A Fly in Amber, being an extravagant biography of the romantic antiquary Sir Robert Bruce Cotton.

Bookseller Notes

A notable association copy of the author's last substantial work (followed by two poetry pamphlets). Laid in is a lengthy autograph letter from Mirrlees, dated to April 1962, then residing on Headington Hill, Oxford, to Eleanor Hinkley in Cambridge, Mass. - she the cousin of T.S. Eliot (to whom Mirrlees' Foreword accords 'the greatest debt' in respect of this work). Hinkley was a major figure in Eliot's youth, and they remained close into adulthood - a playwright and actor, it was through Hinkley that Eliot met Emily Hale, but she was also close to his second wife, Valerie.Mirrlees begins by thanking Hinkley for her 'two wonderfully kind letters' regarding this book, which present a sort of 'platonic ideal' of the work - 'i.e., what I should have liked to have made of it'. She is flattered that it has been put in front of Hinkley's study group, but regrets that her failure to interest an American publisher will make it hard to obtain. She proceeds to news of mutual friends - her reply has been delayed as she has been in Italy with Margot, and with Bob & Mary in Rome - and of their respective pets, before closing in reference to the Eliots. She has, she mentions, spoken to Valerie on the telephone but is yet to see them since their return - 'they seem to have been very bored with the West Indies'.