Candler (Edmund)

Unpublished manuscript mostly compiled by Candler's sister Katherine (and most likely dictated by him) and with autograph parts in Edmund's own hand (on page 2, 3, 4 and 5 plus additional corrections throughout the manuscript), signed with his initials ('E.C.') and titled 'Aventures in Asia', being a lengthy review of 'On Secret Patrol in High Asia' by Captain L.V.S. Blacker. It reads in part "The best thing in the book is the description of the pursuit of the band of Afghans led by suppositious Germans and Turks from Kashgar through the Kuen Lun and Mustagh ranges to Yarkand. Here we have sustained narrative and its very breathlessness is part of its realism. With a little unravelling the story would provide a theme for boys as memorable as any...Burnaby or Sherlock Holmes. And there is no need for embroidery", also noting that in Blacker book "the Mahatma appears to the leaders of Pathans as a bad and vicious man...But Captain Blacker has come home and in a nearer perspective will perhaps reflect the Mahatma in brighter colours, for he admires courage, and no doubt nationalism, which no honest man can despise, and he cannot be indifferent to a leader in a fight who has proved himself to be without moral or physical fear", eight pages, some yellowing and wear, red pencil numbering and annotations, minor fraying to margins, 4to, n.d. [1922 or after]

***Manuscripts in the hand of Edmund Candler are exceedingly scarce on the market. The lot in question has been compared to the drafts and papers at the British Library (Add MS 89079/3), which include some written in Edmund Candler's hand. The attribution of the other parts of the lot to Katherine Gilbertson (nee Candler) is based on an autograph letter by Edmund's sister in Add MS 89079/3/7.