock, Limehouse, Yacht Rover near Norwich, 6 Featherstone Buildings, High Holborn, Le Faouet (Brittany) and Church End, South Woodford etc, 13 June 1892 - 20 December [1893], most undated
Together 28 pages, various sizes; with a letter by Plarr to Elkin Mathews. Half green morocco slipcase. Provenance: 11 letters: Anderson Galleries, 16 December 1929, lot 119 and subsequently in the collection of H. Bradley Martin (1906-1988); the twelfth from David J. Holmes Autographs; Barry Humphries (1934-2023; bookplate).

Idle holidays, urban squalor and literary pursuits. The earliest letter encourages Plarr to join Dowson on a holiday in Brittany, 'I hope you will consider the Breton journey seriously', sketching out the itinerary and recommending hotels and sites (including 'the Dolmens & menhirs at Carnac, which I have never yet had the energy to see'). In July 1893 he complains of the 'hot weather and ... this base city's base outburst of snobbish sycophancy. London on a gala day ... makes me think of an ugly, fat, vulgar old woman putting on the graces of coquetry'. Elsewhere the letters discus news of friends (including in W.B. Yeats's Rhymers' Club) and literary projects, and also of the Limehouse dry dock which was the family business; an undated letter describes a leisurely holiday on the Norfolk Broads, 'I smoke – smoke – smoke – read some – & think not at all'.

Dowson is best remembered as the originator of the phrases 'Gone with the wind' and 'I have been faithful ... in my fashion'. Dowson's youth, from which these letters date, was one of carefree carousing and literature, as remembered by Yeats and other associates; but after the death of his parents, both likely by suicide, in 1894 and 1895, his subsequent years were a tale of rapid decline in health and fortunes before his own death in 1900 at the age of 32. Ten of the letters are published (not always fully) in the Letters, ed. Flower and Maas.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
13.02.2025 – 13.02.2025
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
4FQ.AYGKAGLUQ@FO3G@
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Conditions of purchaseConditions of purchase

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