1883 chappell (3 Ergebnisse)

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Pepys's house at Brampton is the subject of an article by Chris Partridge in the Observer, 30 May 2004, which states that 'The first earl, Edward Montagu, was Pepys's cousin and patron, giving him the political clout to further his career in the Navy Office. In 1927 the then earl gave the Pepys House Trust a 100-year lease at a peppercorn rent, and it has been open to the public ever since. All three items in good condition, lightly aged. Drinkwater's second letter and Chappell's draft reply pinned to one another. ONE: Drinkwater to Chappell, 31 May 1933. TLS. 2pp, 4to. He presumes that Chappell's 'interesting paper on Samuel Pepys' has been forwarded to him on Chappell's instructions. 'There are some questions upon which, as might be seen in my book, I do not agree with you. And on the matter of the present condition or appearance of this house I feel that your observations are most unfortunate.' He explains that the house is the property of the Earl of Sandwich, 'who takes a deep and enlightened care of his historical possessions'. As President of the Pepys Club, Sandwich has 'always shown a special interest in this house'. In 1890, despite Chappell's description of the house as an 'old world country cottage', it had in fact been 'patched and plastered out of all resemblance to the original building, and it had, moreover, fallen into a serious state of neglect and disrepair when Lord Sandwich inherited it'. With the aid of 'Mr Forsyth, one of the most distinguished architects in this country', Sandwich 'carried out an altogether admirable piece of restoration, so that now the house in its main features is the one that Pepys himself knew'. As the tenant, Drinkwater has 'taken great care to make it inhabitable in a way that Pepys or any other civilised person would like'. He is irked by Chappell's reference to an 'electric light', this being 'enclosed in a rather charming old ship's lantern, not, I think, inappropriately'. He ends with some asperity: 'To liken a building that both inside and out is generally recognised as a beautiful example of the smaller domestic architecture of its period to a modern suburban villa suggests either that you have not seen it or that you are not very fully qualified to express an opinion on these matters. This in itself would be of small consequence, but your remarks were made in a public lecture delivered in honour of Pepys, and they cannot but be distasteful, to say the least, to Lord Sandwich, to the Pepys Club, and to myself.' TWO: Drinkwater to Chappell, 17 June 1933. TLS. 1p, landscape 12mo. He is somewhat mollified by Chappell's response, and invites him to 'come to see Pepys House', when he will no doubt be 'favourably impressed by the interior'. He thanks him for suggesting that he might send him his book, which he would be 'very interested' to read. THREE: Chappell to Drinkwater, 21 June 1933. Autograph Draft Copy. 1p, 4to. With several emendations. He notes Drinkwater's disagreement, 'but "Restorations" always give rise to varied opinions. Could I give a better example than that of Waterloo Bridge?' Although his book is 'primarily of interest to the naval historian, Pepys, the man, can be seen in it behind Pepys the official by those who have the right kind of eyes as I am sure you have'.

Nine letters (eight ALsS and one TLS) totalling 16pp, 12mo, in close and neat autograph; and 2pp, 4to, typed. One from 1932 and the other eight from 1933. All signed 'Arthur Bryant'. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with slight rust-staining from paperclips to a couple of the letters. An interesting correspondence, in which Bryant gives an assessment of Pepys, and describes his approach to writing his biography. In one long letter (5 May 1933) Bryant describes his wider approach to the writing of history. Bryant is a problematic historian, and the tensions inherent in his work and character are exemplified in the present batch of correspondence. His work was explicitly praised by eight British Prime Ministers including Winston Churchill between Stanley Baldwin and Margaret Thatcher, but his standing among his peers has not been high. The recent attempt by Julia Stapleton to counter Churchill's biographer Andrew Roberts's damning characterisation of him as 'a supreme toady, fraudulent scholar and humbug', as well as 'a Nazi sympathiser and fascist fellow-traveller, who only narrowly escaped internment as a potential traitor in 1940', is not convincing. The present batch of nine letters dates from the period between Bryant's study of Charles II (1932) and the appearance of the first of the three volumes of his Pepys biography, 'The Man in the Making', published by Cambridge University Press in 1933. Shortly before the present correspondence, having been greatly impressed by Bryant's book on Charles II, the historian G. M. Trevelyan had passed over to him the extensive notes and papers of the Pepys scholar J. R. Tanner (1860-1931), to assist him in writing his Pepys biography. It has been the contention of several authorities that Bryant was inadequate in his acknowledgment of the heavy extent to which he relied on Tanner, and it is certainly true that after three volumes he left his work uncompleted at the same point of Pepys's life at which Tanner's papers end. Chappell was one of the leading authorities on Pepys, and published several works on him, including editions of his shorthand letters (1933) and Tangier papers (1935), and 'Bibliographia Pepysiana' (1933). The present correspondence exhibits many of Bryant's obvious failings, but Chappell's claim, at its close, that Bryant had failed to engage in 'fair dealing', and was guilty of 'the most outrageous piece of poaching that has ever come my way', would seem an overreaction to the behaviour of which he accuses him, and seems to display the asperity of a wider resentment, perhaps connected with misgivings about the nature of Bryant's scholarly approach. The first letter, 6 January 1932, is written as Bryant is working on his first Pepys volume, and does not give the impression of previous acquaintance, being addressed to 'Dr. Chappell' (unlike the other eight letters, which are written to 'Chappell'). He thanks him for sending his bibliography, 'and the delightful paper which introduces it', and states that he has 'added it to the bibliography which Dr Tanner had prepared and which I have taken over with his Pepys papers'. Tanner's papers, he has discovered, are 'far fuller than I at first thought and include a large number of what seem to be accurate though I have not yet checked any of them transcripts of Pepys' letters in the Bodleian. They are very elaborately arranged'. He feels they may be of help to Chappell in his work, and invites him to visit him to consult them. He thanks him for corrections to his book on Charles II (1931), explaining that his 'task' in writing the book 'was one of extreme compression'. He describes 'a small MS book of a few pages of an early 17 century shorthand', among 'the Shakerley MSS in my possession'. In the next letter, written a year later on 5 January 1933, Bryant corrects 'a slight slip' in the proofs of Chappell's edition of Pepys's shorthand letters, which had recently appeared, stating: 'May I say what a great serv.