Written on stationery with "10 Adelphi Terrace, London W.C.2." printed at the top.
Housed with the typescript of Collis's Shaw (MA 6122.1); five pages of notes by Collis and Shaw (MA 6122.2); a smalled printed advertisement for the book (MA 6122.3); and two other letters from Shaw to Collis (MA 6122.4-5). Items in the collection are described in individual records (MA 6122.1-6).
Explaining that "when people tell me that they will commit suicide in a certain event -- which may be through a shock to their religious belief, a failure to let them have £50 by return of post, or a refusal to elope with her -- I reply ... that they wont [sic], because it is always easier to wait until tomorrow on the chance of someting amusing turning up in the meantime"; noting that as a young man he used to respond to such suicide threats by "explain[ing] elaborately how to do it painlessly with hydrocyanic acid," and "all the recipients of this prescription are still alive, or have died a natural death"; discussing his life in England ca. 1876-1883; thanking him for sending a copy of his book [Shaw, Collis's biography of G.B. Shaw] and mentioning a review he saw in the Spectator. With a manuscript postscript telling Collis that he has already read a bit of the book in the train.