Ffeil AAB2/1/1 - Letters to Huw Menai (photocopies)

Photocopies (some text faint) of one hundred and fifty-eight letters, one postcard and one telegram, 1939-1941, from John Cowper Powys to the poet Huw Menai (Huw Owen Williams). The letters include accounts of the last illness and death of John Cowper Powys's dog 'The Very Old' and the death of his brother Llewelyn Powys, both in 1939, and the death of Powys's friend Frances Gregg in 1941, together with mention of Powys's past works and works in progress, reflections on the war, health matters, and a reference to a letter of 1940 sent by Powys to his sister Marian Powys which was returned by the censor (ff. 186-7) (see 'Letters to Marian Powys from John Cowper Powys'). Many of the letters are illustrated with John Cowper Powys's ink drawings, which include self-caricatures and depictions of Huw Menai as a sea-serpent . Ff. 159, 166-7, 170-1, 207 appear to be draft prose piece(s) by Powys (crossed out). Also included are two photocopied letters, 1939, from Powys to Arfon [?son of Huw Menai]. Enclosures comprise two further photocopied letters from Powys to Arfon (enclosed with letters dated 20 August 1940 and 23 February 1941), a note to Huw Menai from Jean [--?] (f. 157), a note in Welsh to Powys from John Redwood Anderson (f. 422), and a press cutting in Welsh relating to the teaching of Welsh history (f. 503).