Manuscript card by acclaimed Irish novelist and playwright
Kate O'Brien (1932)

This calling card captures a specific, triumphant milestone in 20th-century Irish literary history.

The Hawthornden Prize Breakthrough

The handwritten note, dated July 2, 1932, shows the acclaimed Irish novelist and playwright Kate O'Brien thanking a Mr. Philip Parker for his "Hawthornden congratulations."

O'Brien had published her debut novel, Without My Cloak, in 1931. A sweeping Victorian family saga set in a fictionalized version of her native Limerick, the book became an overnight sensation. It won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the prestigious Hawthornden Prize for imaginative literature, which was formally presented to her in London in mid-1932—precisely when this card was written.

The Chelsea Connection

The printed address on the card, 5 Rossetti Gardens Mansions, Flood Street, Chelsea, places O'Brien in the heart of London's historic bohemian and literary quarter.

This apartment served as her creative base during her early rise to fame in the late 1920s and early 1930s, just before she moved to Spain—a country that would profoundly inspire her later, often controversial masterpieces (several of which were subsequently banned by the Irish Censorship Board for their progressive exploration of female sexuality and themes of identity).

This card is a physical artifact from the moment O'Brien transitioned from an aspiring writer into an award-winning force in modern literature.

140mm x 10mm

R1,000