File CF1/5 - Letters to friends

The file comprises manuscript drafts of letters from David Jones to friends. The addressees have in most cases been identified by Harman Grisewood and are listed on the wrapper. They include Stella Wright, Colin Hardie, Mr Plumtre, Peter Levi, Herbert Read, Theodore Bailly, Clarissa Eden, Jack Sweeney, Kenneth Clark, Mike Richey, Nancy Sanders, Kathleen Raine, T. S. Eliot and Louis Bonnerot. Amongst the subjects discussed in these letters are The Anathemata (referred to as 'a thing I've been struggling with for some years' in a draft letter to Colin Hardie dated 11 July 1945); Welsh history and the Welsh language (subjects which appear in several of these letters); 'The Fatigue' (1965); an inscription for the ordination of Peter Levi (1964, 1967); 'the general civilizational predicament vis-à-vis 'the arts''; the vernacularization of the Mass ('I've wasted hours & hours & days & days, writing & destroying letters addressed to The Tablet---', 1965); 'my new piece' ('The Sleeping Lord', 1967); Rembrandt (in a draft letter to Lord Clark, 1966); 'The Wall' (1967); Roman roads (1967); his family background and 'The Dream of Private Clitus' (in a draft letter to Louis Bonnerot, n.d.). There is a draft letter of condolence to Valerie Eliot on the death of her husband, T. S. Eliot.