LETTERS: Three TLS to the Ilkley Lit. Fest.
Three TLS
Greer, Germaine. Typed letter signed “Germaine Greer,” to Jennifer Harland; January 22, 1973. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Together with:
Typed letter signed “Germaine Greer,” to Jennifer Harland; February 27, 1973.
Together with:
Typed letter signed “Germaine Greer,” to Michael Dawson, March 18, 1973.
Three typed letters, on four leaves of University of Warwick letterhead, with inked emendations on the second and third letters.
Greer corresponds with the secretary, Jennifer Harland, and the honorary organizer, Michael Dawson, of the first annual Ilkley Literature Festival in Yorkshire. Her first letter is in response to earlier communications with Harland, in which Harland invited Greer to participate in the upcoming Festival. Greer responds with trepidation: “I think I probably can manage to be back in England by the 25th. of April. That, however, is the first day of our third term. This, itself, need not be an insuperable problem…The principal problem will be how I can get up to Yorkshire in time for on the 25th. of April and how I shall get back.” She apologizes for her “hysterical” letter of January 4th, and, expresses enthusiasm at the prospect of participating in the Festival.
In the next letter, sent a month later, one senses Greer’s growing perturbation relating to her engagement at the Ilkley Festival. She had been under the impression that her participation would be as a “feminist writer who is particularly interested in the literary aspect of female achievements.” Although Greer doesn’t go into details about how she got the wrong impression, she decides to withdraw from the Festival:
In view of the fact that the panel is being lined up in quite a different way, I think I would prefer to withdraw at this point. I am sure this does not leave you in the lurch because you should find it easy to find another women’s liberationist without my particular literary bias who would be quite pleased to provide a striking contrast to Jilly Cooper. There are of course serious and first class female journalists dealing with important topics in this country that the fact that you have not seen fit to ask any of them seems to me to undermine your claim to a serious interest in women and literature.
She closes, “your disappointment can hardly exceed mine in discovering what a false impression I had entertained.”
The third letter is two pages long and is addressed to Michael Dawson; evidently, Harland passed Greer’s communication on to him and he intervened. Greer elaborates on her decision to withdraw from the Festival – detailing the difficulties her schedule and travel would present – and explains that her feelings for Jilly Cooper played a part:
You say that I seem to take exception to Jilly Cooper. It is absolutely not true. I don’t take exception to Jilly Cooper – I think she is a very charming girl and I’d be quite happy to talk to her under most circumstances. The fact is simply that I do not wish to put in a situation where I appear to attack her in public and I do not wish to be put in a situation where I appear to condone some of her silliness. I wish to avoid that spectacle. We are commonly thought of in the public imagination as rivals on THE SUNDAY TIMES. Many people who write to me tell me what a rat bag she is and many people who write to her doubtless say the same things. I am not prepared to confront Jilly in an environment like a literature symposium.
She goes on to say “I am sure you will find that Jilly Cooper’s name is a very efficient drawcard on your programme and you will not need to exploit my name in order to fill the hall…My only reasons for doing the Festival was because I thought that I would really get something out of it and that it would be worth all the inconvenience of getting there.”
Cooper is an English writer who was born in 1937. She came from a well-known family: her great great grandfather founded the Leeds M
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