An important presentation copy, inscribed on the title-page to his future publisher: “Grant Richards / from John Davidson” and with an ALS fixed to the front endpaper.
The letter, dated 31 March 1896, to Richards, reads in part “I wonder whether the Yankee White or the English Mitchell is the more foolish. It must have been remarked by you too that well-meaning people are often blatant”, and transcribes a song that Richards had asked after “I haven’t a copy, but you will find it written within, as I have it in my memory. It owes very much to Mrs. Campbell’s beautiful recitation.”
The song, “Butterflies” is sung by the slave Militza, before she stabs herself (having first stabbed her lover), in François Coppée’s Pour La Couronne, adapted by Davidson as For The Crown: A Romantic Play in Four Acts. For the Crown was the only real theatrical success that Davidson experienced, and the song was a real crowd pleaser - melodrama turned to 11 on the dial. Davidson and Mrs Pat got on famously together and she persuaded him to allow her to recite rather than sing it. Sloan notes that Davidson received requests for manuscripts of the verses, amongst which must have been Richards’, as the letter is dated a month into the play’s run, which stretched out to over three months.
New Ballads itself marks the end of Davidson’s “Yellow Book” phase and the end of his short period of popular success. Sloan notes its newly aggressive demeanour, quoting Neil Munro’s contemporary review which described a “tone like that of a ‘new evangelist’ - a provincial one at a street corner on a Saturday night.”
