Howard Vigne Sutherland Manuscript--"Song of Santa Claus

1914. Howard Vigne Sutherland Manuscript
Pp. 27 + autograph letter signed
Very good condition: title page a tad toned and soiled.

Original handwritten manuscript for "Song of Santa Claus," signed by Howard V. Sutherland. Pp. 27. Inscribed on the title page "For Miss Isabel Donovan / With all the authorette's best wishes / H.V.S. / Chicago 1914". The manuscript is also signed "Howard V. Sutherland" at the conclusion on page 27. Authorial corrections and changes throughout. There is also an autograph letter signed to Miss Donovan: "The gift is appreciated, I assure you. In return I send you the manuscript of a work, no, a Work, which so far, has been rejected by five publishers, not including Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. It is still going the rounds. Tell Mr. Appell to brush his hair in expectation of very grave news, which shall be imparted to him in the near future. With best wishes for self, and Mother, and hilarious sisters during the coming year. Believe me, Sincerely yours, Howard V. Sutherland."

Howard Vigne Sutherland was a California journalist, editor, playwright and poet who also participated in the Klondike Gold Rush. Born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1868 and educated in England and Germany, Sutherland worked as a railroad contractor in South America before moving to San Francisco around 1895. He served on the staff of several newspapers and authored a number of works including "Jacinta, a California Idyll and Other Verses" (1900); "Bigg's Bar, and Other Klondyke Ballads" (1901); "Songs of a City" (1904); "Idylls of Greece" (three series, 1908-1914); and "Out of the North" (1913). He also lived in Denver, and furnished the poem for the base of a peace monument erected at the east entrance to the Panama Canal. He died in Honolulu in 1943. An obituary for an Isabel Donovan of San Francisco (with several sisters) informed that she was the Queen of the Santa Rosa Rose Carnival in 1895.

There is a small collection of manuscripts of some of Sutherland's works as well as clippings about the author held at the University of California, Davis. This work is not listed in that collection's finding aid, nor found anywhere else online or in OCLC.