love,
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
12 August [1991]
Dearest Richard – I admit I’m writing to ask you to help me, but not to read anything and not to try and get anything published – it’s to advise me on the case of a friend of mine, Antonia Southern, who used to run the Westminster Tutors in its better days, and who has written a book about Col. Rainbarrow (perhaps Rainborough? She always calls him Col. R.) and the Levellers. She tried the Windrush Press, wh: I’ve never heard of, and they sent it back, saying there were too many Times, and not enough Life, which may well be the case, I don’t know. Anyway, she says she once had an encouraging letter from Robin Deniston and will I write to him introducing her – the trouble is I don’t really know him, it was only that he once long ago asked me to write a life of his father, which I had to say I was not competent to do – but I wondered if you could tell me whether he’s still at OUP, or whether he’s retired, and whether he really did take orders in the end in which case I suppose he ought to be addressed as the Rev.
Antonia also asks me whether it’s true that Lawrence and Wishart specialize in books on the Levellers – I thought they were an old-fashioned Marxist concern – do you know anything about them?
And am I right in feeling that there are an awful lot of books about the Levellers? Hadn’t she better concentrate on Colonel R.? But she’s an historian and says she still hasn’t lost faith in her book as history.
Meanwhile I feel that if Angela has gone and mice have got into the air-conditioning the Harper Collins palace must be almost untenable. But I’m so glad that Stuart’s Big Book* after many worries is proving such an enormous success – what energy he’s got! If he gets this place in Herefordshire I suppose he will have to arrive up at week-ends and put together the roof and chimneys and then walk miles over Hay Bluff &c for exercise, but I expect that will be as nothing to him.
The Booker reading is stupefying me I’m afraid – but I do hope to see you when you come to Highgate in the autumn. Just off to France for a week – I do hope the barn and everything else is going well – love to you and Mary – Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
26 August [1991]
Dearest Richard – this is just a note to thank you for your very real help about Colonel Rainborough, all of which I’ve passed on to Antonia Southern, who will be more than grateful to have it – I did however leave out Duckworths as I went to Colin’s farewell party at The Old Piano Factory before they moved the offices to Hoxton Square, it was just the same as in the old days, everyone introduced as geniuses and Beryl loyal as ever, only asking to be stopped getting too drunk to take a taxi to the airport – but as all the furniture was gone the refreshments had to be put on the floor and the authors’ coats (most of them had come from Oxford and Cambridge in their best sherry-party clothes) had to go in what were once the packing rooms and were thick with dust and bits of paper. I hated to see it all go, and was glad to be able to wish him luck, but I can’t think he’ll be able to publish anything for a while that hasn’t American money behind it. I thought he had the Piano Factory on a council mortgage, but it seems it was a council rent, which has been immensely put up.
I also must put right the impression that Stuart is to become a Herefordshire landowner, it’s a ruinous cottage he saw FOR SALE somewhere near Hay Bluff and it’s not even certain that the owners can be bothered to sell it, and quite certain that it needs all manner of repairs, but he hoped it would be nice for his family to come to from Bolton, and particularly his father, and he wanted to be able to leave Collins on Thurs: evening taking his TS’s to read with him and walk over the hills at the weekend and these he says are the nearest hills to London. All are welcome at the cottage, and I’m sure he means this. But I’m ashamed to say that I can’t make out which of the girls he went to Italy with (certainly not his secretary who is so nice, but takes 2 months to forward correspondence). There were 2 girls at dinner the other night, but Richard Holmes talked with such Coleridge-like profuseness and charm that I couldn’t hear anything they said. Now Mary would have identified the right one immediately. But of course these things can change. Anyway it’s so much better without Suzanne who seemed very demanding, and the Parallel Lives, thank heavens, seems established as a great success.
I’m so glad your lovely barn is converting so successfully. About Fisher and Cunningham I don’t understand, as Oliver said something about reviews he knew were coming out, and hoped to get some reference into them, I’m not sure how, to Mavis Batey and Uncle Dilly and Matapan. – But Churchill and the navy – surely you’ve got the best subject of the whole book there.
Just back from the nouveau art hunting lodge, with stuffed fox in the hall, near the Dinan coast, with wonderful sunshine ripening the maize – no architecture except Mont St Michel, now a nightmare*, on the way back, but beaches with the 3 children and tarte aux pommes every tea-time –
with many thanks again for your advice – love Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
3 March [1992]
Dear Richard,
It was one of the nicest parties I’ve ever been to, and you could see that everyone thought so. Your ‘few words’, in particular, seemed just right, and that can’t have been so easy to do, in spite of your experience of these things. Surely there can’t have been a friendlier evening, even at Great Tew. (No women there, of course) and it was a great treat to meet Patrick O’Brian –
With many thanks
Love
Penelope
I’m so glad Mary was able to come.
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
25 January [1993]
Dearest Richard,
Thankyou so much for your kind invitation to the Painted Hall at Greenwich – I should love to come, as I don’t need to tell you, but I wonder if it would be possible to arrange it later in the year, perhaps when you and Mary have got back from your summer travels, when I hope that though I shan’t be any younger I may be a little less decrepit?
At Oliver and Patty’s party, Derwent May, who is always in wonderful spirits and so usually cheers me up, was talking about Frank Kermode who seems to be a great friend of his and the sad incident of F.K. giving all his notes, his life’s work, to the demolition man – ‘he just can’t manage, he just lets life get the better of him.’ – and my heart sank because I felt I was just the same (although that wouldn’t have worried me if I could write like FK). – All this sounds like self-pity, which is hateful, but I’ve got a much nicer heart specialist at the Whittington now, who doesn’t keep menacing me with warfarin as he knows I don’t like the idea of it, (the idea of rat-poison I mean) and so I am hoping to get into better condition. It comes and goes rather.
Snowdrops out at last – I began to think they were going to miss a year –
love
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
12 January [late 1990s]
Dear Richard and Mary,
This is to thank you so very much for finding a taxi for me last night, (something which looked almost impossible when we got out of the Ivy, and clearly was impossible to the overwhelmed doorman) and a nice archetypal driver who told me 1. that he’d often picked up stage folk from the Ivy and they didn’t look nearly so good close to 2. that the homeless all had their own cars waiting for them just round the corner.
Lovely to see you both and many congratulations on the birth of Hughie. I’m sure he will do great things –
love Penelope
Lovely too to see Oliver and Patty so truly happy – and they’ve had their ups and downs – and surrounded by so much true friendship and affection and as Ol. said, by their wonderful children, all in safe harbour at last.
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
14 September [1994]
De
arest Richard –
Thankyou so much for your letter and needless to say I was very glad to have your editorial suggestions, although I feel it quite wrong that you should have to bother with literals. It’s already been back for 2 retypes to University College London, where Ria gets it moonlighted, but the operative doesn’t know either German or English and my German isn’t up to much either.
All this really began when I tried to find out who really discovered the blue poppy, meconopsis baileyi, as it seems not really to have been Colonel Bailey at all, and one thing led to another, but never mind that now.
It would be lovely to see you and Mary. I thought there might be a chance of your coming to Anne’s party on the 24th, but I expect you’ll still be in France, wonderful to go there in the early autumn,
Why has Stuart grown this beard, and where will Harvill go? Up here in Highgate, where we’ve now got a large fox curled up in the sun and not even bothering to take cover, I don’t know these things –
love,
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
29 November [1994]
Dearest Richard,
I am so sorry I didn’t ring earlier about the DNB lecture. I did want to go, and (after all these years) still felt I was sure to be all right, but now I have Cornish flu on top of all the other kinds, (this is my 4th consecutive go) and would not do for decent company. There are so many things I wanted to do this week, (including, sadly, a funeral, and what I suppose is the last lunch party at the Independent*), but I particularly looked forward to the lecture, and to seeing you.
Well now I suppose there will be Christopher Maclehose Books as well as Richard Cohen books and how many others, how can they all survive? Everything seems to be getting too much for everyone. I was very sorry about Colin. They managed to kill him off between them.
This flu is very lowering.
I hope you will forgive me for asking you something – I can’t ask Stuart, what with one thing and another, indeed many others, to do anything more about this not-quite-novel I’ve written, but I do need a German, not any old German but one who is at least somewhat interested, not in the Romantics, but in the Early Romantics, just to read through and say what’s wrong, particularly in the titles people used, or did, when they spoke to each other, – Years and years ago Michael Joseph got in an expert to read a life of Burne-Jones I did and he altered almost every line, and it turned out that he objected to the biography of artists in principle and this one in particular.
Thankyou very much for your corrections, Richard. I know you have a lot to do.
I spent the week-end at the riding stables and sorting through the angels and shepherds outfits at the church, and trying to find a Jaeger dressing-gown (do you remember them?) for Joseph, and now here I am –
Best wishes for everything
love, Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
2 November [1996]
Dearest Richard,
Thankyou so much for your letter – I couldn’t make up my mind about the DNB lecture, but I’ll write now and see if they’ve got a ticket left and if so I’d love to met you there. I haven’t been to any of them since the H.A.L. Fisher – Mary (Bennett) was a little disappointed by that one as she felt not enough was said about H.A.L.’s work at New College, very difficult to come straight after the Spooners, sp. Mrs Spooner.
The trouble is that after having flu, quite 8 weeks ago, I’ve found it very difficult to breathe, rather a handicap really, and everyone is, I feel, getting very sick of me and my disabilities. I think I made a mistake in going to the Cheltenham Festival, but I’d promised. – But surely I ought to be able to manage a bit better by Dec. 1st
Lovely here and a large fox taking a short nap in the sun in the garden. Cats terrified of it. – Pretty well everything in Highgate is now run by Anne, with complete calm and efficiency. I’d love to be like that, but we must be satisfied with our lot – love to you and Mary –
Penelope
30 September [1998]
Dearest Richard,
I was looking forward so much to hearing you speak and perhaps seeing you at Anne’s on the 22nd, and when I realised the dreaded Booker dinner was on that evening I hoped I might not be needed there, but now I see that because there’s been so much trouble about the judging (and I feel that I’m in more trouble than anyone in some ways, as Irish papers keep ringing up and saying, we see you’re supporting this fellow Doyle, did you know his family were jumping round the kitchen when they heard he was on your list, and is it true this lord (i.e. Nicholas Mosley) has been upset by Doyle’s language?) I shall have to go, although I wanted to tell you, with a heart and a half, as we used to say, that I’d so much rather hear about Pepys. I’m truly glad that the new edition has come out so successfully.
This would have been a great opportunity to see Mary too, and to hear about Hermione, and all I can do now instead is to send my love, which I do – Penelope
23 October [1998]
Thankyou v. much for p.c. – it would have been nice if you could have come to PEN – but Andrew Wilson did nobly, I hadn’t realised he had a new baby and was up half the night with it.
What I do deeply regret is that I can’t come to the Royal Soc. of Lit. for your keenly looked-forward-to talk on A.L.R.* but I have been committed for a long time to a parish meeting in aid of the collapsing (of course) spire, where the vicar is going to show his collection of cigarette cards – you are one of the few people who will understand why having promised I have to go, although I’d so much have liked to hear you speak –
Love Penelope
[undated]
Dearest Richard – Thankyou so much for your letter and I hope to see you in Highgate – I don’t really hold with sending about photographs as everyone has too many and doesn’t know what to do with them, but I thought you might like to have this as you’ve got such a kind (though rather abstracted) expression love Penelope.
Stuart Proffitt*
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
11 June [1990]
Dear Stuart,
Thankyou for the Bookseller – I did ignore the front cover as you suggested and looked at the splendid 2 page advertisement of the G of Angels – and I also want to thank you for the cards – you sent such a lot of them, it reminded me a little of Eliza – ‘why don’t you have some visiting-cards printed for the cat, he knows more cats than we do people –’ but don’t think I’m not grateful, I am, and they too are splendid.
By the way, the NYTimes rang up to ask me not to review a book they were sending (a relief really, as it was a long novel about the death of Tolstoy) because it was published by Holt, and it’s a rule of theirs – they asked whether I was still published by Holt or not, and I said I thought I wasn’t, which I suppose is correct, more or less –
best wishes
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
24 June 1990
Dear Stuart,
Just one or two things which I forgot to say on Friday, which is not the right way to go on talking in any case – I felt depressed at being discarded by yet another American publisher, even though Marion Wood’s manner did seem to get increasingly strange, but there you are, it can’t be helped. I’ll tell the NY Times when they next ring through, as they do every now and again, (although I thought they wouldn’t after my article on Canaletto, about whom I know nothing). On the other hand I was very pleased about the S. Times. Now I have to brace myself up to judge the 1st novels for the Whitbread, the worst job of the lot, but of course if you agree to do something you haven’t the right to complain –
best wishes
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
8 August [1990]
Dear Stuart,
Surely it’s not so hot today, though? The magpies have stopped coming to drink out of the
children’s paddling-pool.
I’d love to come out to dinner on the 23rd, but I think Tosca might be wasted on me as I am so fond of it, and Jonathan Miller is so silly. They encourage him to be silly.
I was going to ask you two things which I have asked you before. I wondered if you could send a review-copy of The G. of A. to Libération (though I suppose The B. of Spring would have been better) and also if you could send one to Richard Holmes, not that I know him at all, but he wrote the only thing worth reading about M. R. James (the 2 biographies of him are dull beyond belief.)
Jane Bown just came to take some pix for the Observer, where they’ve got air-conditioning, as I suppose you have in Hammersmith. She tells me that when Lord Snowdon came to photograph Anita B.* he pinned her at the back with clothes pegs and she was justifiably upset –
best wishes
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
24 August [1990]
Dear Stuart,
Thankyou so much for the dinner on Thursday, which was quite delightful and quite different from anything I do or anywhere I go usually, and thankyou once again for all the work and all the care you’ve taken over The Gate of Angels. If I seemed to criticise the Island of Mull, or mussels, or Goethe, then you must forgive me, and I daresay I didn’t really know, as often happens, what I was talking about. But many thanks once again, Stuart, and best wishes –
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
7 September [1990]
Dear Stuart,
Thankyou so much for your letter and for saying that if I write another novel you would be ready to come to its assistance as you’ve so kindly done before. It (that’s to say the novel) might have to be a bit longer this time, I suppose, as there are so many complaints about the 160 pages.
So I Have Thought of You Page 45