ARCHIVE: JB PInker Publishing correspondence.
Dudeney’s Agency Correspondence Archive
Dudeney, Alice. The Alice Dudeney – J.B. Pinker Archive. 1906-1933.
Voluminous correspondence between Alice Dudeney (nee Whiffin), a Sussex novelist who published under the name “Mrs. Henry Dudeney,” with her London agent, J. B. Pinker. The archive breaks down as follows:
138 TLS
58 ALS
18 ACS
One Autograph receipt
With associated correspondence including two TLS from her publishers William Collins Sons.
Dudeney writes primarily from St. Anne’s High Street, Lewes, Sussex, until 1921, and thereafter primarily from Castle Precincts House, Lewes.
Alice Dudeney was a local novelist with an international reputation, the strength of her characterizations praised during her lifetime on both sides of the Atlantic. The recent publication of her diary has ignited a resurgence of interest in her life and work, evinced by the revival of eight of her novels in 2009.
The 196 Dudeney letters (138 typed and 58 in autograph), date from between 1906 and 1933, with none from 1907-1911 and 1932. They total 202pp., 4to; 1p., 8vo; 60pp., 12mo. The cards date from between 1910 and 1929; the receipt (for £135 from the publisher Methuen) from 1915.
Dudeney’s lively letters show her very much a hands-on author, discussing with her agents the handling of manuscripts, signing of agreements, communications from British and American publishers, serial rights, cinema rights, payments, dramatic rights, war conditions, copyrights and royalties, magazine and newspaper publication, offers, receipts, commissions, titles, reviews, the correction of proofs, income tax.
On November 2, 1927, her publishers wrote complaining of her presentation of her typescripts, and declaring that the manuscript of Brighton Beach has “given us a very great deal of trouble. All Mrs. Dudeney’s manuscripts do the same. [...] There is another point, too, which we thinks militates against the greater success of Mrs. Dudeney’s books, which is that she insists upon ending up every story on a tragic and gloomy note.”
Dudeney responds in her longest letter (four pages), two days later, declaring that she is “very fond of the colon: my punctuation - like all the rest of my work - is individual perhaps. Yet it very seldom violates any grammatical rule. [...] We come to the more important point of the tragic character of Brighton Beach. It would be impossible to give such a book a happy ending. As a matter of fact, it is a book of strikingly original idea. Its value is that and it is that which should make its success. [...] Also, does it follow that an unhappy book is, of necessity, a commercial failure?”
In their counter-reply, Wm. Collins Sons note, “The last book Seed-pods was sent in with many corrections made in ink and our printers could not read it. Accordingly we had to have the whole thing re-typed. Mrs. Dudeney was again most considerate about this and paid half the expenses of re-typing. The only difficulty about Brighton Beach was that there were certain ink corrections and insertions which were not quite clear and in the opinion of our reader the punctuation was very unusual. We are ready to admit that he may have been somewhat pedantic, but the fact remains that it took him a great deal of time to go through the manuscript.”
The following extracts from Dudeney’s letters to Pinker give a flavor of the larger archive:
June 12, 1912: “I come to London so seldom because I dislike it so much - or, putting it exactly, I love the country so infinitely more - that sometimes I feel a little out of touch.”
February 12, 1915: “You will remember that I could not bring myself to consent to any royalty under twenty per cent and that you wrote back ‘I think I could get Mr. Methuen to consent to pay twenty per cent up to 5,000 copies and twenty-five after.’ I certainly think that although one might in necessity waive the twenty-five that I should start with twenty, as, frankly, anything under is, so far as my experience goes, only for beginners - or writers on esoteric subjects!”
August 19, 1915: “To write a play has always been my ambition - as I suppose it is the ambition of every novelist. But there never seems time and anyway the technique would bother me. If somebody else would do it! I shouldn’t care so much about losing half the money.”
May 17, 1916: “I only publish one novel a year and that in the autumn.”
May 24, 1916: “As to the uncertainty of publishing - of course it isn’t my department, so I mustn’t dogmatise!!!. But what I do feel is that if the Germans smash us (which they won’t!) nothing will be worth while: probably I wouldn’t write a book at all - I’d be broken hearted and savage in some remote corner of Europe - if they’d let me go there! If they don’t smash us, I take it publishing won’t be worse next year than this?”
January 21, 1922: “As to the short stories - it really is ironical! No: it is I who am absurd - and never seem to grow up in this matter. I ought, long ago, to have realised that reputation does not connote money-making. […] if I wrote detective stories or something quite improper, dressed up to look respectable, I would sell like hot cakes.!!!”
September 9, 1926: “I am feeling more and more - and I wrote to you in the same strain, if you’ll remember, nearly two years ago, that I simply must do more in the short story line. I don’t mean reputation; that is secure and has been for years. I mean money!”
Also included are ten items of correspondence to Dudeney and Pinker (five items each), all typed, 1914-1927. This incoming correspondence comprises:
4 TLS from The Authors’ Alliance, London (one with lower part cut away)
2 TLS from Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd, London
2 from The Daily Chronicle, London
One from US publishers The Bobbs Merrill Company
One from Eric S. Pinker to Dudeney, with autograph note by her at foot.
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