'THOUGH HUMAN, I AM AN EPICURE'

BEERBOHM (Sir MAX, 1872-1956, caricaturist, critic, essayist and broadcaster) WONDERFUL IRONICAL AND WITTY AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ('Max Beerbohm'), in his finest fin de siècle self-parodying tone, to Filson Young, his successor as editor of the Saturday Review, expressing his anticipation and reception of an article about him by Young, 4 pages, octavo, The Grand Hotel, Venice, 23 May 1911

'...At last! And I am feeling very happy and conceited...this morning at the Poste Restante there that number of the Saturday was, to be snatched at by my eager fingers, but -- (for, though human, I am an epicure, and the courtyard of a post office is no place in which to read a thing written about me by you)...I said to my wife that we would go to Florian's. And there, in one of those absurd and delightful little over-gilded and over-glazed rooms, in full view of the pigeons, I sipped a vermouth while my wife, slowly and with uxorious emphasis, read the article aloud to me. And the crimson velvet of the settees seemed almost pale in comparison with the flush of gratification on my cheeks. And the pigeons soared less lightly than did my soul. And all the lions of S. Mark growled their displeasure at my having a halo brighter than any of theirs...Venice is too small to hold me now. I need the wide sweep of the Ligurian gulf in which to expand fully to your praises...'

Such a delightful and highly characteristic letter by Max Beerbohm is rarely available for purchase.

Filson Young (1876-1938), a colourful character, well-known in his time and influential in political and social circles, was a prolific author, journalist, editor and broadcaster.

£1,250