An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Center
Creator:
Quennell, Peter, 1905-1993
Title:
Peter Quennell Collection
Dates:
1925-1973
Extent:
10 boxes (4.2 linear feet), 1 galley folder (gf)
Abstract:
The collection of British writer and editor
Peter Quennell consists primarily of manuscripts of 16 of his
works.
Call Number:
Manuscript Collection
MS-03361
Language:
English
Access:
Open for research.
Researchers
must create an online Research Account and agree to the Materials Use Policy before
using
archival materials.
Use Policies:
Ransom Center collections may contain material with sensitive or confidential information
that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers
are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable
living
individuals represented in the collections without the consent of those individuals
may have
legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy
may
arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be
deemed
highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the Ransom Center and The University
of
Texas at Austin assume no responsibility.
Administrative Information
Preferred Citation
Peter Quennell Collection (Manuscript Collection MS-03361). Harry Ransom Center, The
University of Texas at
Austin.
Jonathan Reynolds, 2006; Joan Sibley and Richard Workman, 2018
Note:
Part of this finding aid replicates and replaces information previously available
only in a
card catalog. Please see the explanatory note at the end of this finding aid for information
regarding the arrangement of the manuscripts as well as the abbreviations commonly
used in
descriptions.
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 collection is composed of manuscripts for 17 published and unpublished works
by Peter Quennell, along with 3
letters and a small number of miscellaneous items. The first seven boxes contain materials
previously described only in the Ransom Center's card catalog. The final three boxes
contain
materials for four additional works, acquired and described separately at a later
date.
Related Material
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.
