Biographical Sketch
Little has been written about the Jewish poet Hugo Manning. He was not
only a poet, but also a short story writer, a translator, and a lecturer on
many literary subjects. Born in 1913, his early life is not well documented;
however, Manning lived for a time in Vienna immediately before the Anschluss
with Nazi Germany in 1938. In Vienna, Manning lived near the home of Sigmund
Freud which later led him to dedicate to Anna Freud his
Dead Season's Heritage, published in 1942 in
Buenos Aires. During World War II, Manning served as a Lance-Corporal in the
Intelligence Corps in North Africa. After being wounded in North Africa in
1944, Manning began a correspondence with Henry Miller that would last for
twenty years. In his letters to Manning, Miller urges him to write prose and to
say those things which seem incommunicable.
Manning also lived in Cordoba, Argentina, for four years. There, he wrote for
La Nacion,
Sur,
Argentina Libre,
Agonia,
The Buenos Aires Herald, and
The Times of Argentina, as well as
collaborating with Gannon and Sir Eugen Mullington-Drake on the
Anthology of Argentine Verse.
Manning's interest in parapsychology is expressed in his letters from
the writer and medium Eileen J. Garrett. However, Hugo Manning is best known
for his poetry. His works include
Buenos Aires (1942),
Ode (1942), the short story
Storm over Eskwasilly (1942),
Smile, Ichabod: A War Poem (1944),
Beyond the Terminus of Stars (1949),
The Crown and the Fable: a Poetic Sequence
(1950),
Dustrobed Dancers (1967),
The Secret Sea (1968),
The Dream (1971),
Encounter In Crete (1971),
Now (1972/73),
The People May Laugh (1973),
Madame Lola (1974),
Women at the Window (1974),
Tread Gently Now (1974),
This Room Before Sunrise (1974), the short
story
The Daughter (1975),
Instead of a Poem-excerpts from a journal
including the dates September 9, 1975 to September 18, 1975,
Ishmael (1975),
Modigliani (1976), and
Dylan Thomas (1977).
Scope and Contents
Complete manuscripts and fragments, notebooks of untitled poetry,
diaries, correspondence, and printed material comprise the Hugo Manning papers.
The material is arranged in four series: Works, Book Withdrawals, Diaries, and
Correspondence.
All Manning's major poetical works are represented in the collection. In
the first series, manuscripts, typescripts, and galley proofs are grouped
together under the title of each work, which are arranged alphabetically. Under
each title, Manning's work is organized chronologically, as it was left by the
author. The series begins with carbon copies and proof copies of Manning's
works
The Crown and the Fable,
Dylan Thomas,
The Faith-Love-Fun of Henry Miller,
Instead of a Poem,
Ishmael, and
Modigliani. The best-represented work of the
collection is Manning's
The Secret Sea. Through the many
manuscripts, typescripts, and revisions, most of which are dated, one can trace
the development of the poem. Following
The Secret Sea is a carbon copy of
This Room Before Sunrise, as well as loose
untitled fragments of poems and spiral notebooks containing untitled fragments.
Two interesting additions to Manning's works are a book of forty-five ink
sketches and the vocal score
Chorales, consisting of the words from
Manning's poem,
The Secret Sea, with music by Denis ApIvor,
dated July 1964. Contained also in this series are three reviews of Manning's
The Secret Sea, and a comment by Mario Praz
about
The Secret Sea enclosed with an essay on the
longer poems of Hugo Manning by Jeremy Reed, also called
The Secret Sea.
The second series contains book withdrawals. These are notes written by
Manning that were found in books that were inscribed to him. The book
withdrawals were removed from
The Atoz Formula by Asa Benveniste,
The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell,
The Dark Thorn by Charles Wrey Gardiner,
Shapes and Sounds by Mervyn Laurence Peake,
and
The Fanfarlo, and other Verse by Muriel
Spark. Also, there is a letter to Andreas Brown from Else B. Lorch that was
withdrawn from Tenessee Williams'
In the Winter of Our Cities inscribed to
Manning. These books and many others that belonged to Manning have been
cataloged for the HRC book collection.
The third series, Diaries, follows Manning's life from December 3, 1957
to September 15, 1977. However, in a diary marked Inconclusive by
Manning, the dates 28-8-53 through 21-12-53 and 29-9-70 through 2-10-70 can be
found. The diaries contain not only the daily happenings and daily thoughts of
Manning, but they also include poetry and a few sketches.
The final series, Correspondence, contains Manning's letters to Dr. F.W.
Roberts, former director of the Humanities Research Center. Also included are
letters received by Hugo Manning from such prominent literary figures as Nancy
Cunard, T.S. Eliot, Henry Miller, Eugene O'Neill, Ezra Pound, and Muriel Spark,
among many others. Many of the writers thank Manning for sending them his
poems. Others, such as Henry Miller, encourage Manning's further writing, and
Mario Praz discusses the influence of Borges and T.S. Eliot on Hugo Manning's
poetry. There is a complete list of correspondents at the end of the
inventory.