A near fine copy, with the slightest signs of handling to the binding, with a touchingly simple inscription from Eddie Marsh to Cathleen Nesbitt (as per the Schroder catalogue) on the front free endpaper “Cathleen from EM.”
Cathleen Nesbitt, actress, was one of the loves of Rupert Brooke’s life. He became infatuated with her after seeing her (twice) on the stage as Perdita in Harley Granville Barker’s 1912 production of A Winter’s Tale (initially cast as Mopsa, a minor character, she was promoted during rehearsals). Eddie Marsh rather set him up with Nesbitt over dinner, and they became a couple (although apparently a chaste one) for the rest of his life. Christopher Hassall gives a charming account of her effect on Brooke: “She was the ‘perfect stranger’, in no way associated with his past existence, and totally ignorant of it. He was innocent and unoffending in her eyes, and she in his, and unwittingly she brought into his life something of the freshness and ideal ‘innocence’ from her own sheep-shearing scene in The Winter’s Tale. As Perdita he had first set eyes on her, and so she remained.” He famously wrote sonnets to her (“Cathleen! Loveliest creature! Nymph divine! / Unhoped for, unapproachable, yet mine!”), but despite the effusive tone of such poems, Nesbitt measured Brooke shrewdly, writing later that “I felt if I were married to him I would probably suffer a great deal” (ODNB). Although they were believed to be engaged to be married, it never seemed likely to actually happen, irrespective of his early death. Certainly her personal ambition was incompatible with Brooke’s view of women: he was doubtless being a little melodramatic when he told her “I loathe the idea of women acting in public”, adding later “I hope you’ll be giving up this stage business soon”, but the fact that she went on to establish herself as a considerable success suggests, at the least, the potential for friction. Nevertheless, they must have been a beautiful, charming couple.
