Lot 139
BEERBOHM (MAX) Series of ten autograph letters signed to Henry Previté, [c.1894 to 1 November 1899]
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BEERBOHM (MAX)
Series of ten charming autograph letters signed ("Max Beerbohm", "Max") to H.F. Previté ("My dear Previte", "My dear Pita"), the first giving news from Merton ("...There are many horrible people staying in College... I feel quite like Daniel in the lion's den... Did you see in the paper that Oscar Wilde bailed out the young man who fired at the Houses of Parliament? I hear they have been intimate friends for a long time and that Oscar insists that the man is not mad... Isn't it charming?...), disappointed that Previté is spending his holiday in Bournemouth ("...I had looked forward to seeing you – outside the focus of Infatuation: or does jim still occupy that little sunny Arcadian allotment, your mind?..."), on Reggie Turner ("...He will indeed pay the penalty of unlawful affection..."), lending books ("...keep, of course keep, the "Gentle Art"..."), remonstrating with him about his criticism of the suburbs ("...I rather like them... free from the sin that overhangs the paving-stones, nor are they tainted with the Provincialism that taints the meadow..."), pleased he likes The Happy Hypocrite but that "...Your failure to appreciate my caricatures does matter – very much indeed... You must... imbibe them; steep yourself in them; give yourself to them, with glad submissive blushes, as the slave-girl gives herself to the Pasha. In time you will come to love them...", making arrangements ("...with the delightful vagueness of a man immersed in business you, mention no hour for dinner..."), asking if he could show the artist Harris Brown the hall of the Reform Club ("...Regie [sic] is away. Bobbie is a dealer and possibly and enemy of H.B.... What bores people are: I to you and H.B. to both of us!..."), dining at the Savile Club ("...although the food is bad, every dish has a literary flavour..."), and much else, with one envelope postmarked 10 April [18]92, 32 pages, dust-staining and marks, some small tears, one letterhead with crest excised, 8vo (180 x 114mm.), 19 Hyde Park Place, Savile Club, and 48 Upper Berkeley Street, [mostly undated but c.1894 to 1 November 1899] (11)
Footnotes
'OSCAR WILDE BAILED OUT THE YOUNG MAN WHO FIRED AT THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT... ISN'T IT CHARMING?': MAX BEERBOHM GOSSIPS ABOUT OSCAR WILDE & URGES HIS COLLEGE FRIEND TO APPRECIATE HIS CARICATURES.
Our correspondence was written during the years which were to be the most important and arguably some of the happiest years of Beerbohm's life. The young Max Beerbohm was studying classics at Merton College, Oxford, an atmosphere in which he thrived: '...the perfect place for the development of his dandyism, his aestheticism, his distinctive spectator persona. At Merton, Max came to know the man who was to be his dearest friend, the novelist Reggie Turner. Through Turner, Max became friends with Oscar Wilde and his inner circle...' (N. John Hall, ODNB). It was also the period when his professional career as a caricaturist took off and he rapidly gained fame with the publication of his 'club types' series in the Strand magazine in 1892 and of his Works in 1896.
The recipient of our letters, Henry Francis Previté (1870-1930), or 'Pita' as Beerbohm addresses him, read history at Merton, and went on to became a barrister with, according to the Annals of Clifton College, premises at Ryder Street, St. James's. He married Daisy Jennings in June 1924 and was an active member of the West Indian Committee. In 1899 he published a volume of short stories with Smithers & Co. entitled My Great Discovery under the pseudonym Henry Frances. Little came of it but he asked Beerbohm to be the dedicatee ("...One could not have a more charming token of friendship... your book will be a very great success..." was the reply). Among Previté's correspondents was R. C. Trevelyan who considered him a 'great friend' (letter to Caroline Trevelyan, 18 July 1904, Trinity College Library TRER/45/94). Over forty years later, Beerbohm wrote to a fellow member of the Myrmidon Club, of which he was Secretary, reminiscing fondly of '...you and Pita singing 'Rahnd the Tahn'... and of you and Pita reciting the tarpaulin story, and of Reggie singing 'Hextra speshul'...' (David Cecil, Max, A Biography, 1964, p.52). Whilst, as is often the case with Beerbohm's letters, many are undated, internal evidence such as his disappointment at the postponement of a performance of George Edwardes' Don Juan (1892), Previté's approval of The Happy Hypocrite (1896) and mention of the musical Change Alley (1897), can give an idea of a possible chronology.
Saleroom notices
The young man who fired at the Houses of Parliament was Wilde's New College friend John Barlas (see Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, p.291). The incident was in 1891, so these letters must range from c.1891-1899.