LETTERS: Correspondence from Olive Heseltine, Rose Macaulay, and others.
The Correspondents of Sylvia Lynd
An archive of incoming correspondence to Sylvia Lynd, a poetry, essayist, and fiction writer who, though she did not achieve the status of household name generations later, was well connected in literary circles by birth (as the daughter of Dubliner A.R. Dryhurst), by education (at the Slade School of Art and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) and marriage (as the wife of Robert Lynd).
The correspondence is broken down as follows:
Olive Heseltine (1877-1950), novelist under the pseudonym “Jane Dashwood.”
19 TLS, one ALS and one half ALS/half TLS, mostly with place not stated, but letters from Lemon Cottage, Abinger Common; and Ridgeway Farm; three on letterhead of Little Lovett’s End, Hemel Hempstead, Herts; and some in envelopes with postmarks of Hemel Hempstead; South Kensington; Watton, Thetford; Dorking and Godalming, Surrey, all undated, but some in envelopes dated between 1916 and 1938., one signed ‘Olive’ and the rest ‘O.’ (several with ‘Ever thine’ or ‘thine’), and several addressed to ‘Dearest’ or ‘Dearest S’, totalling 2pp., folio; 14pp., 4to; 17pp., 8vo; 4to; 8pp., 12mo. One letter docketed by MG: ‘Olive Heseltine’s first novel was a romance based on her own youth with the two middle sisters, Jessie (Young) & Mona (Cochrane), all the daughters of Sir Courtenay Ilbert. His eldest daughter was Mrs H. A. L. Fisher (with whom I stayed at New College),[…].”
An intimate, personal correspondence from a woman described in her obituary in The Times as having ‘the gift of friendship’. The following extract, from an undated letter (‘Little Lovetts End, Tuesday’) gives the tone: ‘Since I last wrote I have met Francis Birrell: a bijou edition of A[u]gustine, with his domed forehead, spectacles and sudden roar, but with the effect of one of those dear little Chinese mandarins which roll their heads and tongues all different ways. He was very pleasant, clever and entertaining but put me off by the infernal Strachey manner which all that set from Clive Bell to Ca Cox affect: such sheep-like nonsense, with no blood relation to excuse it. And Cambridge men are all tiresome; from the noble boors of the George Trevelyan generation, to the polished perverts of Lytton Strachey’s or the unpolished, ignoble perverts of this. Give me the cultured preciosity of Balliol or the gentlemanly simplicity of New College but take, oh take these tabs away.’ In a letter of 9 April 1919 she writes: ‘I am indeed horrified at R’s [i.e. RL’s] refusing the editorship of the Athenaeum; surely it would have meant less work and more pay anyhow? [...] The fuss made about Rupert Brooke always seemed to me insulting to a nice young man but callow and amateurish poet, in his lifetime, but since his death its really been sickening.’ With photocopy of Heseltine letter docketed by MG: ‘Copy of Part of a letter from Olive Heseltine to Francis Wilson about 1930? Given me by F’s protégé’.
2. Rose Macaulay (1881-1958).
74 ALsS and 16 ACsS, 1920-1949, totalling 191pp., 12mo; 17pp., 16mo, with a few exceptions written from one of the following: Hedgerley End, Beaconsfield; 2 [and then 10] St Andrews Mansions, Dorset St, W1; 20 Hinde House, Hinde St, W1; 7 Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W1; Flat 7, 8 Luxborough St, W1. The correspondence begins with RM addressing SL formally as ‘Mrs. Lynd’, and signing her name in full; by the end she is addressing the letters to ‘Dearest Sylvia’, and signing them ‘Rose’ or ‘R.’ Closely written, often in green ink. 18 of the letters are fully dated between 1920 and 1949, the other 56 all lack at least the year. The cards have postmarks from 1920 to 1948, with two sent from the United States, two from Italy, and the rest from England.
Macaulay has been described by A. N. Wilson as ‘ one of the great letter-writers in her language’, and this correspondence is a fine example of her virtues. Although topics include personal news, domestic advice, her health, her t
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