[Theodore Hook, author and hoaxer.] Autograph Letter Signed (‘Theo S Hook’) [to his publishers Whittaker & Co.], reporting missing text in the revises of his ‘Gilbert Gurney’, and requesting the return of ‘the MS of the page in question’.

Hook’s entry in the Oxford DNB descibes his novel ‘Gilbert Gurney’ (1836) and its sequel ‘Gurney Married’ (1838) as made up of ‘thinly disguised portraits and a string of anecdotes from real life’. 1p, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, folded twice. On wove paper with C. Ansell watermark of 1834. The signature ‘Theo E Hook’ does indeed have a strange ‘hook’ on the end of it, which has led to a pencil note on the blank second leaf: ‘try Thos. E. Boot / Booth / author of “Gilbert Gurney”’. He has been ‘looking over the revise of Gilbert Gurney’, and finds ‘several leaves omitted (p 327) without my knowledge or sanction’, and wishes to know ‘the reason of this & by whose order or authority the omission has been made’. A postscript, upside down at the head of the page, requests ‘an immediate answer’, and ‘a return of the MS of the page in question’.