Two Typed Letters Signed (TLS)

1949. Fine. Two one-page letters on Faber & Faber stationery, SIGNED by T. S. Eliot. The first, dated 1 December 1949 is double sided, 10 1/4 x 8 inches (266 x 204 mm) in envelope 4 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches (110 x 133 mm). The second is dated 23 August 1950, one sided, 8 x 6 7.8 inches (204 x 174 mm) in envelope 4 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches (110 x 133 mm). Typed in black and red ink, central vertical and horizontal folds, with no sign of wear. The accompanying envelopes show minor signs of wear and the back flap of the first envelope is partially torn. These two typewritten letters were addressed to Robert Cecil Bald (1901 - 1965), an Australian scholar of English Literature, who taught at Cornell University starting in 1937 and then at the University of Chicago from 1952 to 1965. They attest to a cordial exchange between a poet and a scholar, and the rich network of contacts that Eliot had both as an author and as the long-time editorial director at Faber & Faber in London (1925-1965).
In the first letter, dated 1 December 1949 with a Cornell University address, Eliot declines an offer to lecture at Cornell University on Wordsworth because he has not worked on the subject for a long time. In the letter he also gives Prof. Bald permission to read the script of the Clark Lectures, which were in the possession of Eliot House at Harvard University, with the proviso that the text may not be quoted as it was never Eliot's intention to publish that material. The second letter, to a London address, again declines an invitation to lecture at Cornell as Eliot's trip will be too short to allow for such a visit.