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"PRECIOUS STEINS," ANONYMOUS, c. 1920s.

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:100.00 - 200.00 USD
 PRECIOUS STEINS,  ANONYMOUS, c. 1920s.
Typescript onionskin sheet of a limerick about Gertrude Stein, Albert Einstein, and Jacob Epstein; signed "Author! Author! / The Phoenician." 11in. x 8 1/2in. Condition: toning, edge folds, light spotting, holes punched. The Harry Ransom Center lists a similar anonymous typescript in their Gertrude Stein collection. The limerick with this title appeared anonymously in Punch magazine in the 1920s (for a summary of the authorship theories and subsequent versions see QuoteInvestigator.com). There was no apparent indication of why this document was loose amongst Edward M. Chapman's letters. The only possibly/speculatively related references among the documents presented in this sale can be found in a letter from Amos P. Wilder, dated February 14, 1927 (see the Amos Niven and Amos Parker Lot), in which there's a cryptic reference to Punch. PLEASE NOTE: 20TH CENTURY DOCUMENTS CAN HAVE VARIED TONING FROM AGE; IMAGES MAY APPEAR LIGHTER ON DIFFERENT SCREENS. EDWARD MORTIMER CHAPMAN (1862-1952) was a Connecticut pastor, academic, and author. He graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1890. Chapman was a descendant of Robert Chapman, one of the first settlers of Saybrook, Connecticut (c. 1635). He served as pastor of Old Lyme Church from 1906 to 1915. Chapman€™s works integrated his wide-ranging theological, literary, and historical interests. This lot and the other Chapman-related documents offered in this sale were part of a collection of his family papers.