JEWELLERY, DECORATIVE & FINE ARTS AUCTION Tuesday, 21 October 2025 / 10:00 am start
An important collection of letters between the French writer Collete (1873-1954)
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Lot Details
Radclyffe Hall (1883-1943) and Lady Una Troubridge 1887-1963), dating from the 1930s. These include letters from Collete to Una and ‘John’ (Hall), some concerning ‘The Well of Loneliness’, as well as a French publisher asking Hall to write about Collete from an English perspective for a book being written about her. In a later letter to Troubridge, she called the book by Claude Chauvière, ‘un outrage aux yeux et à la politesse’. One letter from George Bernard Shaw concerns the upcoming trial in England surrounding the publication of ‘The Well of Loneliness’, he writes, ‘I have sketched the line of defence more fully...but the danger is that counsel will refuse to adopt it.’ Also, a letter from John Gielgud concerning a possible adaption of her novel. Additionally included are photos; cheques signed by Hall; her passport; tickets and programme for the opening night of ‘Le Procès d'Oscar Wilde’ (‘The Trial of Oscar Wilde’ at Theatre de L’Oeuvre) and many other items. Note: Radclyffe Hall (Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall) was an English writer best known for the groundbreaking lesbian work ‘The Well of Loneliness’ (1928) which was banned in 1928 in Britain as ‘obscene libel’ and not published for 20 years. Lady Una Troubridge (Margot Elena Gertrude Taylor) was an English sculptor and translator – best known for her translation into English, of the works of Collete, who was one of France’s leading writers in the first half of the 20thC. Provenance: [Lady Una Troubridge by bequest to friends Nicola Rossi-Lemeni and his wife Operatic Soprano, Virginia Zeani, 1963, thence by bequest to the vendors in the 1990s.
