P.P.S. I’ll ask the BM for a photo of the Herodas papyrus in case that might be useful.
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
11 February 1977
Dear Richard,
Thankyou for your letter and in particular for offering to tackle Lord Kahn, the scourge of King’s – it’s not so much that he could possibly object to this harmless note from Maynard Keynes, but that he objects to everything on principle – (I wd: have liked to use the Keynes/Grant letters in the British Museum but didn’t dare ask, perhaps just as well as they’re so disagreeable) – but I expect if you ask him he’d say yes.
The photograph* reads
(top row) Wilfred (apparently making communist salute) arm in arm with Dilly, Winnie, Eddie.
(bottom row) Ethel, Bishop, Ronnie.
This is taken at Bishopscourt, Manchester, in 1904 I should think.
I enclose a bibliography if there’s room for it, as I don’t think these books are properly acknowledged otherwise.
As for the million monkeys typing the whole of Shakespeare, I must put them in if you like them, but I’m less able to work this out than the sum. I like the noughts, and think they’re impressive, but I do notice that everything written about Enigma gives quite different figures.
I think a printable drawing of the wiring from the keyboard to the contact is necessary, as otherwise the explanation, never very successful, will be quite unintelligible. I didn’t think the BBC programme very helpful, as it didn’t distinguish between the solution of the setting and the solution of the displacements, and evidently they couldn’t persuade many people to appear, so that Peter Calvocoressi was shown, as usual, as the sole inhabitant of Bletchley.
The BM say they can produce a photograph of the Herodas papyrus in about 5 weeks, do you want this?
I also, while conscious of being a nuisance about this, would like to ask for 2 more corrections
p.177 8 lines down. Owen Seaman was given his baronetcy in 1933
p. 198 4 lines down. My informants now tell me that the F.O. didn’t provide an Enigma so I shall have to correct ‘The Foreign Office…no more than that’ to ‘from the commercial machines already on the market, they could study the general system, but no more than that’. I apologise for making these tiresome changes, but at least they come from the people who worked on Enigma, and that is something.
Thankyou once again –
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
2 April 1977
Dear Mrs Burgess,*
Thankyou very much for the proof of the jacket for the Knox Brothers – personally I think it is just right and like it very much, particularly the expanded lettering, and I think it was a brilliant idea to put the excerpts on the back as they suggest that one ought to know who these people were, and surely that’s just what is wanted.
There is one thing that worries me, and that is that E.V. Knox (top name on the spine) was born in 1881 not 1880 – I know exactly what Richard will say to this – ‘doesn’t the wretched woman even know when her own father was born?’ – Well, I do know and have no excuse or even explanation so I can’t offer any. This mistake of mine also appears on p. 12 of the text and I think on the title-page–
In spite of this I venture to say once again how much I like the jacket –
Yours sincerely,
Penelope Fitzgerald
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
[c.April 1977]
About the Russian names in the index, I am feeling wretched about all the inaccuracies and having looked at my notes in the cellar here I’ve decided I don’t honestly know what their Xtian names are, and in any case they look silly without their patronymics, so can they appear just as Khinchuk, Meler, Zudyakov? Meler strikes me as an assumed name anyway. They’re not in the Soviet Biographical Dictionary because they made such a failure of their mission and in the ARCOS publications they’re just Tovarich, without initials. – I don’t think there are any more A’s – Mrs (Bp.) Knox died in August 1892 (that really is right) – Penelope
25 Almeric Road, sw11
16 September 1977
Dear Richard,
Thankyou so much for your letter – I was just wondering a bit whether there were any advance copies, as I have had mysterious messages from the reviewers and I’m not sure where they got their copies* from, all a failure as usual, the Spectator person, in spite of, or possibly because of, being plied with drink by Oliver, says the whole book was quite beyond him, and as for the TLS, I asked Dick Usborne if he’d go and extract it from the heap as he is always amiable and would have put anything he was asked but unfortunately it had already been asked for by M. Muggeridge, I can only hope he’s in sunny mood.
I did write this mystery story,** largely to get rid of my annoyance: 1. about the Tutankhamen Exhib: as I’m certain everything in it was a forgery, and: 2. about someone who struck me as particularly unpleasant when I was obliged to go a lot to museums &c. to find out about Burne-Jones, I’d very much have liked to show it you, (the story I mean), but it had a cipher in it, and I thought if I produce any more ciphers I shall get thrown out into Little Essex St – I thought quite well of the book at first but it’s now almost unintelligible, it was probably an improvement that the last chapters got lost, but then 4 characters and 1000s of words had to be cut to save paper, then the artwork got lost (by the printer this time) so we had to use my roughs and it looks pretty bad, but there you are, it doesn’t matter, and no-one will notice, and Colin* works so hard, I wouldn’t be surprised to find him, sitting in the Old Piano Factory with a bottle of whisky doing all the packing and despatch himself, so everyone has to do the best they can.
It worried me terribly when you told me I was only an amateur writer and I asked myself, how many books do you have to write and how many semi-colons do you have to discard before you lose amateur status?
I shouldn’t write such a long letter as I know that reading can’t be a recreation for you, but it was so nice to have a letter that didn’t enclose a bread recipe, particularly as bread-making is one of the things I can do and be sure it’ll turn out right, unlike my attempts to get good notices. – I’m just taking an Oxford entrance class and the wretched children are trying to work out – of which of the following can it be said that it has a right and a left? A person, a street, a boat, a pair of scissors, a tree, – a cat? I know they’re confident I’ll be able to answer this – best wishes Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
1 October [1977]
This is a short p.c. to thank you for the 6 copies of the Knox B – incidentally, taking them home feels exactly like bringing a new baby from hospital, so who can say that life’s experiences don’t recur? – I always liked the jacket, but now I see that you’ve got them to darken the green and I think this is a great improvement – best wishes
P.M.F
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
31 December 1977
Dear Richard,
Thankyou very much for the photocopies – as a matter of fact I never really saw any notices after the first 2 because as soon as you sent the money I took the opportunity to go to China, as I’ve wanted all my life to see the Great Wall under snow, however this is of no importance.
The dubious American Knox Center which traces your relationship to the (notional) Knox family, for 5 dollars, tell me that the book will appear in the U.S. at the end of March. I expect they’re trading in on the family tree you did for me, you ought to charge a commission.
Since I see you’re now looking after a different division, could I please ask you 1 thing, that is, if I have any other ideas (NOT about China) shall I try sending them to you or not?
Best wishes for 1978,
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11.
25 February 1978
Dear Richard,
I’m so
rry about the Creighton mistake, I don’t know how I could make it as I’ve read his memorial stone (’He tried to tell the truth’) so often in Peterborough Cathedral – but Dr Vidler, who was the first of many to point out the error, wrote to me ‘he spelt it Creighton, perhaps because he knew no better’ – I don’t see how you can put it more nicely than that. – I’m afraid that there are other errors, I recall that my heart sank when you said ‘I have the right to expect accuracy’. – No-one questioned 25 factorial however –
best wishes, Penelope
P.S. The Oratory of the Good Shepherd want to reprint some passages, I said I’m sure this would be all right, if the publishers are acknowledged –
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11.
11 March 1978
Dear Richard – Thankyou for letting me know about the Readers’ Union – I think it’s wonderful that you’ve got them to take a book which, after all, is about church history, cryptology and theology, not the top ten subjects I’m afraid.
My correspondents now say that it is impossible for a magpie to nest in a chimney and they’ve never been known to do so. I wish I’d asked you about this before, as I’ve just been reading my literary diaries, (which have depressed me intensely) and I see that you know a lot about birds – a magpie did fall down our chimney, however –
best wishes, Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
8 May 1978
Dear Richard,
Perhaps you remember saying that I might write to you about any further literary troubles, or ideas, they’re the same as far as I’m concerned really, so I’m taking the opportunity to ask your advice and will try to be as short as possible, I’m trying to work (in the middle of other seemingly endless duties such as sorting through (literally) thousands of E. H. Shepard drawings) on the Monros, Harold and Alida, and the Poetry Bookshop, the material is good, a very sympathetic human story I think, but I can only use it as it stands, I can’t quote from it directly, not because there are any living relatives whose feelings might be hurt, but because the executors are an Edwardian couple who live surrounded with piles of old papers and photographs, illusions, delusions &c., in a way they have been hard done by, – about 10 years ago they asked Patric Dickinson to do something but it is all hopeless and Patric tells me he is at a standstill and I’d better go ahead.
Among the Poetry Bookshop poets I would include not Masefield or de la Mare whose biographies have been respectively 5 and 15 years in preparation, but T. S. Eliot (who told me that the Poetry Bookshop staircase made an appearance in Ash Wednesday) as far as he comes in; Ralph Hodgson (how pleasant to know) and a number of others, but particularly Robert Frost, Edward Thomas, Anna Wickham and Charlotte Mew. There is terrible in-fighting over the last 2, the poetesses, but I try to find my way round it.
I remember being taken to the Poetry Bookshop as a little girl quite well and the Monros too, this was a time when writing and reading poetry was a natural activity, and at Oxford I thought I’d ask Edmund Blunden and Lascelles Abercrombie to teach me, and since it turned out that Lascelles didn’t believe in education, and was dying anyway, poor soul, he spent all the time talking about his golden days before 1914 with Frost and E. Thomas in Gloucestershire.
Who was Lascelles Abercrombie? you may say, and why am I not being offered a decent typed treatment on 2 pages, but before doing that, as it is so difficult to do, I hoped you wouldn’t mind if I consulted you –
best wishes
Penelope
As research, it is not altogether easy – I’m told I must interview the only person who can remember being picked up by Harold Monro as a young policeman on the beat, but I do not know how to open the conversation.
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
20 June 1978
Dear Richard,
I’m sending you 4 (I’m afraid) sides about this Poetry Bookshop project, for which, however, I can’t think of a name, also one of their lists, as you asked me how many Georgian Poets were ever sold? And perhaps you wouldn’t mind looking at the 2 letters from the Luttrells and Patric Dickinson. (The Royalties on Monro’s published work don’t belong to the Luttrells, but were left to the joint executor, with the poodles, any toothless ones to be put down).
Patric has got very gloomy and has thrown away all his letters except one from Walter de la M., to my ill-concealed annoyance, and says that (nothing) can be done about poetry, and all biography is a mistake. I don’t agree –
best wishes –
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
4 July 1978
Dear Richard,
I just wanted to thank you for writing to your EG biographer, who kindly replied and told me about ET/EG* – and thankyou for letting me know about the PB book, however I feel depressed about this, I think perhaps it’s too difficult to go on with, Patric has now retreated to an addressless cottage in Westmorland as he finds Rye intolerably noisy and his letters are partly in Greek.
Halfway through my examining I thought I might go out just once and as a result I was instantly poisoned, a Ministry of Health inspector took away the food and I feel worse than ever, yours ever, Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
11 August 1978
Dear Richard,
Thankyou so much for your letter about the Poetry Bookshop &c. – I still feel attached to this book and believe it will turn out well in the end, but I quite realise it won’t do for you, and perhaps I shouldn’t ever have suggested it while it was in such a hazy condition, but I thought it might be worth trying.
Thankyou for all your help in the past –
best wishes, Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
20 October 1978
Dear Richard – I wonder if you’d be kind enough to help me with one more thing – The Poetry Bookshop Rhymesheets are suddenly being collected, advertised for in the TLS, &c, so that it’s increasingly difficult to get hold and I’m still not allowed to photograph the BM collection – but I’m still working on them as hard as ever – well, no 7 of the Rhyme Sheet 2nd series (Jane and Ann Taylor’s The Vulgar Little Lady) was illustrated by your mother and she may have done others as there seem to be no complete lists – if you’ve got copies of these, and I do recall that you keep your family papers in cupboards, do you think I could photograph them?
best wishes, Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
28 October 1978
Dear Richard,
Thankyou for The Vulgar Little Lady, I appreciate your lending it to me very much. Please believe I’ll look after it very carefully and return it in the same packing, only may I keep it until I can get down to the BL and compare it with the rhymesheet? I can also give you the correct Add Mss no. then.
I think it’s lovely – the rhyme sheet, (which is a broadsheet really, only one side) is reduced and very inferior. I wonder how Monro got hold of it? Mrs Rooke might know, though she may be rather sick of me after so many B/J enquiries. – The trouble with the permissions is that I can’t reproduce from the actual collection, and no-one else seems to have copies – they’ve all perished, like mine.
I know you didn’t think too much of this Poetry Bookshop book, and that weighed with me as I do respect your opinion, however I still think it could turn out nicely, only it’ll need an Arts Council grant to reproduce these rhymesheets &c properly, it has to be either properly done or not at all. Wish me luck! I’ll send you a p.c. if I ever get anywhere.
Yours, Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
2 February 1979
Dear Richard,
Thankyou very much for the photographs, I’m glad to have them as they’re much better than the originals. – I’m amazed to hear that there is room for any more books about Enigma (of course there’s still the official
history to come), but if this man wants to reproduce the original Gilbert Spencer portrait of Dilly, then it would be best for him to write to Oliver Knox. It’s Christopher (his elder brother) who actually has the original, but he’s rather queer in the head, poor soul, so it’s best to ask Oliver.
On the other hand, when Dilly had to stop work he gave good photographs of the portrait to his staff, and one person who has one is Mrs Mavis Batey. Jozef G. ought to be in touch with Mavis anyway as she was Dilly’s brightest assistant at Bletchley and she is always kind and helpful, (though I feel she’s letting the Dilly persona get a little out of hand in a recent article where she describes him as often stuffing sandwiches into his pipe, surely nobody would do this often?) However I’m sure if she was asked nicely she would have a copy made of her photograph –
best wishes
Penelope‘
[postcard]
10 February 1979
I’m so sorry you’ve been put to so much trouble over these errors in The Knox Brothers – couldn’t you recommend this Bambridge man, to whom I think you’re being rather too kind, to a job with Paul Levy? I’m sure they’d get on splendidly?
Incidentally, Molotov-Pyry is the French spelling, which Gen. Bertrand used himself, but what’s the use. People can always find more mistakes – my son is attacked in Cambridge by the Theological Book Club and this Xmas I was sent more samples of brandy butter from both universities – but I feel ashamed because you are such a good book editor and deserve better from the writers – Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
25 February 1980
Dear Richard – I do wish I’d kept The Vulgar Little Lady I had on the wall of my nursery, but it’s long since disappeared alas – there is a copy of this broadsheet in the BL Manuscript Room, in the Poetry Bookshop envelopes Add Mss 57758 and 57759, I’m afraid I don’t know which of these 2 it’s in but it’s certainly there. – I’m going to Nyork at Easter and hope to see one or two maddened collectors and if there’s a copy on offer I will let you know.
So I Have Thought of You Page 29