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RM001
[Prose Manuscript-Review] “ Glorious Apollo”

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Mary Webb. “Glorious Apollo.” Prose manuscript [1926]. Four leaves, 8¾″ x 6⅞″, pale lavender laid ruled paper, black ink, with numerous corrections. With ink manuscript notations “488” and “New Books” (presumably written by the editorial staff at the Bookman) at the top of the first leaf. On one level, this work is a review of E. Barrington’s book by the same name published under the heading “The Bookman’s Diary” in the March 1926 issue of the Bookman. Webb expresses her opinion that Byron “would have been saved” had he found the proper woman: “For lack of one woman, he insulted, destroyed, froze all with black-ice disdain.” Webb later says that she is “surprised to find so able a biographer as E. Barrington [pseudonym of Elizabeth Louisa Moresby], with her genius for psychology, siding with that self-conscious little icicle, Lady Byron, who prayed for Byron’s soul when she should have been fainting in his arms.” Humorously, Webb later says that “although E. Barrington thinks otherwise, I have thoroughly enjoyed her book . . .” Provenance: F. J. Board, Kerry Payne.