Oh! dear Katie - / Where do you think / I found my half of / the pussy? / at the kitchen fire / after all, warming itself / and now Margaret / has put the bits / together, and wont / let me play with it / anymore. / I dont think thats very / kind. she might let / me have the tail and / her pussy would still / look very nice / [drawing of a cat] / and so should I / and it would keep me / warm. / but Mar- / garet / isnt / kind / to me. / and i / am your / discon - / solate / mr / be - / ak

General note re the album: almost all letters signed variously "Mr. beak", "Beak", "B", or with a sketch of a bird or bird's head with a large beak, or with the artist's initials or name; one drawing signed inscribed (88); a few drawings inscribed, including two of the Rubens parodies: "P.P. Rubens pinxit" (49), and "Peter Paul Rubens pinxit" and "Bartolozzi sculpsit" (51); a few drawings numbered (60, 62 to 65) This first letter in the album is inscribed: "Dear Mrs. Lewis / I must tell you before I forget a / precious story of Morris - / it happened yesterday morning - as he came / here: in pelting rain - he stopped at some / little spikes at Ottos house to tie his boot / string, planting his foot firmly on the spike / & so far all was well - But essaying / [verso] to remove his foot, lo! the spike / had caught him, even as he had / many a time caught gudgeon & the / like / and the next minute he landed / (softly I am glad to say) on his / back - still hooked fast, and to / the shrieking delight of two muffin / boys - who looked on in a way you / may imagine. - Oh dear I've put / the wrong foot up which is a / judgement on me - but I must stick / to it now. / then having his powerful mind / free, he thought, and remembering / the way you disengage a cat / whose claws are fixed in you / [recto] by pushing & not pulling, he / liberated himself & proceeded / sadly to the Grange - but / Busch should do it - Busch / should have seen it - don't / tell though - for I like my / Morris a little statuesque - / [?] I must tell you - [?] I. Goodbye. people are / come & I must end, / Always Yours EBJ / now find this a proof then / I'm better? indeed the last two days home done / more than the three weeks/ before:"

Inscription content: General note re the album: almost all letters signed variously "Mr. beak", "Beak", "B", or with a sketch of a bird or bird's head with a large beak, or with the artist's initials or name; one drawing signed inscribed (88); a few drawings inscribed, including two of the Rubens parodies: "P.P. Rubens pinxit" (49), and "Peter Paul Rubens pinxit" and "Bartolozzi sculpsit" (51); a few drawings numbered (60, 62 to 65).

Literature: First published as a book 'Letters to Katie' by W. Graham Robertson in 1925; an abridged facsimile edition, 'Letters to Katie from Edward Burne-Jones', was published in 1988, with an introduction by John Christian who records that some of the drawings (such as the 'fat ladies' and the Rubens parodies) were probably made for George and Elizabeth Lewis rather than for Katie. See also The Arts Council of Great Britain exhibition catalogue, 'Burne-Jones The paintings, graphic and decorative work of Edward Burne-Jones 1833-98', 1975, p. 96, no. 356. See also the Christie's sale catalogue for 24.11.1998 (no.169) for a description of a similar album of 80 drawings by Burne-Jones including caricatures and humorous drawings and Peter Nahum, 'Pre-Raphaelite, Symbolist, Visionary' at Leicester Galleries, London, 2001, no. 17 (with illustrations), for 'Margaret's Book', 36 pp, made by EBJ for his daughter Margaret and illustrated for his grand-daughter Angela.

This album is most recently discussed by John Christian, 'Edward Burne-Jones: the Hidden Humorist', London, 2011, pp. 42-4, figs. 2.12. (Morris falling over.)