Fonds GB 0210 RHYSTR - Rhys Davies Trust Archive

Papers of the Rhys Davies Trust (est. 1991), relating mainly to the administration of the Trust and the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition. Included are five files of papers relating to the Trust’s financial matters, consisting of valuation reports (2014-2019), account, tax, and investment statements together with related correspondence (2008-2014), and a number of cash and cheque books (2008-2018); five files of Trust administrative documents and correspondence (2008-2020), including papers relating to meeting minutes, accounts, publishing matters, website design, royalties (both of the works of Rhys Davies and of Anna Kavan), funding applications, and the Rhys Davies Short Story competition. Correspondents include Meic Stephens, Peter Finch, and M. Wynn Thomas.

Seven further files contain papers (1895-2012) relating to the life and works of Rhys Davies (1901-1978), apparently collected during research for the biography ‘Rhys Davies: a writer’s life’ (Cardigan: Parthian, 2013) by Meic Stephens, secretary of the Trust 1991-2012. The papers consist of correspondence ([1920s]-2012), including letters from Rhys Davies, Lewis Davies, Louis Quinain, Meic Stephens, Fred Blackmore, David Ellis, John Harris, and Gwyn Pritchard; and photographs (1918-1990), mainly of Rhys Davies and friends and family, including Lewis Davies, Gertrude (‘Gertie’) Davies, Anna Kavan, Fred Urquhart, Louise Callender, Colyn Davies, Nina Hamnett, Esther & Charles Lahr, Raymond B. Marriott, Louis Taylor, and Philip Burton; together with notes and cuttings.

Additionally, the archive contains three files of press cuttings and copies of articles (1929-[1987]), collected and written either by or about Rhys Davies, including articles from Keidrych Rhys’s ‘Wales’, and ‘Anglo-Welsh Review’; several items of memorabilia, comprising Rhys Davies’s passport (stamped 1968-1978), OBE medal (awarded 1968), a decorative glass plaque with lettering ’RHYS’ (undated), an ‘MD Magazine’ 10th anniversary medal (1967), and a small box of rosary beads; and nine printed books, consisting of Rhys Davies’ works ‘Marianne’ (London: 1951, signed by author), ‘A Time to Laugh’ (two copies, 1937 & 1938, both with note & signature of Davies), 'Selected Stories' (London/Dublin: [1945], with slip dated 1945), and 'Boy With a Trumpet' (London: 1949, with undated press cutting); together with ‘The Last Sister’ by Fred Urquhart (London: 1950, with note by author), ‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets’ (with slip dated 1945), and translations of Anna Kavan's works ‘L’adversaire Céleste’ (Paris: 1947, with a sketch dated 1951) and ‘Mercury’ (Valencia: 2006, with a letter to the Rhys Davies Trust).