Naturally, when I saw this item in the window of my favourite charity shop, I had to have it (never mind the tatty dust-wrapper) – a book of drawings by one of the best English draughtsmen of the 20th century, plus 'a letter from Sir Max Beerbohm'!
Published in 1949, and already in its thirteenth impression in 1956, it was clearly a popular collection, even if the theme of 'The Female Approach' is little more than a peg to hang a clutch of variously themed (or unthemed) drawings on. The drawings are a joy, of course – but what of Sir Max's letter?
'Dear Ronald Searle,' it begins. 'You will perhaps remember that when, one evening, Dr Johnson's young friend Mr Langton, having read aloud to him the first two acts of a very violent tragedy by one of the lesser-known Elizabethan dramatists, said rather nervously, "But I fear, sir, that I weary you. I will read no more," Johnson replied, "No, no, Lanky. Let's go back into the slaughter-house." Perhaps he would not have said so but for the great liking he had for Langton. But rest assured that, though I like you very much, it is in full sincerity that I express great pleasure in finding myself back in the slaughter-house of St Trinian's and other places in which your phantasmagoric fancy goes so wildly rioting...'
Searle, with his wife Kaye (Webb, editor of Puffin Books), visited the Beerbohms in Rapallo in 1949, and the charming Searle had no difficulty in getting Max to write the preface for his next collection – The Female Approach. Searle drew Beerbohm at least twice: once in his habitual dress –
And once for his eightieth birthday Festschrift, this time showing him in a toga with a laurel crown at a rakish angle. The caption reads 'Max accepts with resignation his place among the Classics'.
Wow what a really great find. You are so lucky. And thank you - I never knew Kaye Webb, whose name was on the countless Puffins with which I passed time in my childhood, was his wife. ZMKC
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