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1989 Acquisition |
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Research notes, manuscripts, correspondence, printed materials, contracts, and photographs,
1971-1988 (8 document cases), document the literary works of Penelope Fitzgerald.
Arranged
as received in two series representing her creative works and research notebooks,
the papers
reflect the research and production phases of her works as well as the responses to
them.
Nearly half of the materials are research notebooks filled with various notes, writings,
and
clippings. There are also research materials included in the creative works series
under
each title. A third series was added comprising personal materials not related to
any of
Fitzgerald's writings. Oversized materials include one promotional poster for The Beginning of Spring and printed materials. |
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The creative works series includes varying levels of documentation on all nine of
Fitzgerald's major works (The Knox Brothers, Offshore, Innocence, Charlotte Mew, The Beginning of Spring, The Bookshop, The Golden Child, Edward Burne-Jones, and At Freddie's) and four of her minor works (The Axe, The Poetry Bookshop, The Works of Ernest Shepherd, and Human Voices). The papers contain substantial information on the
Knox brothers, Charlotte Mew, and Edward Burne-Jones that provides extensive documentation
for research. There are eleven manuscripts, two of which are handwritten and four
of which
contain extensive corrections. Much of the research correspondence is annotated with
comments by Fitzgerald. Also included in the creative works series are Fitzgerald's
inventory lists which state the significance of many of the materials she collected
during
her research. There is no outgoing correspondence in the 1989 acquisition. |
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The researcher should be aware that this acquisition was a consciously created collection
for which Fitzgerald selected the materials that would be included and made notations
on
many of them as to their significance or their relationship to her work. Some of her
commentaries are quite blunt. None of Fitzgerald's life prior to her writing career
is
reflected in the 1989 acquisition. |
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Series I. Creative Works, 1912-1983 (bulk 1974-1981) consists of
Fitzgerald's papers relating to her various creative works. Arranged as received,
the papers
are organized into subseries by the particular works they concerned. Some works are
more
completely represented than others. For example, "The Axe" has only one folder of production materials, while The Knox Brothers has 19 folders of research materials and
correspondence. To show the various phases of the writing and publishing process,
each work
is arranged into research materials, manuscripts, production materials, responses
to the
book, and Fitzgerald's inventories of documents. The research materials include notes,
incoming correspondence, photographs, and items Fitzgerald collected in pursuing her
research. Fitzgerald corresponded with biographers, historians, British nobility,
and
relatives of the people she wrote about. This correspondence reveals information not
only
about Fitzgerald's subjects, but also about closely-related topics, such as the
Pre-Raphaelites (the Rossettis in particular), Oscar Wilde, and George Eliot. Manuscripts
(some handwritten) are present for Offshore, Innocence, Charlotte Mew, The Beginning of Spring, The Bookshop, At Freddie's, and her
introduction to The Poetry Bookshop. All have corrections.
Production materials include correspondence from her publishers, contracts, and dust
jackets. Responses to the book include both personal letters and review clippings.
Fitzgerald's inventories of documents are filed at the end of the materials for each
work
and provide additional information about items in the collection. Incoming correspondence
is
arranged alphabetically; all other materials are arranged chronologically. Materials
dating
from 1912-1970 are items gathered by Fitzgerald in the course of her research. An
Index of
Works for the 1989 acquisition is located at the end of this guide. |
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Of particular note the page proofs of Evelyn Waugh's The Life of the Right Reverend Ronald Knox, Fellow of Trinity College,
Oxford, and Pronotary Apostolic to His Holiness Pope Pius XII, located with the
research materials for The Knox Brothers. |
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Series II. Notebooks, undated consists of 57 notebooks used by
Fitzgerald in her research and in drafting her stories and document her research and
writing
processes. The notebooks contain handwritten notes and parts of manuscripts as well
as
various loose sheets (many torn from other notebooks), correspondence, and clippings
that
have been left in their original positions between the pages. In some instances it
was
possible to determine a title for the notebooks, although there is no assurance that
all the
material in that notebook pertains to a specific novel or short story. Where no single
title
could be determined, a parenthetical note has been placed on the folder list to give
the
researcher some indication of the contents of the notebook. None of the notebooks
are dated
and, in many cases, the notes written on the covers of the notebooks were simply too
extensive or too illegible to transcribe. An Index of Works for the 1989 acquisition
is
located at the end of this guide. |
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Series III. Personal Materials, 1978 focuses on Fitzgerald's
personal materials that do not relate to any of her creative works. The folder contains
two
blank postcards, a memorial card on Joshua Haycraft's death, and a poem written (by
Colin
Haycraft?) to celebrate the 1978 election of a new Professor of Poetry at Oxford. |
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1996-2002 Acquisitions |
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This addition to the cataloged papers of Penelope Fitzgerald combines accretions received
at the Ransom Center from 1996-2002. The bulk of the material dates from the 1990s,
with the
exception of photographs, early correspondence, and memorabilia for the Edward Burne-Jones,
L. P. Hartley, and Knox brothers biographies. Though the biography remains unpublished,
of
particular interest in the L. P. Hartley biographical material is correspondence with
Lord
David Cecil, Keith Clements, Ursula Codrington, Basil Gray, Francis Henry King, Frank
Magro,
Anthony Powell, Ralph Ricketts, Reresby Sitwell, and Kathleen Tillotson. These
correspondents are not included in the Index of Correspondents at the end of this
finding
aid. |
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The primary challenge in arranging and listing Fitzgerald's literary papers is due
to her
method of writing in notebooks on multiple subjects. Because a single notebook can
be
physically present in only one location, a system of "see" references has been employed
to
cross-reference the various subject entries to the physical location of the notebook.
For
example, writings on William Blake, George Moore, Margaret Oliphant, Edward Thomas,
David
Leavitt, Andrea Levy, and Vladimir Nabokov appear in the same handwritten notebook,
but are
indexed separately under the book titles where Fitzgerald's material ultimately surfaced
in
print. Loose sheets of notes are interspersed throughout the notebooks and readers
should
exert caution in retaining the original order of this material. |
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The material is organized in three Series: I. Works, 1898-2001; II. Correspondence,
1970-2000; and III. Career-Related Material, 1968-1991. |
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The Works series contains research, notes, handwritten and typescript drafts,
correspondence, production material, publicity and reviews, in some measure, for The Afterlife: Essays and Criticism (2003), The Blue Flower (1996), Charlotte Mew and Her Friends (1984), Edward Burne-Jones (1975), The Gate of Angels (1990), The Golden Child (1977), A House of Air: Selected Writings (2003), Human Voices (1980), The Knox Brothers (1977), and The Means of Escape: Stories (2000). Also present are articles by
Fitzgerald, a contract with Collins Publishers for At Freddie's, a playscript of The Beginning of Spring adapted by Michael Pennington, essays and
reviews, introductions and afterwords, ideas for novels, and short stories. Two very
similar
works, The Afterlife and A House of Air, were published
almost simultaneously in 2003, and in paperback in 2005. They differ by a couple of
articles, for example "Vous Etes Belle," the Meaulnes essay, is only in
A House of Air. The paperback edition of A House of Air contains additional editorial material including a
biographical essay by Terence Dooley and a critical essay by Dean Flower and Linda
Henchey.
Works in this series are not included in the Index of Works at the end of this finding
aid. |
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Arranged in date order, the correspondence in Series II. contains primarily incoming
letters in the categories of business, family, literary, personal, and publishers.
In
addition, there is considerable incoming correspondence from Raymond Watkinson and
J. Howard
Woolmer. Personal correspondents include A. L. Barker, Mavis Batey, Nina Bawden, Edward
Blishen, Tom Burns, Simon Callow, Christopher Carduff, Sally Cline, Michael Gough,
Michael
Holroyd, Hans Koning, Mary Lago, Penelope Lively, Candida McWilliam, Sylvia Peck,
Harvey
Pitcher, Michael Ratcliffe, and A. N. Wilson, among others. Correspondents in this
series
are not included in the Index of Correspondents at the end of this finding aid. Note:
Several folders of uncatalogued correspondence can be found at the end of box 11a. |
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Series III. Career-Related Material includes articles about Fitzgerald, notes for
conferences and judging literary prizes, interviews, lectures, and notebooks on a
variety of
subjects, from 1968-1969 teaching notes to Fitzgerald's 1991 trip to Tasmania for
a literary
festival. |
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