LETTERS: Incoming correspondence.
Correspondence to Vita Sackville-West
Sackville-West, Vita. Correspondence.
Enid Bagnold (“Virgilia”) (1889-1981)
Playwright and novelist Enid Bagnold was a life long friend of Vita Sackville-West. It was Vita’s mother, Lady Sackville who introduced Bagnold to her husband, Sir Roderick Jones (who became the head of Reuters). Professionally she is best known for National Velvet and the play The Chalk Garden.
Letters to Vita
22 TLS; some with handwritten pencil notations in EB’s hand), July 4, 1921- October 4, 1960; 2-4 pages, many on letterheads of EB’s residences; letter of 7/4/21 includes watercolor portrait of a dog; letter of 5/14/48 includes pencil sketch of EB at a spa; 3 include stamped envelopes addressed to VSW at Long Barn.
1 ALS; 2 pages.
Praise of Vita and reports of backpacking treks through France to feelings about dogs and broken bones fill these youthful letters. EB mentions artistic and social celebrities such as Jacob Epstein, Desmond McCarthy and Diana Cooper and Ethel Sands. The correspondence of the 1940s highlights Bagnold’s evolution as a writer with discussions on the creative difficulties as well as her of Vita’s work. She also writes of her personal life, expressing sorrow over problems of aging family and friends. All but one of the letters are signed “Virgilian,” Vita’s nickname for her.
Letter to Harold Nicolson
TLS, November 2, 1958; 1 page.
Discussion of Nicolson’s (1886-1968) recently published Some People and description of attending a party with Nigel Nicolson (1917-2004), HN’s younger son.
Correspondence with Nigel Nicolson
3 TLS, 6 ALS (EB to NN); October 31, 1967-December 7, 1973; 2-3 pages, majority on Rottingdean letterhead.
3 carbon copies of letters from NN to EB; November 7, 1967-January 31, 1974.
The carbon copy of a letter written by Nicolson to Bagnold is the most significant piece of this run of correspondence. (The original does not appear to exist in Bagnold’s papers now housed in the Beinecke Library at Yale University. It is most likely that this carbon copy is the only existing record.) His letter of November 7, 1967 offers an intimately new dimension to the publicly known account of his discovery of his mother’s hidden autobiographical manuscript in her tower at Sissinghurst. While her version would six years later form the core of Nicolson’s groundbreaking Portrait of a Marriage, as well as fill numerous pages of his own autobiography Long Life, nowhere publicly has he given such personal details about the effects Vita’s lesbian love life had on her family. Nicolson writes this shortly after he allowed Bagnold to read Vita’s unedited manuscript.
The power both Vita’s manuscript and Nicolson’s letter had on Bagnold inspired her to record further reflections on her own acquaintances with Vita, her mother Lady Sackville, Harold Nicolson, Violet Trefusis, as well as Nicolson and his brother Benedict.
Raymond Mortimer (1895-1980)
4 ALS; March 1, 1927-March 14, 1952, 2-4 pages each.
3 TLS; Dec. 7, 1960, July 5, 1961, n.d.; 1-2 pages each.
Lover of Harold Nicolson and friend of both Nicolsons, Mortimer was Literary Editor of the New Statesman and book reviewer on the Sunday Times.
In these letters he addresses a recent visit to Long Barn, meeting Ethel Smyth (who “squatted like a Hotentot in the corridor of the train and talked to me through the window...”) travel nightmares, defense of a critical review he had given Harold, Vita’s reconciliation of her feelings about Knole, servant problems and a visit he had paid to Sibyl Colefax (“…whose volubility seemed only increased by her immobility and whose hospital room looked like the Duse’s dressing room after a first night…”)
5 TLS (to Nigel Nicolson); March 21, 1968-April 29, 1969; with holograph signatures and notations
Carbon copies of Nigel’s responses
Discussion of Mortimer’s introduction to a new edition of Harold Nicolson’s
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