Thankyou so much for all your kindness –
Yours affectionately,
Penelope
Mary Lago*
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
24 March [c. 1978/9]
Dear Professor Lago,
When I was in Oxford the other day I went to see Mary Bennett,** who mentioned your name and told me about your work, and I hope you won’t mind my writing to you about it? She told me (and in fact I think John Christian told me this as well) that you were in the process of editing the studio diaries of T. E. Rooke, and this interested me very much, as I read them carefully a few years ago when I was writing a biography of Burne-Jones.
At the moment I am trying to collect material for a book about Georgian poets, craftsmen and publishers and this has also given me an interest in Rothenstein, who in some cases was their only portraitist.
I should so much like to meet you some time just to talk about these subjects, and wondered whether you would be free at any point in the day? I’m teaching, but only three days a week –
Yours sincerely,
Penelope Fitzgerald (Mrs)
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
30 September 1979
Dear Mary,
You’ll wonder why I am sending back your stamp! Well, it’s a token, because I can’t bring myself to use it when I’m not able to answer your question – I am ashamed to say that I don’t know Mrs Gaskell’s dates and indeed only got the age difference from EBJ’s letters to her. But the person who would know is Robin Bagot (her great-nephew) at Levens Hall, Cumbria, who gave me permission to quote from her correspondence &c. If by any chance he’s died in the last 5 years, the Bagot family is certainly still at the Hall.
I heard from the Ormonds that your work was nearly ready and should like to congratulate you, we all look forward to it. – I’ve had to take to writing novels at the moment to finance trips to Texas where all the world’s mss seem to be gradually collecting! best wishes with all your projects – Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
12 July [c.1980]
Dear Mary,
Just to thank you very much for the tea, and to say how much I enjoyed seeing you again. It was so interesting to hear about your projects that I didn’t even notice when the doors were opened and we were allowed out again (I feel the staff thoroughly enjoy these moments of power, by the way).
The bookseller who specialises in the Poetry Bookshop (and the bibliography of Malcolm Lowry) is J. Howard Woolmer of Revere, Pennsylvania, and the man who’s doing B/Jones selected letters is Michael Case of Arizona State University, but, although he hopes to publish soon, he’s only doing it for his doctoral dissertation, and I can’t help wondering whether he realises how complicated the Pre-Raphaelite field is. Incidentally, he says he’s already had, as part of his doctoral exams, ‘an oral test’ on the biography I wrote on B/J, which I realise now (though of course I didn’t then) is full of things which ought to be put right – but perhaps he’ll find this out as he goes along!
Please give my respect to the Master of St Edmunds – Valpy (my son) is working 10 hour sessions at a time in Nicaragua, trying to train the staff of their new Ministry of Economics, all on strict Christian-Marxist-Cambridge principles, as far as is possible.
Best wishes for your E.M. Forster
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
25 January 1981
Dear Mary,
Thankyou so much for your letter and news – I too think the B/J correspondence an impossible task – I suppose Michael Case has time on his side, as he sounds young, but all the same! – I understand that he inherited the project from a man called Hosmon who collapsed under the task, and also, if I remember rightly, wasn’t approved of by Professor Friedmann. To tell you the truth, I don’t know that the world wants all B/J’s letters. I have just been going through all the unpublished Cormell Price papers which have now come back to his grand-daughter (who has to find room for them in quite a small flat) – partly with the idea of helping Norman Kelvin, but he tells me his Volume 1 is at last ready – and there are a large number of letters from B/J there but mostly of the ‘Dearest Corm why not take the train to Rottingdean on Saturday’ variety – what is the use of it all?
I was glad to hear that the Rookes journals are on the autumn list and am sure you are much better off printing it over there, under your eye and with your daughter’s help – the publishers here do nothing but luxuriate in their despair and imminent ruin, although I daresay they will pull through as usual.
As for me, I continue to want to write about the Poetry Bookshop, and the publishers continue to say that they would prefer a novel. The Georgian poets, it’s true, seem permanently out of fashion, and no-one took much notice when Cape at last published W. H. Davies’
supposedly unpublishable autobiography, which he’d asked them to destroy – but I still want to write this book!
My daughter (whose house this is) is having a baby in May, wh. is a very great event, and wants us to move somewhere with more space, but I’ll send you the new address if we do move, in the hope of seeing you this summer. My son will then be in Texas! – he’s just back from Nicaragua, and the Jesuit-Marxist-popular-Christian experiment from which they hope so much –
best wishes for your researches in 1981
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
7 May 1981
Dear Mary,
It was very nice to hear from you, and very good news that your edition of the B/J Studio Diaries will be out this year – in a certain sense it’s a triply edited edition, since (as John Christian pointed out to me) Rooke couldn’t really have been making all these notes at the time (EBJ hated having notes made of his conversation), he must have written them up in the evening, and then GBJ* seems to have checked them again – but I think they are marvellous material, particularly toward the end of Morris’s life and the end of B/J’s own – and it will be a great advantage and pleasure to so many people to have your book.
I’ve just been asked to talk about Morris and his women friends – (not his wife Janey) and I thought this was rather an interesting subject – as Morris, that really great man, did succeed in treating women as people – but I shall have to do a lot of work, as I’m not a Morris specialist.
I really don’t think we can do any more for Michael Case! As he is based on a university, he should be able to find out where the university and public collections are, and I’ve given him the addresses of a number of private collections to try, but he still seems defeated – and surprised that some of the owners don’t want their letters published, and don’t even want to see him. I believe he’s coming over this summer, however.
My son was very interested to get your news about Dr Coventry. He (my son) misses Cambridge, but I think he was right to accept the Hague professorship, and indeed Dr C. told him so.
Tina (my daughter) is due to produce her first baby in a couple of weeks and now says we must all go and live in the depths of the country and run a small post-office! The simple life! But I do hope to see you in June or July – we haven’t moved yet –
best wishes
Penelope
25 Almeric Road, sw11
[postcard]
24 July [1981]
Yes please, I’d love to come (12.30 on July 31st). It would be a treat to see you and Mary and also a moment of civilisation as everything here is in a muddle I fear beyond repair – it took me quite a time even to find a pen to write this, but I was determined to do so – Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
1 August 1981
Dear Mary,
I want to thank you for the delicious lunch (the club has changed so much – it used to be refined and chilly and I don’t ever remember seeing a man in the dining-room, now it’s lovely, I wonder when the chang
e took place?) and for the chance to see you and Mary, both Marys, and hear about all the many things you’ve been doing. I think Murrays have produced Burne-Jones Talking beautifully, even without the illustrations I could see that, and really I’d have loved to sit there and read more of it, because I’ve never seen Rooke’s introduction before, or all these fascinating notes and extracts from his letters to Cobden-S, &c. – however I must wait and look forward to publication day. – I do hope though I don’t give a wrong idea about John Christian, I am sure it’s his excessive shyness and diffidence which sometimes makes him seem strange, and he is so scholarly and so devoted to classification that perhaps he doesn’t see the need for biography. He read my book for the publishers and was most kind and helpful, but he didn’t like it, and he didn’t pretend to! I know he’s been through a difficult time, and was very glad to see that he’d done the introduction and notes to The Little Holland House Album (those early B/J drawings), quite recently, and that was beautifully produced and may so to speak set him free and start him off writing again, I hope so, as he is a very nice person.*
I think the studio diaries and the illustrations are going to be a revelation to a lot of people, who don’t realise how witty Burne-Jones was and what a delightful wry attitude he had and how deep his human relationships went – they just think of him as ineffectual, pale and bloodless – and personally I’m grateful to you for getting the University and the publishers to see this and producing such a good book.
Mary looked so well, didn’t she? An advertisement in favour of retirement, what is it that makes everyone keep working like this? Because, as she pointed out, this is her second retirement.
Our country address is going to be Theale Post Office Stores, Wedmore, Somerset. But I shall have to be in London during the week and do so very much hope to see you when you come back again – best wishes for Forster and many thanks, Penelope
76 Clifton Hill
London, NW8
20 January 1982
Dear Mary,
How nice to hear from you, and to get the good news about Burne-Jones Talking, which, I do think, is an excellent title, suggesting that it’s authentic and conversational at the same time. I’m so much looking forward to it. We had an Aubrey Beardsley feature here on BBC 2 this week and it was most disappointing, and didn’t indicate the relationship between B/J and AB at all, or the all important Mantegna frescoes at Hampton Court which I dare say AB would never have seen at all if B/J hadn’t suggested it. The presenter kept showing a hand making pen and ink dots by candlelight, which was hardly necessary, as all the viewers must have known he was an artist in the first place – but no matter.
I’m living half in London and half in Somerset, the very depths of the cow and cider-apple country, because my son-in-law and daughter have decided to give up teaching for the time being, and run a little shop and post-office – this is largely on account of their first baby, who, sad to say, is very delicate – the muscles that control his breathing are deficient – though he always smiles gallantly – and we’ve had a great deal of anxiety and still do have. We can only pray that he’ll survive the winter and be better in the spring.
I haven’t heard any more about Michael Case, but really I shall be amazed if he ever gets as far as anything like a complete edition as he behaves in such an awkward way – he asked Eileen Cassavetti, in fact told her, to make type-out copies of the letters she has in Paris for him, Xeroxes not being much good because he finds it difficult to read B/J’s handwriting! She is kind, but I don’t know whether she could find time to do it. He seems to have set out for his research without any proper advice or guidance.
I loved your description of Washington – and hope to see you in the summer when you arrive in Cambridge –
best wishes –
Penelope
76 Clifton Hill
London, NW8
26 April 1982
Dear Mary –
How nice to hear from you and just when I was going to write anyway to congratulate you on the appearance over here of Burne-J Talking – my only objection (which was quite trivial) was to the red boards which, with the jacket, didn’t make quite ‘a jewel of colour’, but I thought the diary came out splendidly with your notes and tactful editing, it was all so alive and attractive – I went down to the BBC to chat about it in Kaleidoscope – needless to say they cut out all the remarks I’d hoped might be left in, and the extracts were read in another studio, so I never even knew what they were, but no matter, they have to work in a hurry and the presenter said he’d loved the book and the notes had given him the answers to everything he wanted to know.
My family news is rather sad, as Tina’s baby boy died in March, at the age of 9 months. – Tina is my elder daughter, who is running the little post office stores in Somerset with her husband. He was born very delicate, but battled on gamely, then he became too weak to go on breathing, and we buried him in the churchyard at Theale, a lovely country place where primroses grow wild. They’re carrying on with the shop, and they’re still young, but it was a very heavy loss.
I think Forster, from the shades, must be truly grateful to you and N. F. for this royal treatment – every week of his life! (Prof. Haight once told me that he knew what George Eliot did on every day of her life, but he can’t exactly have meant it.) It will be a splendid collection – as to Michael Case, I’m quite of your opinion – I don’t think his supervisors should have encouraged him to go out and gather letters when he’s quite unfitted to do so – he couldn’t get access to a number of collections, including George Hardinge’s, simply because he didn’t know how to ask, and as you say, he can’t really read Victorian hands at all; he wrote to Eileen Cassavetti asking her to type out her letters for him, but why should she? I wish him well, but I think he’s undertaken something altogether too much for him and ought to look for another subject.
I hope you’re coming on July 24th and hope to see you and hear more of your news – best wishes, Penelope
76 Clifton Hill
London, NW8
9 August [c.1982]
Dear Mary –
I was so glad to hear from you and to know that you’d been to Aldborough, which I remember that you were looking forward to, and that you’re settled in for a while at Cambridge. I’d also like to congratulate you again on B-Jones Talking which looked so nice and had such excellent reviews, but meanwhile of course you’re approaching the end of E. M. Forster – because I assume that if vol: 1 is to be delivered in Sept. and if you’re keeping up your usual amazing rate of work and energy, you’ll be well into vol: 2 by now.
My rate of work is very slow, as I’m partly down at Theale Post Office helping with the bantams and looking after the garden – however at least William Morris’s unfinished bit of novel is going to appear* and I’ve just signed a contract for Charlotte Mew’s life – Charlotte who? everyone says, in spite of which, I’m told that several other people are writing biographies of her as well, and there are difficulties of all kinds about papers &c – and she is of no interest in the U.S., a terrible condemnation, but I shall go ahead as I’ve signed up.
I’ve just been down to see Mary Bennett at Rock Cottage, she looked so well in the lovely old house surrounded by apple trees and pastures with sheep, poultry, rabbits and piglets kept by her goddaughter – Mary was going through the papers of her mother’s family, sitting among piles of letters in the apple-room, I don’t know what she’ll do when it’s time to bring in the apples.
I note that you’re very busy at the moment and I am off to the seaside just for a while, but are you up in London ever on Wednesdays, and if so why don’t you come to lunch one Wednesday (my day off from teaching) – the only trouble is I’m up at St John’s Wood, in 2 strange little rooms (but they suit me) at the top of a house – but there are ways of getting there and the 159 bus, though not as frequent as they ought to be, comes quite near. Any Wed: in September?
best wishes
Penelo
pe
76 Clifton Hill
London, NW8
28 September [c.1982]
Dear Mary – Thankyou very much for your letter and Wed. October 6 would be lovely – I asked my stepmother Mary Knox (everyone is called Mary, but why not? It’s my middle name as well) to lunch that day as well, she’s the illustrator of Mary Poppins and the daughter of E. H. Shepard – Collins publishes Mary Poppins and they’re my publishers as well, so we all have to tramp down St James’s Place* at one time or another. I wonder what you think of them?
I’m hoping you won’t find it too difficult to get here – [map drawing]
It sounds a real expedition and it is, I’m afraid, but I’m just hoping it will be a fine day and looking forward so much to seeing you, about oneish, but do come earlier if you can. I’m on the top floor, in the old attics – the house is falling to bits and the banister is broken, but I’m sure you’ll manage – I’m very fond of the person the house belongs to and don’t like to say anything about the banister, because I’m sure she hasn’t noticed –
Excuse all this and many congratulations on finishing volume 1 – best wishes, Penelope
76 Clifton Hill
London, NW8
28 February 1983
Dear Mary,
I was so glad to hear from you on the subject of Michael Case – because I had been feeling a trifle guilty after writing him rather a severe letter – I answered some of his questions off the cuff so to speak (as I hadn’t got my books with me – but they were so elementary that I could do that), but it seems evident that he can’t read Burne-Jones’s writing, knows amazingly little about the period or the people concerned and hasn’t (for instance) got Virginia Surtees’ Rossetti catalogue, which illustrates all the pictures, after all – and of course I don’t mind trying to help researchers, but I feel he’s bringing the whole idea of research into disrepute! and would be far better off doing something else.
I’m delighted to hear that EMF is going so splendidly, but oh dear how quickly the year seems to have passed. Please give my love to Mary (Bennett) and John, and I do hope to see you before you go. I’m still at work on my little poetess, Charlotte Mew, and have grown very fond of her, as one does – best wishes, Penelope
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