Box 3

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"Dear Mrs Langley Moore. I must write and tell you how admirable I think your biography of Mrs. Bland is. I was, as you probably gathered, very fond of her, and I wouldn't have believed it possible that anyone who never knew her could have produced such a true - and at the same time - sympathetic portrait of her. I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart..."

Scope and Contents "Dear Miss or Mrs Briggs, I have read your book about E. Nesbit with great pleasure, - in fact I asked my family to give it me for Christmas, because I knew there was a lot in it about my late husband, Arthur Watts. Actually, early in my marriage - perhaps the summer of 1925 or 6 - Doris Langley Moore came to see us to talk to Arthur about his friendship with E. Nesbit when he was at the Slade. She had only lately died a year or two before, and he[sic] second husband, Tommy Tucker, had given...

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"Dear Mrs Briggs Now to your letter and the photo - [?] my daughter and I have come to the conclusion that the one enclosed (herewith returned) must have been of Arthur; altho' it does not tally with his description of himself, or that earlier photo of him with the dog, or any of my own photos. But the fact that yours was in the Bland family album - and identified by Paul Bland proves the point..."

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"Dear Miss/Mrs(?) Briggs, I was delighted to get your letter this morning - together with my [?] of family photos and the other one which you think may be of Arthur. I agree with you it could perhaps be Arthur - although I have never seen a photo of him with a moustache or heard of one!..."

Scope and Contents "Dear Mr Cohen Thank you for your letter of May 9th. I have no photograph of Arthur with E. Nesbit, but I enclose one of him with a dog when he was about 20-21 at the Slade. I am sorry I have to include it with a number of other photos, but it is from an album. Arthur was born in 1883 and was a lot order than me; he was at the Slade Art School in about 1902-4 so he was between 19 and 20 when he met - thro' her daughter - E. Nesbit. She dedicates 3 books to him (see my letter to Julia Briggs,...

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"Dear Sir 'A Woman of Passion' The Life of E. Nesbit As the widow of Arthur Watts, I was given a copy of above book for xmas - there are 1/2 a dozen references in it to Arthur But there are a number of mistakes - inaccuracies - regarding my husband and about him, and I wrote to the author over a month ago, pointing these out - in a perfectly friendly way. But I have had no reply..."

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"Dear Madam With Prof. Allan Nevins of Columbia University I am bringing out 'Liberty in Prose and Verse from England and America. I want to include Edith Bland's 'All in All' beginning: 'When all the light is horrible with clamour' - a beautiful poem. But (1) may I assume permission to print it? and (2) could you give me the approximate date when it was written, and (3) could you give me..."

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"Mrs Langley Moore Dear Madam I can find no letters of Mrs. Bland's to Mr. Hewlett and there are no references to her in his diary, so I am afraid that I can not be of much help to you. I return the two copies you sent me and shall be glad for you to use them in your book. With regard to the first letter I don't think it could have been written in 1911 as I find Mr. Hewlett was not in London on 24th December that year. I should think it might be 1912..."

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"Dear Madam, In answer to your letter about Mrs Hubert Bland I have none of Mr Hewletts papers here but I shall return to London on 1st Jan and will look if there are letters to him from Mrs Bland. I do not think there are, and I can not remember when he first met her but it must have been about the time that she was making the toy villages and houses for children..."

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Transcribed copy of the original letter.