Beschreibung:

FREDERIC, HAROLD. Autograph manuscript signed of the short story "Cordelia and the Moon," written for the Liber Scriptorum of the Authors Club, with a few revisions by Frederic in the text, London, dated at end 17 February 1892. 6 pages, large 4to, closely written in a small, neat hand on rectos and versos, each leaf inlaid to a larger sheet, titled at head in a purple ink. A story set in a small community in the 1860s, telling of the profound effects on a young couple of a devisive schism between members of a small church. One group secedes from the church. Cordelia, the beautiful young organist, has the ill-fortune to reside in the home of one of the seceded members, a demented old man. On a frigid New Year's the uncle, apparently lost in religious extasy, denies Cordelia access to his home. She and the narrator return, arm in arm, to the church as midnight approaches. As they stand before the church, a policeman passes by and asks if they are "figuring on getting spliced" (married). "'Its a nice, cosy way of starting the new year,'" he comments. Cordelia makes no answer, but stares fixedly at the full moon. She and the narrator resolve, spontaneously, that marriage is the best solution. "'If anybody expresses surprise,' said Cordelia, on the door-step, I shall lay all the blame on the moon.'" "'And give the policeman the credit?' I asked." Frederic's curious, very atmospheric tale was published in the Liber Scriptorum , 1893, pp.241-252. amnation of Theron Ware.