The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center
Quennell, Peter, 1905-1993
Peter Quennell Papers
1955-1973 (bulk 1970-1973)
3 boxes (1.26 linear feet)
This small collection is composed
entirely of four works by Peter Quennell, most of which were published in the early
1970s.
English
Biographical Sketch
Peter Quennell was an English biographer, critic, and literary historian born in
Bickley, South East Greater London, England in March of 1905. Son of social
historians and authors Marjorie and Charles Henry Bourne Quennell, Peter was
introduced to the world of scholarship early in his life. He was educated at Balliol
College, Oxford and taught English in Japan for a year at the Tokyo University of
Science and Literature. Married five times, Quennell had two children: Sarah with
his third wife and Alexander with his fifth.
Quennell published his first book,
Masques &
Poems, in 1922. He went on to publish several more volumes of poetry. Later,
he distinguished himself as a biographer of 18th and 19th century authors including
Alexander Pope, William Hogarth, and Samuel Johnson, and was considered an authority
on Lord Byron. As a journalist, Quennell was editor of Cornhill Magazine from 1944 to 1951 and was the founder and editor of
History Today from 1951 to 1979.
A prolific author, Peter Quennell edited and contributed to numerous literary
histories in his final years, including his works
The Last
Edwardians and An Illustrated Companion to World
Literature. He also published a two-volume autobiography: The Marble Foot covers his life up to 1938, and
Wanton Chase picks up from 1939. He was
knighted in 1992 at the age of eighty-seven, shortly before his death in 1993.
Sources:
“Peter Quennell.”
Contemporary Authors Online
http://galenet.galegroup.com (accessed 7 September 2006).
Scope and Contents
This small collection is composed entirely of works by Peter Quennell arranged
alphabetically in a single series. Comprised of four works, most of which were
published in the early 1970s, the majority of the collection consists of materials
for
The Colosseum and Samuel
Johnson contained within eight handwritten notebooks. Typescripts for
Casanova in London, The
Colosseum, and Samuel Johnson are
included, as well as proof copies of Casanova in
London and the 1955 edition of Byron in
Italy.
Acquisition:
Purchase, 1977 (R7749)
Access:
Open for research
Processed by:
Jonathan Reynolds, 2006
An additional eight boxes of Peter Quennell works at the Ransom Center include
Alexander Pope: the Education of Genius (1968); an
unpublished novel entitled Alexander the Great; Baudelaire and the Symbolists (1929); Byron: the Years of Fame (1943); Four Portraits (1945); Hogarth’s
Progress (1955); Hostile Transaction; Legendary
Moralities by Jules Laforgue (a partial translation); The Marble Foot (1977); Shakespeare: the Poet and His Background (1963); The Sign of the Fish (1960); Sympathy and Other
Stories (1938); and an unpublished work, Trans-Siberian.
Further descriptions of these manuscripts are available in a card catalogue.
Sir Peter Quennell appears elsewhere in the Ransom Center in the collections of
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Richard Church, Nancy Cunard, Constantine FitzGibbon, Graham
Greene, John Haffenden, Gerald Hamilton, Allanah Harper, Kenneth Hopkins, John
Lehmann, Philip Lindsay,
London Magazine, Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes, Compton
Mackenzie, Lady Ottoline Morrell, Derek Patmore, PEN, and John Symonds.
Container List
Series I. Works, 1955-1973
1
1
Byron in Italy (Penguin Books edition,
1955), proof pages with handwritten corrections
1
Casanova in London and Other Essays
(1971)
1
2
Typescript draft with handwritten corrections
1
3
Proof copy with handwritten corrections
1
The Colosseum (1971)
1
4
"Notebook 1," contains I, II, III, V
1
5
"Notebook 2," contains IV, V, VII, dated 30 June
1970
2
1
"Notebook 3," contains VI
2
2
Typescript with handwritten corrections
2
Samuel Johnson (1973)
2
3
"Notebook 4," contains various notes and drafts
2
4
"Notebook 5," contains VI, I, II, with Bibliog. at the
back
2
5
"Notebook 6," contains III
2
6
"Notebook 7," contains IV, V
3
1
"Notebook 8," contains VII, V cont'd, VIII,
Epilogue
3
2
Typescript draft with handwritten corrections