The Comments of Bagshot

c. 1920

Truby King Collection PR 6037 P45 C65

London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.

According to his adopted daughter Mary, Truby King loved visiting Whitcombe & Tombs and buying books. And in this he was also an enthusiast, buying multiple copies of favourites and giving them away to friends. One such gift was The Comments of Bagshot, in which J.A. Spender created a fictitious civil servant who makes witty and wise comments on the world. One of King’s marked-up passages in this book read thus: ‘Not a few clever men resemble those plants which so impoverish the soil that no other plants can live near them. Arthur H. has great talent himself, but he kills talent in others.’