An autograph letter signed 'Evelyn Waugh' to Maro Stathatos, thanking her for a present of 'Greek Delight'
Small quarto (204 × 152 mm), 1 page on the letterhead of 'Combe Florey House, Combe Florey, nr Taunton' (printed in red on blue paper).
One horizontal crease where folded for posting, otherwise in fine condition.
The letter reads in full: '20th October 63 | Dear Maro | What a very nice thought and what a delicious present. I must not call it "Turkish Delight" as I used in the nursery - "Greek Delight". It is very seldom that the genuine article appears in England. My wife in particular relishes it and sends her thanks. It was a great pleasure to have met John. I wish we could have done more for him. My kindest regards to Constantine. Yours very sincerely | Evelyn Waugh'. Maro Stathatos (née Vatimbella) was an Egyptian-born Greek artist. Her son, the poet and photographer John Stathatos, would later write a short account of his visit to Waugh's house at Combe Florey as a sixteen-year-old, referred to in this letter. '[T]he family connection went back twenty-two years, to 1941 and wartime Egypt. Between February and July of that year, Waugh found himself posted to Egypt with No.8 Commando with the rank of Captain. Except for an unsuccessful raid on Bardia in April and the famous five days on Crete with "Creforce", he was based throughout that period at army camps near Alexandria, first at Sidi Bish and later at Mersa Matruh. Along with many of the Allied officers in Cairo and Alexandria, Waugh was entertained by members of Egypt's cosmopolitan, multicultural Sephardic, Coptic and Greek communities, including the family of my maternal grandfather, Nicholas Vatimbella, and my mother Maro, then a young painter ... The receipt of one of Waugh's magisterial snubs could reasonably be regarded by the recipient as one of life's more devastating but memorable experiences, rather like finding oneself in the path of a stampeding rogue elephant, and it was an experience I was not to be spared that bank-holiday weekend' ('"I Am Short, Elderly and Corpulent:" A Visit to Combe Florey in 1963' in 'Evelyn Waugh Studies', Volume 52, Number 2, Autumn 2021). The short article is well worth reading in full.
Item #137561
Price (AUD):
$1,100.00