
Luke Batterham
Senior Valuer
This auction has ended. View lot details
Sold for £400 inc. premium
Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialist
Senior Valuer
SWINBURNE'S PLAY GOES TO THE PRINTER: this letter was sent the day Swinburne passed his play Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards for the press, as he tells his sister: "I have just this minute finished correcting the proofs of my forthcoming tragedy – so you will make allowance for epistolary brevity & stupidity". This is one of Swinburne's late plays that 'although not without some fine writing and a growing compression in form' is archaic in form and style and 'damaged by Swinburne's habit of writing for an imagined Elizabethan audience' (Rikky Rooksby, ODNB).