ALS, one page, 8 x 10.75, May 31, 1929. Written from the Hotel Prince Alfonso in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, a letter to Harold Trump Mason, the proprietor of the Centaur Book Shop and later, the Centaur Press, in part: "I had your letter today, and am glad to be reassured that the Centaur had nothing to do with pirating Lady C. I know the first pirated edit. was produced in Philadelphia—& is now in second edition—& two different sources told me you were back of it—which I was very loth to believe. I expect Lawrence Yomme could tell us, if he would. Anyhow I'm glad to know you're not in it, because the thought of it worried me a good it." In very good condition, with overall creasing, edge chipping, irregular toning, and splitting to the fragile intersecting folds.
The censorship and suppression of D. H. Lawrence's important novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, deemed too obscene for print in America, famously led to pirated editions which emerged after it was first released in 1928. As the proprietor of the Centaur Book Shop, Harold Mason had helped to smuggle copies of the authorized edition into the United States, arranging for the shipment of a case of books with the spines removed and replaced with those from a book of the same size in order to conceal them. In this significant letter, the author thanks Mason for his reassurance that the Centaur Book Shop had nothing to do with the pirated edition of the work.
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