Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

MODERN LITERATURE, ART AND HISTORY
Lot 158

LEWIS (CLIVE STAPLES)
Series of four autograph letters signed ("C.S. Lewis") to student Anthony Spearing regarding his essays; with autograph notes and other material, [November 1959-1960]

1 December 2021, 12:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £8,287.50 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

LEWIS (CLIVE STAPLES)

Series of four autograph letters signed ("C.S. Lewis") to Anthony Spearing ("Dear Spearing", "Dear Mr Spearing"), the first congratulating him on his fellowship and commenting on Spearing's essay on Henryson's Testament of Cresseid, beginning by apologising ("..."He's a fool without his Book", said Caliban, and you catch me without most of mine. The best I can do by Dead Reckoning is as follows... I'm sorry I can't give you anything better..."); the remaining three making arrangements for tutorials ("...I gather I have been inflicted on you as a "supervisor" so I suppose we ought to meet...") and for dinner ("...dinner-jacket and rendez-vous in my rooms at 7.30..."), with a comment on Spearing's work ("...Most interesting and an interpretation (whether one finally agrees with it or no) certainly worth powder and shot..."); with two leaves headed "Notes" consisting of twenty-eight densely written points of analysis on Piers Plowman, 8 pages, some creasing, 4to (255 x 205mm.) and 8vo (205 x 130mm.), The Kilns, Headington Quarry, Oxford and Magdalene College, Cambridge, [November 1957 to 1960]

Footnotes

'HE'S A FOOL WITHOUT HIS BOOK... AND YOU CATCH ME WITHOUT MOST OF MINE': C.S. Lewis comments on a student's work with a reference from The Tempest, and encourages a long career in academia.

The recipient of these letters, Anthony Colin Spearing (b.1936) was awarded his fellowship at Queen's College in 1960 and embarked on a long career as a well-respected academic. He is the author of numerous books and papers on mediaeval English literature and a collection of essays in his honour was published in 2016. A manuscript copy of his Part II English Tripos essay entitled "The Translation of Old English Verse", written whilst a student at Jesus College in 1957, including annotations by Lewis in the margin, is also included in the lot. In a memoir of his time at Cambridge with C.S. Lewis as his supervisor he writes: '...On this first visit to Lewis I was in a state of nervous awe... I couldn't help being conscious of his scholarly eminence... a shortish, stout, balding, middle-aged, bespectacled, red-faced man, dressed, as he usually was, in a shabby tweed jacket and well-worn flannel trousers that didn't quite fit him... he loved Cambridge... because it reminded him of the unspoiled Oxford of his youth... what mattered greatly is that he did not simply dismiss my callow efforts, but treated them seriously and was willing to argue with me about them...'. They are not published in C.S. Lewis Collected Letters, ed. Walter Hooper, 2006.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

ADVERTISING POSTERfor 'The Suffragette' newspaper, [c.1913-1914]

ILLUMINATED ADDRESS – CLARA CODD Illuminated printed address signed by Emmeline Pankhurst, [1909]

MUSIC & RECORDINGS – ETHEL SMYTH Collection of printed music, song sheets and records, [c.1911-1912]

SUFFRAGETTE INSIGNIA - SPEAKER Speaker's ribbon for the Great 'Women's Sunday' Demonstration in Hyde Park, 21 June 1908

SUFFRAGETTE INSIGNIA - GROUP CAPTAIN Group Captain's ribbon, [1908]

'WOMEN'S SUNDAY' SASH 1908 Marshal's sash, 1908