Oxford

'An utterly unreadable book': Edward Bouverie Pusey Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford and a leading figure of the Oxford Movement. Autograph Letter Signed to a peer discussing his pamphlet and book on 'Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister'.

26149 — 30 June 1880. No place. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp 12mo. Bifolium. Sixty-one lines of text in Pusey’s distinctive minuscule and not always easily decipherable hand. Aged and worn. The item has been repaired after damp damage with the second leaf laid down on a piece of thick paper. Loss of a few words of text. Pusey begins by stating that his pamphlet ‘God’s Prohibition of the Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister’ 1860 which he believes is out of print is ‘more readable than the longer book’ ‘Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister’ 1849 of whose ‘very heavy form’ he gives a description. He explains why he feels it would be ‘hardly fair to republish it’. He discusses a ‘proposed change in the law of marriage’ before stating of his two works: ‘If your Lordship knew of any young man who would remould either of these he would be most welcome.’ He has 250 copies of the book he ‘could gladly place at your Lordship’s disposal’. He discusses what would need to be done to ‘recast it’ with reference to ‘social relations’. ‘I have looked again at my book and felt sure that no one would read it unless he wishes to carefully the whole question. It is dry. I remember that I felt that I was undergoing a sharp cross examination by Dr Lushington . It is an utterly unreadable book’. He continues with reference to a speech in the House of Lords and ‘Mr Keble’s pamphlet’. Pusey’s pamphlet was republished in the year following his death. 30 June 1880. No place. unknown