Author: Walpole, Hugh.

Format: Four autograph letters signed in ink to Martin Secker, dated from 1919 to 1930, 7pp over four sheets.

Letterheads either annotated “2 Ryde St, St James W.” or printed “Brackenburn, Manesty Park, Keswick,” 17.7 x 11.3cm each.

1). March 22nd, 1919; Walpole writes to Secker “you’ve been awfully nice about the transference of the books to Macmillan.”

2). June 28, 1919; Walpole writes to thank Secker for the offer of doing a book on Joseph Conrad “especially as I’ve seen so much of Conrad this year and heard so many of his own ideas about his work, but — for a year at least it’s impossible. I’m up to the eyes in work.”

3). July 5, 1927; Walpole writes to Secker “May I congratulate you on the success you are having? You deserve it for your courage in venturing on [Lion Feuchtwanger’s novel] Jew Süss. With best wishes.”

4). April 24 1930; “My dear Secker, I must send you a line to thank you for having had the unselfish enterprise to publish Kafka’s Castle. It is a marvellous work and perfectly translated. It has effected [sic] me as no novel has for many a day – the events are so real, the allegory so fascinating, that one lives in a new and thrilling world through it. Such is the kind of brave deed that should reward a publisher but I suppose doesn’t! Yours ever, Hugh Walpole.”

Hugh Walpole (British, 1884–1941) was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s. Martin Secker (British, 1882–1978) was briefly his publisher before he transferred to Macmillan.

Full transcript available on request.

Minor foxing.