The Saintsbury Club: a scrap book. By 'The Cellarer' [i.e. André L. Simon] André L. SIMON

Wrappers. Spine slightly darkened. Edition limited to 200 copies. A short history of the club founded in honour of George Saintsbury (1845-1933), journalist, sometime Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh University, and author of Notes on a Cellar-Book (1920), with lists of its founding members (including Hilaire Belloc, E. F. Benson, Duff Cooper, Sir Gerald Du Maurier, A. P. Herbert, Vyvyan Holland, Compton Mackenzie, André Simon, A. J. A. Symons) and current members at 31 December 1942; an account of its cellar and contents at 1 January 1943; and menus/wine lists of its first 21 meetings, 1931-42. The club first met, recorded Alan Bell, on George Saintsbury's 86th birthday, 23 October 1931, at the Vintners' Hall, "and it has continued to meet there twice yearly ever since. It consists in principle half of 'men of wine' and half 'men of letters', but the membership is much more varied than that would perhaps suggest, with diplomats and doctors as well as those of primarily literary background . . . Membership is restricted to 50, that being the greatest number that can conveniently be accommodated out of an eight-bottle (6 litre) impériale."