christopher fry playwright auden eliot (3 Ergebnisse)

A total of 8pp of closely-typed text. In good condition. Also present are an additional four-page copy on pink paper of the first letter and its enclosure. First letter signed 'Kevin Bailey', two others signed 'Kevin B.' aq2 One letter lacks its last page and signature. Long discursive letter, with Bailey discussing: his first meeting with Fry at the Actors Centre, Swindon; his sense of inadequacy in the face of Fry's other correspondents ('that letter from Lord Olivier is now firmly fixed in my memory'); a trip to Oxford bookshops; his discovery of Fry's work as a student at York; his admiration for the film maker Peter Greenaway; his desire that Fry might send 'a poem or two for use in the next issue of HQ' ('I can offer you a good audience. HQ has a most appreciative readership here and abroad and is taken by university and institutional libraries: New York, California, Moscow. even HMP Norwich (sent free of charge, just in case I ever need friends on the inside)'; his retirement from 'education work' ('at the age of forty-four I felt that twenty years of compromise between wage-slavery and editing and writing was enough') and pension; his recent poetry and editing work ('Shimon Weinroth, the Prof. of English at the University of Jerusalem has engaged me to check-over [sic] and edit his book of new poems due out next year. Small stuff but it pays a bill or two.'); his work at the Actors' Centre; his interest in astronomy ('often meeting Patric Moore at Meetings of the British Astronomical Association'); his 'part-time job with the charity MENCAP'; his friend the 'fine and innovative poet' Mike Hogan, an admirer of Fry's work ('Faber have just taken up his six-book poem'); Gary Bills, 'who is being published by Harry Chambers at Peterloo next year'; the recognition of a magazine's poets being a 'sign of maturation'; his 'cash flow hit' and the 'realities of tyrying to be a "proper" writer'; his desire to visit Fry; his 'faith' ('a private matter and very much sans "religion"'); his belief in 'the Art first and the ego second'; his admiration for 'Edward Thomas (I have a bush of Old Man taken as a cutting from the original and given to me by "Annie" Thomas, daughter the younger, at Eastbury - I am a Berkshire man; born at Wallingford and farmers for half a millennium at Yattendon. Robert Bridges was, I think, my paternal Grandmother's great uncle.)'. In the first letter (11 November 1998) he asks Fry, with his 'lifetime of experience to share', to 'set down, say, five golden rules for the poetic playwright [.] I feel like Morgana le Fey asking Merlin for the secret of Making. I promise to use the magic wisely.' The first letter is accompanied by two pages of dialogue between 'Edward' and 'Helen', with autograph note: 'A small selection from one of my still-born "Verse" plays. | K. B.' (Copies of the letter, dated 10 November 1998, and enclosure, are present.) In the second letter, 11 February 1999, Bailey thanks Fry for sending the poem 'Caedmon Construed' for publication in his magazine. He is 'very willing to use it', but 'would still like to use the speech from "Venus" - partly because I happen to think it very good indeed but also because I wanted to encourage HQ readers to seek out the play, and from that your other plays. As you know, although HQ, like all small press magazines, has a relatively small circulation, it is read by the "right" people in the right places all over the world. It is taken by a number of UK and US university libraries and "others". It never does any harm to advertise ones work. I'm pretty sure it would generate interest from American and Indian subscribers (strangely enough recently I have had a lot of correspondence from India, Turkey, and Goa and can only assume that HQ's equivalent of Typhoid Mary - an enthusiastic reader - is journeying in the Middle East and spreading an infectious enthusiasm for the magazine. Even a letter from Prof. R. K. Singh head of the Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad. hm, curious.). A gentle twisting of your arm - let me know. I shall not labour the point.' The third letter,15 March 1999, lacks its last page. The final letter, 20 July 1999, is in autograph, 'telegraphic-style, very rushed'. He thanks Fry for his 'contribution to No 22, and is pleased to have met him 'in London earlier in the year'.

9pp, 8vo. Complete carbon typescript. On nine leaves, stapled together. Title at head of first page: 'THE BOAT THAT MOOED.' Fry's signature in blue ink at top left of first page: 'Christopher Fry:'. Fry has cut down the story by deleting and removing a passage. The lower part of the leaf carrying the sixth page of the story has been cut away, and the original seventh page has been removed, hence the typescript pagination 1-6, 8-10 has been amended in manuscript to 1-9. A lighthearted faux-naive story, replete with symbolism. Begins: 'Tom Crunch lived on a boat. All round the boat was water. There was water to the right, water to the left, water in front, and water behind. And also water underneath. Up above there was the sky. | Tom Crunch lived with his Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack was fat and sleepy. All day long he sat and fished in the water. Sometimes he was awake, and sometimes he was asleep. It was hard to tell which he was, because he looked just the same when he was awake and when he was asleep. He kept his eyes shut all the time, unless he was eating fish. Then he kept his eyes open, because of the bones.' There does not appear to have been an English edition of the book, which was published in New York by Macmillan in 1965, with pictures by Leonard Weisgard.

Contemporary duplicated typescript, from the Christopher Fry papers. 14pp, 8vo. Each page on a separate leaf. In fair condition, lightly aged. Fry's introductory talk is present in its entirety on pp.1-5, this is followed by an unpaginated page, then pp.8-15 with p.[10] also unpaginated. Hence p.6 or p.7, beginning the extracts from the play, would appear to be absent. On the front page, between the heading and transmission details is: 'Rehearsal: Thursday 4th June 1953: 10.00 onwards | Recording: Thursday 4th June 1953: 12.15 - 1.00 p.m. 3A | Recording of Insert: [BLANK]'. Fry's talk - apparently unpublished, astute and all the more revealing because addressed to a younger audience - is preceded by 'ANNOUNCER: This is the BBC Home Service for Schools. Religion and Philosophy. Today Christopher Fry speaks about his play "A Sleep of Prisoners". Mr. Fry.' Fry begins his talk: 'It's interesting - at least, it's interesting to me - what apparently accidental things go to the making of a play. I always begin by feeling it's very improbable that I shall ever write anything. My mind is a vacuum: and then nature, abhorring, they tell me, a vacuum, starts to fill it up: very slowly, usually; one little thing at a time; memories I had forgotten I possessed: a chance remark from somebody: all sorts of quite trivial things in my life gather together, fal into line as though they had always meant to, and gradually something which might be said to resemble a play shapes itself in my head. Which shows, perhaps, that nothing that ever happens to you is unimportant.' He proceeds to describe the 'things' that happened to allow him to publish 'A Sleep of Prisoners', with reference to: the 1951 Festival of Britain; Michael MacOwan; Oliver Cromwell; Fry's move during the war to a cottage in Oxfordshire. He describes his sudden suggestion to 'Mr. MacOwen': 'I should like the action of the play to be the dreams of the prisoners. Each man would dream in turn, and would dream of himself and the other men. Naturally each man's opinion of himself and of the others would be different: no two people have exactly the same opinion of you or of me; and so in this way, if we had four prisoners, each actor would have four versions of himself to act, each character would be seen from four different points of view. Tea-time came to an end, Mr. MacOwen had to leave, and that was as far as we had got.' He describes how, a few weeks later, on a single day he developed 'the whole story of the play'. He gives his assessments of the four characters, and describes the a section of the plot, before announcing in the final paragraph: 'The actors are going to play part of this dream for you. The character of Absolom, remember, is David's dream picture of Peter, Peter with all his infuriating qualities uppermost.' He continues his explanation, at one point stating: 'I have tried in this dream to mix the waking and sleeping world together. [.] So to us, the audience, Meadows is awake, and to David he is a figure in a dream. Now let us go into the dream. Absalom has been mocking his father from down in the shadows and now David begins to speak.' The nine-page reading from 'the dream' follows, and by reference to Fry's introduction together with the text of the whole poem it should be possible to establish what, if any, part is lacking.