|
Seventy-one notebooks with handwritten drafts of a wide variety of
works make up a large portion of the Osbert Sitwell Collection, along with
galley files and typescripts of additional titles, and an extensive assortment
of correspondence. The collection is arranged in five series: Series I. Works,
1898-1965 (28 boxes); Series II. Correspondence, 1902-1969 (12.5 boxes); Series
III. Personal Papers, 1898-1969 (.5 boxes); Series IV. David Horner, 1932-1966
(2.5 boxes); and Series V. Third Party Works and Correspondence, 1887-1969 (1.5
boxes). Portions of this collection were previously accessible through a card
catalog, but have been re-cataloged as part of a retrospective conversion
project to include new accessions. |
|
The Works series is composed of page and galley proofs for all five
volumes of Sitwell's autobiography,
Left Hand, Right Hand. Holograph and
typescript drafts of the collected essays of
Penny Foolish are present, as are drafts
of
Pound Wise,
The Red Horizon, and
Sing High! Sing Low! These works are
arranged alphabetically by title. The seventy-one notebooks which comprise the
rest of the works series contain drafts of many of Sitwell's notable works,
individual poems, and draft letters. Not all of the materials in these
notebooks have been indentified, nor are they arranged chronologically. All
identified titles, including those in the notebooks, are listed in the Index of
Works at the end of this guide. |
|
The Correspondence Series is arranged in two sections, outgoing mail
by Sitwell and incoming letters to Sitwell. Of particular note are nearly a
thousand letters from Sitwell to his companion David Horner, written between
1926 and 1964. A small batch of letters to Horner, written between 1951 and
1956, arrived in a later accession and are group together at the end of the
Horner section. There are smaller batches of letters to and from Lorna Andrade,
Richard Grants, Edith and Sacheverell Sitwell, and others. Correspondents in
this series are listed in the Index of Correspondents at the end of this
guide. |
|
The small Personal Papers Series comprises bank and royalty records,
legal documents, lists, and Sitwell family photographs. The David Horner Series
contains letters primarily to Horner from various friends and acquaintances.
Leslie Hartley and Edith Sitwell are well represented in this series. All
correspondents in the David Horner Series are listed in the Index of
Correspondents at the end of this guide. |
|
The Third-Party Works and Correspondence Series holds works by
Sitwellian scholars and friends as well as correspondence between his friends
and business associates. Galley proofs of Richard Fifoot's bibliography of
Edith Sitwell's work are present, in addition to poems by Sacheverell Sitwell
and a holograph draft of Max Wykes-Joyce's
Triad of Genius. Also of note is a pen and
ink sketch of Sitwell by Peter Roseland, lists and materials for Sitwell's
poetry reading tour in America, and letters and documents regarding Ida
Sitwell's scandal-laden bankruptcy. All identified titles in this series are
listed in the Index of Works and all the correspondents are listed in the Index
of Correspondents at the end of this guide. |
|
Elsewhere in the Ransom Center are 25 photographs of Sitwell, his
family, friends, and images of Rennishaw Hall, located in the Literary Files of
the Photography Collection. Also present are 26 vertical files containing
newspaper clippings covering the publication and criticism of Sitwell's works
as well as biographical and printed material. Portraits of Sitwell appear in
two collections in the Art Collection as well as several items from his own art
collection, one folder of newspaper clippings is located in the Scrapbook
Collection, and one reel-to-reel recording of an interview with Sitwell in the
Sound Recordings Collection. Other materials related to Osbert Sitwell may be
found in the following manuscript collections at the Ransom Center:
- Adams, James Donald
- Barker, George
- Bermondsey Book
- Betjeman, John
- Blunden, Edmund Charles
- Brooke, Jocelyn
- Connolly, Cyril
- Coppard, Alfred Edgar
- Cunard, Nancy
- Duncan, Ronald Frederick Henry
- Ervine, St. John Greer
- Garnett, David
- Garvin, J. L.
- Golden Cockerel Press
- Hutchinson, Mary
- La Farge, Oliver
- Lehmann, John
- Lewis, Sinclair
- Lindsay, Philip
- London Magazine
- Lowndes, Marie Adelaide (Belloc)
- MacKenzie, Compton
- MacNamara, Brinsley
- Masefield, John
- Nehls, Edward
- PEN
- Richards, Grant
- Sassoon, Siegfried Lorraine
- Shaw, George Bernard
- Sitwell, Edith, Dame
- Smith, L. P.
- Strong, Leonard Alfred George
- Tchelitchew, Pavel
- Tyler, Parker
- Walpole, Hugh, Sir
- Waugh, Alec
- Webb, Stella Dorothea
- Welch, Denton
|
