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TABLE OF CONTENTSDescriptive Summary and Abstract 1. Manuscript Book, and folding case, 1920s-1930s and undated. 2. Letter to Alyse Gregory, 15 Dec. 1935. 3. Index card listing contents of manuscript book, undated. 4. A Catalogue of The Llewelyn Powys Manuscripts, 1950s. 5. Photocopy of rare book dealer's description of collection, 1990s-2000s. |
Inventory of the Llewelyn Powys Manuscript Book:1920s-1950s and undated
Biographical NoteLlewelyn Powys was born 13 August 1884 and died 2 December 1939. From a family of distinguished British writers, his brothers, John Cowper Powys (1972-1963) and Theodore Francis Powys (1875-1953) were novelists. Llewelyn Powys wrote a wide variety of works, including essays, a biography, a novel, travel books, works of popular philosophy and propaganda, autobiographical memoirs, and "an imaginary autobiography." Born in Dorset, England, Llewelyn Powys moved with his family to the village of Montacute in Somerset, England, where his father would be rector for the next thirty-three years. This area of England infuses Powys' work with its landscape. Some critics also feel that Llewelyn Powys' work is informed by an urgency possibly caused by his lifelong battle with tuberculosis. After a lackluster showing as a student at Sherborne, then Cambridge University, Llewelyn Powys tried his hand at being a schoolteacher, private tutor, even as a lecturer in the United States. In 1909, however, Llewelyn Powys was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and, though he spent the next two years in a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, Powys was never to regain full health. Nevertheless, this episode and threat of impending death somehow seems to have energized Powys, for he devoted himself from then on to his writing. From 1914 to 1919 Llewelyn Powys lived in Kenya, managing a farm for his brother William, who was in military service during World War I. Llwewlyn Powys published his first book in 1916, a collaborative collection of stories with his brother John, called Confessions of Two Brothers, but his first book written on his own, titled Ebony and Ivory, was not published until 1923, in which he contrasted life in Europe with that in Africa. Six more books followed, between August 1920, when Llewelyn moved to the United States and 1925, when he returned to England. He finally achieved fame only by forsaking his homeland, and publishing outside of England. Three more books were published in 1924, and in October that year, Llewelyn Powys married the managing editor of the Dial magazine, Alyse Gregory, herself a well-known and well-connected New Yorknovelist and essayist. The marriage seems to have given Llewelyn Powys noy only personal happiness and fulfillment, but a more confident literary style as well. Published in 1925, after another severe recurrance of his besetting malady of tuberculosis, Llewelyn's most famous work, Skin for Skin shares settings of Montacute in Somerset, with a sanatorium in Switzerland. In his self-absorption and egocentric world view Llewelyn is generally agreed upon by his admirers and critics to imitate his model writer, the essayist William Hazlitt. At a loss for publishers in England for his autobiographical essays, upon his probably ill-advised return to his homeland in 1925, Llewelyn took a commission to write a biography of a famous world explorer. This quite notable biography Henry Hudson appeared in 1927. At sea himself, however, in the literary world in England, Powys was again lured back to the United States in 1927, where his wife and he had connections, and he had a definite literary following. Subsequently, leaving the United States yet again, however, Llewelyn Powys spent the period of 1928-1931 wandering with Alyse to France, and even Palestine, gathering material for more books, particularly those criticizing Christianity. Almost immediately upon returning to the United States, the couple again returned to England. This move, in contrast to those of Powys' past, was much more sucessful than previous efforts. Thus, for five years, from 1931 to 1936 Powys remained in his beloved Dorset, publishing a great deal, his work tending to diverge into either the radical, atheistic rant against accepted religion, or the poetic, autobiograpical essay on Dorset lore and country life. His reading public was practically split into two very fervent groups, nearly antithetical to each other. Earth Memories, which includes two of the essays written in this collection's manuscript book, was published during this period of popularity and productivity. In autumn 1936, Llewelyn Powys' health severely deteriorated and he left England in December for the sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, in which he died in 1939. Love and Death, considered Llewelyn Powys' best work, was published posthumously, in 1939. As is characteristic of Powys' work, Love and Death presents in microcosm all the elements of Llewelyn Powys's unusual combination of fictionalized autobiography, memoir of desire rather than exact fact, and personal essay with so thin a veneer of objectivity that the self-centered subjectivity causes constant tension within the work and in the perception of the reader. Return to the Table of Contents Scope and Content NoteThis nearly 100 page manuscript book, bound in 3/4 cloth with marbled sides and a handwritten paper label listing the contents in ink pasted on the front, contains five handwritten essays, four in pencil and one in ink, by Llewelyn Powys, some published and some not published. The essays are as follows: "Of the Sun," consisting of eight pages, extensively revised; "Of Romance,"; covering nine pages, extensively revised, apparently unpublished; "Of a Gannet", apparently unpublished; "Of Egoism," twenty pages, extensively revised, published in the New Statesman, November 6, 1926, and also reprinted in Earth Memories the first edition appearing in 1934, an enlarged edition in 1938; "Of Goodness," sixteen pages, extensively revised, apparently not published, or at least not under this title; and finally, "When the unicorn cons the water," in ten pages, written in ink, with revisions, which was printed in the Weekend Review and also reprinted in Earth Memories. Also in the folding case made for the manuscript book by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, is a letter handwritten in ink by Powys, dated December 15th 1935, signed by Llewelyn Powys. It is titled "Instructions as to the disposal of my body in the case of my death," and was given to his wife Alyse Gregory. A note in her hand in ink appears on the verso of the two page letter below Llewelyn's signature and the date. An envelope with a typed description of the letter is included. A Catalogue of the Llewelyn Powys Manuscripts, offered by G. F. Sims (Rare Books), Peacocks, Hurst, Berkshire, probably from the early 1950s follows, as does a typed index card listing the contents of the manuscript book, and a photocopy of the description of the collection from the dealer David. J. Holmes Autographs of Collingswood, N.J. Return to the Table of Contents
Return to the Table of Contents RestrictionsAccessNo restrictions. Usage RestrictionsCopyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. Return to the Table of Contents
Return to the Table of Contents Administrative InformationProvenancePurchased from David. J. Holmes Autographs of Collingswood, N.J. Processing InformationProcessed by Aletha Andrew in September 2001. Return to the Table of Contents Detailed Description of the Collection
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