[Sir Oswald Mosley and his secretary Jeffrey Hamm; British Union of Fascists.] Typed Letter Signed from Hamm to Philip Dosse of Books and Bookmen, regarding a review by Mosley and Peter Liddle, with copy of Mosley letter on Boothby and Skidelsky

See Mosley’s entry in the Oxford DNB. Hamm’s papers are in the University of Birmingham. The recipient Philip Dosse (1925-1980) was proprietor of Hansom Books, publisher of a stable of seven arts magazines including Books and Bookmen and Plays and Players.ONE: Typed Letter Signed from ‘Jeffrey Hamm’ to ‘Mr. Dossé’ (Dosse did not employ an accent). 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and folded once. Begins: ‘Sir Oswald dictated this review over the telephone today on to my recording machine. I think I have transcribed it correctly, with the possible exception of one or two obscure words on a rather poor telephone line. I have expressed a copy to him, although the last galley I expressed to Lady Mosley took two weeks to reach her!’ After discussing Mosley’s correspondence address, he turns to ‘a most interesting man’ he met the previous week, whom Dosse might consider as a contributor to ‘Books and Bookmen’. He gives the name and Sunderland address of Peter Liddle, adding ‘He lectures on history at the Polytechnic and as a working hobby specialises in studying the 1914-18 war, on which he has written several books. He is compiling a marvellous museum on this subject and in that connection I arranged some time ago for him to record an interview with Sir Oswald, on his first world war experiences. He has just lectured to Liddle’s students ‘on Fascism in the thirties’, and found him ‘charming and highly intelligent’. TWO: Photocopy of TLS from Mosley to the editor ‘For June Issue’ (1975) of ‘Books and Bookmen’. 1p, 12mo, photocopied (slightly cropped on right) on A4 leaf also carrying manuscript calculations for building in ink and pencil. Very interesting response to a review by his ‘old friend Lord Boothby’ of Robert Skidelsky’s 1975 biography. The letter was indeed printed. He describes his post-war call for ‘Europe a Nation’, and his two meetings with Hitler: ‘we wanted entirely different things’. He also asserts that, in order to ‘meet any possible trick or danger’ he called for rearmament of Britain from 1932: ‘Sir Winston Churchill and his friends, I understand, began a campaign to this end in 1934. After experience of air and trench i[n] the first war and the loss of most friends, I do not regre[t] having tried to prevent the second war which cost [corrected from ‘caused’] 50,000,000 lives and the loss of the British Commonwealth.’