[Love – Story Harry Luke/Lillie Leonora Neumann] – [Luke, Sir Harry / Lillie Leonora Bird [nee Neumann].

Collection of twentyseven (27) manuscript letters by Sir Harry Luke’s first love, Lillie Leonora Hoffmann, as mentioned in “Cities and Men”, Volume I, pages 105-105 and with a photograph on page 96 / The letters are often reaching over multiple pages and are reflecting on Lillie’s longing for her friendship to Luke becoming more. The letters were written between October 6th, 1906 and Lillie Leonora writes a sad and bitter letter to Luke’s posting at Freetown in Sierra Leone on November 21st, 1908 in which she accuses him to be indifferent to their friendship and she informs him of her need to travel to Mexico until the summer of 1909 when she closes with: “…you do not seem to care ever sufficiently to send me an idea of your daily routine which you would surely do fpr some casual friend & so I say I will not write again….till you write or till we meet goodbye. God bless you. Nov.8 – 08 – Lillie”. On November 24th, a last letter from Lillie reaches Harry Luke who must have written to her in the meantime and the two are friends again after Lillie admits she would not send the letter from Nov.8th if she would have a chance to read it again.. Lilie writes: “I got your letter – we certainly have travelled far from each other …There is nothing to say words seem singularly futile”. After this last letter Lillie Leonora dies in Mexico on April 9th, 1909, suddenly of heart failure. Luke kept i his collection a typed, standardized thank-you-card from Lillie Leonora’s husband, Mr.Robert Macdonald Bird, thanking him for “kindness and great sympathy shewn to him in his recent sorrow” [dated June 1909].

1906-1908. Octavo. Softcover. Very good condition with only minor signs of wear. Original envelopes included.

In the year 1903 Luke travelled to North America, starting to work for a newspaper in New York but also traversing the United States all the way to Alaska. Luke travelled on the White Star Liner “Celtic” and during his Atlantic-crossing he met Lillie Leonora Neumann.
Luke mentions her in Chapter IV of his Autobiograpy “Cities and Men”, Volume I, on page 105 and 105 with heart-breaking sentiments:

″I returned from the States, which I was not meant to see again for over forty years…..[…]….All this time I was, deeply and romantically, in love, I am sure deeply, for I loved her from the day in January we met on board the ‘Celtic’, when we were both just turned eighteen, till the day she died, five years later. And I believe romantically, for it was and remained a Plantonic relationship, if I rightly understand the term. Not that I regarded Lillie Leonora as my ‘princess lointaine’, to be worshipped only from afar. I was no Jaufre Rudel, satisfied never to behold the object of my devoion. She returned to England before I did and we met every day thereafter when I was in London. During the years that remained to her, which covered my stay in North America, my entire undergraduate career and my Near Eastern expedition of 1907-1908, she was the major preoccupation of my life.

She had everything: a picturesque upbringing in the old Hawaii, where her father had been one of King Kalakaua’s white Ministers and Queen Lilioukolani, the Island Kingdom’s last monarch, had held her at the font; much European travel; wide reading in four languages; a genuine and discerning love of music, pictures and old furniture; a promising poetical talent that might have grown into something serious; a gift for friendship; a sense of humour; masses of golden hair, brown eyes and a rare physical beauty. Too much to be snatched away so quickly.″

Background to Lillie Leonora Bird (nee Neumann):

Lillie Leonora was the daughter of Hawaiian Attorney General Paul Neumann and his wife Elisa. The family was loved and respected when Paul Neumann was working as an attorney in California and then later when he worked for the King and Queen of Hawaii.
See the extensive article on Paul Neumann on Wikipedia.
Lillie Leonora was exposed to the friendship of her father with scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson.
After the death of Paul Neumann, the family experienced several tragedies:
Son Edouard Neumann graduated from the United States Naval Academy but was killed in a fire during target practice on the USS Missouri on April 13, 1904. Neumann’s wife Elisa moved to London, as did daughter Lily [Lillie] Neumann who married Robert MacDonald Bird. Elisa Neumann went to Acapulco, Mexico in 1908 to settle the estate of her mother and steepfather who had both died. On a Steamer to San Francisco she died after jumping overboard.
Only a few months later, on April 9th, 1909, Lillie Leonora died of sudden heart failure, age 24, clearly from the heartbreaking experiences of the recent loss of her mother [mainly sourced from Wikipedia and records at the United States Naval Academy].

• Keywords: Luke – Lillie Leonora Connection · Manuscript Love Letters by Lillie Leonora Neumann · Neumann, Lillie Leonora · Sir Harry Luke Collection
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 31941AB

EUR 28.000,--