Oration for Charles Morgan, 1958

Dame Edith SITWELL

Beschreibung

Typescript: 4pp. 4to; stapled at one corner. One manuscript correction; referenced at foot "ES [i.e. Elizabeth Salter]/MSF" and dated 20 February 1958; dated by hand at head, "March 8", and with the printer's pencilled instruction, "8pt Perpetua". Loosely inserted the printed order of service for Charles Morgan's memorial service (at which the oration was given), St Margaret's, Westminster, 20 February 1958: single sheet, folded, a little grubby and creased. "He had a singularly noble nature, appearance and demeanour," declares Sitwell. "In some circles, it is dangerous to say that someone is noble. Immediately a vision is seen of a status in the principal square of some continental provincial town. Just as great physical beauty is regarded, in the circles of which I speak, as synonymous with immorality, so nobility of character is regarded as synonymous with dullness. The people who believe this are utterly wrong, and as for confusing nobility with dullness, I can only say that to be with Charles Morgan was like finding oneself companioned by an electric eel in a pool otherwise peopled by highly respectable minnows . . ." Part of the "original typescript" of Sitwell's oration is reproduced on the Charles Morgan 50th anniversary website with the assertion that it had "never before been published". First, the typescript (presumably that at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin) looks not to be the original, but a carbon copy; second, the oration was printed at the time (though it is unnoticed by Fifoot), in The Publisher, Vol. 172, p. 369 - for which, presumably, this was the setting copy. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 30M100423

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Oration for Charles Morgan, 1958

Einband: No Binding

Zustand: Very Good