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Manuscript Letters/Autographs (49 items)

Luke, From a South Seas Diary: 1938-1942.

32. [Pacific Content / Gardner Island] – Luke, Harry Charles / Sir Harry Luke / [Gerald Gallagher on Nikumaroro (Gardner Island) / Patrick Jay Hurley – United States Minister to New Zealand].

From a South Seas Diary: 1938-1942. [Personal Working copy Number One without Index / “Review copy” of Sir Harry Luke – with very many annotations, additions and corrections which led to the ultimate finished print (this working copy has no Index yet) / With Three (3) Letters loosely inserted of which one is regarding funds for a bronze plaque for Gerald Gallaghaer’s grave on Nikumaroro (Gardner Island) / With Two (2) manuscript notes loosely inserted / With one handmade and handpainted bookmark signed and gifted Christmas 1941 by Cottrell-Dormer, Cox of the Iririki Hospital (Cottrell-Dormer is also mentioned in the Preface) / With a tipped-in Typescript on page 233, regarding the unannounced visit to Suva by United States Minister to New Zealand, Patrick Jay Hurley, on his way to take office. This typescript was clearly written to be included in the book but, for obvious reasons of diplomatic tact, never made it into the final publication. The typescript includes manuscript annotations by Luke and is a fine character-study of Patrick Hurley and his tendency to greet people with “an ear-piercing Indian war whoop or yell [Choctaw war crie, by Luke wrongly remembered as Osage Indian] / Luke rememberes in the typescript the spring of 1942: “About this time I was asked by Washington to look out for and put up, among many American military and naval notabilities who used to pass through Suva….crossing and recrossing the Pacific….So whenever a Catalina was sighted as being about to alight in Suva Harbour, my A.D.C. would hurry down to meet her…..One afternoon in 1942, Mungo dashed off to meet such an aircraft and did not return empty. Into the drawing-room of Government House strode a tall….flamboyant figure…General Hurley soon gave me to understand that in his private opinion Oklahoma was the only State in the Union that really mattered, an opinion which in the circumstances seemed an entirely proper one for him to cherish”.

[This item is part of the Sir Harry Luke – Archive / Collection]. London, Nicholson & Watson, 1945. 19 cm x 12,5 cm. 252 pages with 185 photographs by the author. Original Softcover with original dustjacket in protective Mylar. Harry Luke’s (Lukach) personal copy. With annotations and markings by Harry Luke. Split hinge, almost detached. Otherwise in fair condition.

EUR 78.000,-- 

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Sir Harry Luke - Long (2-page) Manuscript Letter (MLS) / Autographed Letter, signed (ALS) by Christopher Pirie-Gordon

38. [Malta Content] – [Luke, Sir Harry] / Pirie-Gordon, Christopher.

Long (2-page) Manuscript Letter (MLS) / Autographed Letter, signed (ALS) by Christopher Pirie-Gordon, 14th Laird of Buthlaw, “formerly Assistant-Resident in Amman and seconded for service under the Foreign Office, following the winding-up of the Palestine Administration”, to Sir Harry Luke from Pirie-Gordon’s post in Taiz (Yemen). Pirie-Gordon writes: “‘My dear Harry Charles, thank you so very much for your recent letter. Iremain almost aghast at the extent of your “wanderlust”. Brazil and Penang combined with almost permanent residence in Malta and a flat in London seem quite a good way of keeping at bay in suggestion of the humdrum or routine in life”. Pirie-Gordon describes his recent activities, including a ‘visit to stay with our Ambassador in Addis Ababa’, where he found the Ethiopians ‘a friendly courteous people’. Regarding the situation in the Yemen Pirie-Gordon writes: “We have been through a rough summer here during the Crown Prince’s period of Regency with one unpleasant afternoon in Taiz when the army ran amok”. The fact that the country did not have ‘the long awaited revolution then, when the Imam [Ahmad bin Yahya] was out of the country’, has convinced Pirie-Gordon ‘that revolutionaries of the necessary calibre are just not to be found locally’. Of the Imam he writes: “If someone bumps the old man off (no easy undertaking) or if Allah decides that he can do without him no longer then all hell will be loose and the War of the Roses will probably be declared at once.” In the meantime the country will ‘probably slide into a nice quiet anarchy’. Regarding ‘His Majesty’s gracious message’, Luke’s ‘mental imagery’ of ‘the Dragon breathing fire’ is ‘not inapt’. Pirie-Gordon now turns to his own future, which ‘remains shrouded in mystery’. His aim is to secure a ‘particular post’, despite ‘the Ambassador in the country concerned’, who is ‘anxious to have it for an old boyfriend of his own’. The letter ends with Pirie-Gordon describing his ‘highly international social life’, which, he declares, ‘suits me well’.

[This item is part of the Sir Harry Luke – Archive / Collection]. Taiz [Yemen], 8 October, 1959. Quarto. Two pages. From Sir Harry Luke’s personal library. The letter comes with a publication, edited by Hector Bolitho: “The British Empire”, in which are contained two essays on the Colonial History of the Empire by Sir Harry Luke: I.The Mediterranean Colonies and Aden” / II. “The British Islands of the Pacific”.

EUR 78.000,-- 

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