ORIGINAL ART-WORK. – Walter H. NESSLER. [A manuscript book with original ink drawings and three calligraphically hand-written poems. N.p.: 1937.] 19pp., manuscript, oblong 4to (251 x 300mm.) Dedication leaf, 3 manuscript poems over 10 leaves recto only, 6 large ink drawings, 2 ink decorations. (Mild toning.) Contemporary half calf (scuffed, rubbed and fading). Note: the book is dedicated by Walter Nessler (known by his middle name ‘Horst’) to his mother-in-law Janet Ashbee, wife of Charles Ashbee. It’s dated Christmas Eve 1937 so this was a present by the artist who had recently arrived in England from Nazi Germany where he had met and courted an English ballet dancer, Prudence Ashbee, Janet and Charles’s daughter. Walter and Prudence left Germany a few months before this present was made. The female figure in the drawings has the mournful eyes noted in other portraits by Walter of Prudence from this time.  In 1940 Walter was interned in the Huyton Camp for foreign nationals. Provenance: by descent, from the family of C.R. Ashbee.