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LM050

Henry B. L. Webb Autograph Letter signed November 9, 1929.

  1. 00020923_0001
  2. 00020923_0002

Henry B. L. Webb. Autograph letter signed, November 9, 1929, to unidentified addressees, two pages on one leaf. Webb leaves the negotiation of film rights for Precious Bane in the hands of the addressees, subject to his approval of any deal. He acknowledges a caution previously received from them, on “the ‘talkie’ development” (presumably some new profits associated with sound films). Webb concludes by saying that he wants to be able to entertain any offer for film rights which may come to him directly from Jonathan Cape, the publisher of Precious Bane. Two months earlier, in September 1929, forty-four-year-old Henry had married his former student, now twenty-one-year-old Kathleen Wilson. Henry first met and taught Kathleen (in 1921) at King Alfred School in London. By 1925, he was privately tutoring Kathleen at her home for entrance to London University. In the summer of 1926, when Henry brought the then-eighteen-year-old Kathleen for a visit to Shropshire, Mary Webb was seized by doubt, fear and jealousy, and a major rift developed in their marriage. By December 1929, the newly-married Henry was wealthy enough from royalties received from Mary’s novels to retire permanently from teaching.