Bentley, Harvey Wilder. HOLOGRAPH LETTER AND TYPED PAGES OF POETRY. 1. A letter dated in 1986, handwritten on both sides of a sheet of yellow paper, addressed "Dear Margot (Margot Archer)," and signed "Wilder," and with the writer's Berkeley, CA address at lower left of the recto. Interestting content, discussing his college days at Yale, his godfather, Frank Jewett Mather, who was an art historian at Princeton, his visits to Princeton, the influence of Mather's collection of Claude Lorraine drawings on his own work, his need to give up his work as a printer of fine press books (he was the proprietor of the Archetype Press in San Francisco) because of cataracts and arthritis, and his contempt for Existentialism and Expressionism as "the perversion of Personalism into self-indulgence, and self-pity posing as confession." 2. A typed sheet, dated 1 September 1972, titled "On Memories of a Labor-Day Weekend With Richard and Margot Archer Exactly Two and Thirty Years Ago Today, containing two sonnets, a nd signed in red ink "Wilder" with the typed signature "Wilder Bentley the Elder." A photocopy of the same is attached to the original. 3. A typed sheet containing a Sonnet titled "A Hippotypical Toast to the Sign of the Hippogryph," signed "Wilder" in red ink, and with the typed signature "Wilder Bentley the Elder/On the Feast Day of/St. Victricius of Rouen). Below on the same sheet, a typed letter or note addressed "Dear Richard," presumably Richard Archer, complaining about the fact that U.S.C. had stopped ordering his Scrolls, which were a series, thus leaving him with incomplete sets. This initialed "W." He hoped that Archer might know someone, as his communications and those of "Muir" (Dawson?) had not been responded to. 3. A typed sheet titled "A New Year's Sonnet for Margot and Richard Archer," followed by the sonnet, and signed "Wilder" in red ink, and dated Christmas Day, 1976. Attached is a photocopy of a New Year's Sonnet for Marka and Ward Ritchie." H. Richard Archer (1911-1968), a specialist in the history of printing was the Custodian of Rare Books at the Chapin Library of Rare Books at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. from 1957-1977. He also had his own press called The Hypogryph Press. With Ward Ritchie he authored a book titled "Modern Fine Printing" in 1968. All in excellent condition.
