Showing 59 results

Letters from John Cowper Powys to his brother, Llewelyn Powys, [1923], his companion, Phyllis Playter, [?1924], 'George', 1958, and a 'Mr London', [?1940s], the latter dictated by Powys to Phyllis Playter; together with miscellaneous literary papers, which comprise drafts of poems, [c. 1900]-1953, including an early version of 'Samphire' (published in Horned Poppies ... (1986)) and of several unpublished anniversary poems addressed to Phyllis Playter; a draft, [?1900]-1902, of an unpublished preface to poems by Alfred de Kantzow; an ink and pencil sketch of the map which forms the end-papers of Powys's novel Ducdame (1925); and drafts of the opening of a philosophical work, 1938, and of a speech in Welsh, [1935x1954], the latter composed by Powys while he was living in Corwen.

Four notebooks and a series of disbound notebooks and loose leaves, [c. 1900]-[c. 1902], containing parts of a projected first novel by John Cowper Powys comprising substantial drafts of a romance set on the Sussex Downs; together with numerous, shorter fragments of narrative, mainly passages of prolix theological and philosophical discussion, and Rabelaisian fantasy, involving characters based on the author's friends. Also included are heavily worked drafts of unpublished poems (NLW MS 23672E, ff. 57-60 and ff. 135-137 verso, 138 verso, 139 verso-140, inverted text; NLW MS 23673E, ff. 146 recto-verso, 147 verso, 154 recto-verso, 155 verso, 156 verso-60 verso, 161 verso-162, inverted text; NLW MS 23676E, ii, ff. 250 verso-251, 253 verso-255, 259 verso, 260 verso, 261-262 verso, 263 verso, 264 verso-265 verso, 266 verso, 267 verso-268 verso, 269 verso, 270 verso, inverted text); and notes on Shakespeare's The Tempest, Macbeth, Richard III and The Taming of the Shrew (NLW MS 23673E, ff. 148-153 verso, inverted text), possibly for use in Powys's lecturing work.

Miscellaneous papers of Berta Ruck, 1902-[early 1970s], including autograph and typescript drafts of verse, [1920s]-[1930s], many in multiple copies (ff. 1-123); lecture notes, [c. 1935]-[c. 1945] (ff. 124-224); a short story, 'April Folly', [c. 1935], apparently related to her novel Half Past Kissing Time (London, 1936) (ff. 225-248); and some thirteen letters to the author in English and German, [1903x1904]-1971 (ff. 264-283).
The correspondents include Clement Scott, [1903x1904] (f. 264), Marda Vanne, 9 October 1936 (f. 280), Harold Nicolson, 14 June 1962 (f. 281, on the death of his wife, Vita Sackville-West), and Quentin Bell, September 1971 (ff. 282-283, concerning his biography of Virginia Woolf); there are also three letters, 1929, from 'Harry', her Austrian lover (ff. 265-272, mostly in German). Also included are two leaves from Ruck's journal, June 1930 (ff. 249-250); reminiscences, [early 1970s], of Lydia Lopokova (ff. 251-259) with a photograph of her, [?1920s] (f. 260); press cuttings of an article by Ruck, September 1936 (f. 261), and of two articles relating to Virginia Woolf, 1972 (ff. 262-263); W. R. Oliver's school report at Shrewsbury School, 1929 (f. 284); programme for 'My Lady Molly' at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 1902 (ff. 285-286); and page proofs for Chapter 8 of A Smile for the Past (London, 1935) (ff. 287-292).

Notebook, 1905-1907, of T. Gwynn Jones, mostly written in pencil, used by him during his stay in Egypt during the Winter of 1905-6 as a diary and for composing English poetry.
The volume contains diary entries for his voyage to Egypt, 21 October-5 November 1905 (ff. 22 verso, 23-28 rectos only), the beginning of his stay there, in Alexandria, Cairo and Helouan, 6 November-23 December 1905 (ff. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34-37), and the return voyage, 28 April-13 May 1906 (ff. 21 verso-22). Also included are some eighteen poems in English, dated 4 December 1905-6 April 1906, mostly drafts, some crossed through or heavily revised, the majority being love poems to his wife (ff. 2 verso-5, 6, 7-17, 18-19, 20, 21). Some are published: 'The Ferry' (f. 7 recto-verso) in David Jenkins, Thomas Gwynn Jones: Cofiant (Denbigh, 1973), p. 169, 'I saw thee' (ff. 8 verso-9) in ibid., p. 109, and 'A Memory' (f. 10 verso) in the Western Mail, 30 September 1920, p. 4; while 'The Rising Sun' [published as 'Come my love'] (f. 11) and 'I will come to thee' (f. 13 verso) were set to music by Robert Bryan (both scores published 1921). Three further verses, October 1905 and February 1907, are in Welsh (ff. 23 verso-24, 37 verso). Eight pages are written in shorthand (ff. 17 verso, 24 verso-31 verso, versos only), these remain undeciphered by the cataloguer. Jones's travel book Y Mor Canoldir a'r Aifft (Caernarfon, 1912), which relates incidents recorded in the diary, such as the Coptic wedding (ff. 34-35 verso), is based mostly on his letters to his wife rather than on the present manuscript.

A notebook, originally perhaps used by Augustus John as a sketch-book, but containing poems by Arthur Symons, composed during his period of madness and written down, c. 1909, by his amanuensis, Agnes Tobin.

Autograph and typescript drafts, [c. 1910s]-1961, of autobiographical writings by Augustus John included in the posthumous volume Finishing Touches (London, 1964) (see also NLW MS 21570E), together with rejected portions of the text (ff. 56-9). Some sections (ff. 60-75) had been submitted to The Sunday Times for publication, 1952-1958 (see MS 22775C, ff. 89-98). Also included are draft recollections by Augustus John of Ronald Fairbank (ff. 76-81), and various drafts of prose and light verse.

Notebook, 1914-1916, kept by Nursing Sergeant Davies of 'C' section of the 130th (St John) Field Ambulance unit, attached to the 38th (Welsh) Division of the British Army. It includes a diary, November 1914-June 1916 (ff. 1-12), describing duties in Britain before embarkation for France on 3 December 1915, and subsequent activities on the Western Front prior to the Battle of Mametz Wood.
A draft application for an army commission (ff. 45, 46 verso) suggests that Sergeant Davies was a native of Carmarthenshire and a former miner. The notebook also contains medicinal recipes (ff. 13-14, 44 verso, 45-6), ration tables (ff. 8 verso-9, 14), and poetry in both English and Welsh (ff. 22 verso-23, 31-44, 49-53). An additional folio, tipped into the volume (f. 16a), contains further diary entries, October 1916, and suggests the existence of a second volume, subsequently lost.

A holograph copy of the poem 'Leisure' by W. H. Davies, signed and dated 8 May 1914.
The poem was first published in William H. Davies, Songs of Joy and Others (London, 1911) and thereafter appeared in various collections and anthologies, including William H. Davies, Collected Poems (London, 1916), The Essential W. H. Davies (London, 1951) and The Complete Poems of W. H. Davies (London, 1963). This fair copy was possibly written whilst the poet was in Gloucestershire visiting friends among the Dymock poets (see Selected letters of Robert Frost, ed. by Lawrance Thompson (London, 1965), pp. 122-124).

A volume containing autograph fair copies, [c. 1916], of fifteen poems by W. H. Davies, some of them apparently unpublished, submitted to James Guthrie for publication by the Pear Tree Press as a collection entitled 'Quiet Streams'; annotations have been added by Lord Kenyon.
A letter, 1916, from Davies to Guthrie, originally loose in the volume, has been tipped in on f. 16.

Some sixty letters, 1918-1964, to John Cowper Powys and Phyllis Playter from various correspondents, relating mainly to personal matters and to John Cowper Powys's work, with one letter, [n.d.], from John Cowper Powys to Phyllis Playter (ff. 73-76). The correspondents include: J[ohn] D[avys] Beresford (10) 1929-1938; Theodore Dreiser (5) 1923-1939; Emma Goldman (2) 1936-1937; Marianne Moore (6) 1926-1929; Sir Osbert Sitwell (2) 1935; and Stevie Smith (2, and two illustrated poems) 1951-1952.

Letters, 1926-1968, to John Cowper Powys and Phyllis Playter from various correspondents, including Gerald Brenan (16, including one poem), 1957-1968; Maurice Browne (20), 1930-1954; James Hanley (15), [c. 1955]-1967; Claude Houghton (5), 1955-1956; Edgar Lee Masters (9), 1928-1945; Henry Miller (7), 1957-1962; and Ralph Shirley (18), 1940-1946; together with a few miscellaneous letters, including an undated draft letter from John Cowper Powys concerning literary censorship in America.

Holograph and typescript copies and cuttings of poetry by Idris Davies, among them being press and proof copies of The Angry Summer (London, 1943) and a press copy of Tonypandy and Other Poems (London, 1945) (vol. I); a typescript entitled 'The Valleys of My Fathers', with a revised copy entitled 'Gwalia My Song' (vol. II); and drafts of some 200 other poems.

Drafts of eight poems by John Cowper Powys written for Phyllis Playter, most of them bearing the dedication 'to the T.T.', together with a pencilled caricature (f. 5) inscribed 'To my Valentine Feb 14 1949'.

A sample copy, [1929], of part of a projected printed book by Ezra Pound, to be called 'The Complete Works of Guido Cavalcanti', containing also four autograph poems and a prose fragment by Dylan Thomas, [1936]-[early 1940s], and two typescript poems by Vernon Watkins, [c. 1939]. Pound's book was intended for publication in 1929 but was abandoned, with only the first 56 pages printed, when the Aquila Press went bankrupt. The present volume appears to be a sample copy, of which two similar ones are recorded (see Donald Gallup, Ezra Pound: A Bibliography (Charlottesville, 1983), p. 153), consisting of the first two gatherings only (ff. 2-9) and filled out with blank leaves (ff. 10-74). The original Aquila Press fragments were later incorporated into the composite work Guido Cavalcanti Rime, ed. by Ezra Pound (Genoa, [1932]).
The Dylan Thomas poems are 'Then was my neophyte', [1936] (f. 11) (published in Twenty-five Poems (London, 1936), pp. 40-41), 'We lying by seasand', [1937x1939] (f. 74 verso) (first published in Poetry (Chicago), 49.4 (January 1937), 183, and collected in The Map of Love (London, 1939), p. 8), 'Paper and sticks', [early 1940s] (tipped in on f. 12) (first published in Seven, 6 (Autumn 1939), 6, and collected in Deaths and Entrances (London, 1946), p. 23), and 'Once below a time', [early 1940s] (tipped in on ff. 13-14) (first published in Life and Letters Today, 24.31 (March 1940), 274-275; see Collected Poems 1934-1952 (London, [1952]), pp. 132-133); the prose fragment (tipped in on f. 15) is the end of 'One Warm Saturday', [1938], the last story in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (London, 1940), pp. 253-254. The two Vernon Watkins poems, 'The windows', 1939, and 'A bronze head', [c. 1939], are apparently unpublished (tipped in on ff. 16-17). A dried leaf found loose within the volume has been placed in an archival sleeve.

Letters from John Cowper Powys to James Hanley (3), 1929-1930; John Wilstach (1), 1932; and Charlotte Miller (3), 1934-1935; together with a poem by Charlotte Miller addressed to John Cowper Powys.

Notebook of Berta Ruck, May 1930-March 1931, containing journal entries, including accounts of her visits to Sweden, July 1930 (ff. 14-22), Germany, July, November 1930 (ff. 22 verso-28 verso, 69 verso-81 verso), Vienna, Austria, July-August, November-December 1930 (ff. 28 verso-42 verso, 82-91), and the French Riviera, August-September 1930 (ff. 44-61), and notes for fiction. Some fifty-two letters, cards and telegrams from family and friends, photographs, cuttings, programmes and other ephemera have been pasted in.
The correspondents include Marda Vanne, June-[December] 1930 (ff. 4, 62, 91), Oliver Onions, July-[August] 1930 (ff. 13, 30, 53), Alec Waugh, 22 June 1930 (f. 38), Hermon Ould, 30 September 1930 (f. 65 verso), Vicki Baum, 4 November 1930 (f. 78), Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, [December] 1930 (f. 91), Norman Haire, [December] 1930 (f. 114 verso), Vita Sackville-West, 3 November 1930 (f. 121), and Cynthia Stockley, [December] 1930 (f. 129). The volume contains sketches and drawings (ff. 2 verso, 28 verso-29, 48-49, 87, 92 verso, 109, 123 verso) and poetry (ff. 67 verso, 73a-b, 88, 91-92 verso, 94 verso, 101 verso) by Ruck. The photographs include three of her with her sons (inside front cover, ff. 54, 60; the latter was published in A Story-Teller Tells the Truth (London, 1935), facing p. 166). Among the friends and acquaintances referred to in the volume are Ernst Hanfstaengl (79 verso, 80 verso-81 verso) and the writers Rebecca West (ff. 45 verso, 50 verso -51), Geoffrey Moss (ff. 49 verso-50, 54 verso, 57 verso), Vicky Baum (f. 71 verso) and Otto Friedländer (ff. 82 verso, 83, 84).

Notebook of Berta Ruck, October 1931-August 1932, containing journal entries, including an account of her stay in Vienna, October-November 1931 (ff. 2-31), notes for fiction, verses and sketches by the author and a record of her dreams. Some twenty-seven letters, postcards and telegrams from family and friends, photographs, cuttings and other ephemera have been pasted in.
The correspondents include Oliver Onions, [October 1931] (f. 21), Doris Langley Moore, December 1931-February [1932] (ff. 53, 87), Marie Belloc-Lowndes, [1932] (f. 54 verso), Marda Vanne, [1932] (ff. 70 verso, 76a), and Ferdinand Deutelmoser, October 1931, April 1932 (ff. 73, 91). The volume also contains ink sketches (ff. 60, 70, 71, 81 verso) and verse (ff. 47 verso, 66, 68, 93 verso) by Ruck, and a German translation by Deutelmoser of another of her verses (f. 25 verso).