LETTERS: Editorial Correspondence.
Letters to her Editors
Colegate, Isabel. Correspondence and related material, 1980-1990.
A collection of six letters (4 TLS and 2 ALS) and printed material from British author and literary agent, Isabel Colegate, to her editors at Viking; 1980-1990. There are three letters to Amanda Vaill, two letters to Elizabeth Sifton and one letter to Altie Karper; together with six corresponding carbons or photocopied letters from the Viking editors to Colgate.
Printed material:
The Shooting Party; 1p. typescript list of changes to be made to six pages for the Avon reprint. Accompanies July 16, 1981 letter.
Dust-jackets for Deceits of Time and The Shooting Party, and two versions of the dust-jacket for Three.
Novels (the Viking and Blond and Briggs editions).
Strangers and Cousins; bound photocopied typescript, 38 pp.
The Summer of the Royal Visit; photocopied typescript, 3 pp.; accompanied by a TLS Peter Mason to Amanda Vaill; July 26, 1990; one half-leaf of Sterling Lord agency letterhead, recto only. Regarding Colgate.
A Lesson in Biography; photocopied typescript, 3 pp.
The Shooting Party; 1 p. press release; recto only; on Viking letterhead.
In her first four letters, Colegate briefly discusses two of her books that were published by Viking, The Shooting Party (1980) and Deceits of Time (1988), regarding reviews and changes to be made in an American edition. Colgate’s final letters, written in April, 1988, discuss the proposed dust-jacket of Deceits of Time in depth. She shares her feelings about the artwork, explaining her disappointment in the first letter:
I agree with you in not being much excited by the proposed jacket, of which you sent me a Polaroid photograph. The type is fine, and will look better with the new title, but the desk scene seems rather uninspired. Hamish Hamilton are using a sort of photographic collage reminiscent of their jacket for The Shooting Party, and I like its implication of the past and present. Perhaps a more careful selection of objects on the desk might make it more suggestive! (April 13, 1988)
A week later, Colegate responds to a letter from Vaill in which she had enclosed a proof of the jacket. Colegate firmly but politely expresses her impressions of it; “I am writing to you straight away in the hope that you have not taken the final decisions, as I must admit I find it even worse than the photograph suggested!” (April 20, 1988). She expands her thoughts,
Type and color I must leave to you – but it seems to me that the title is too close to the top of the page, giving an uncomfortable effect of meanness with space. The picture of the typewriter etc. really seems to add [ ]. Would you consider doing as you did with The Shooting Party and filling that space with some part of the photographic collage which Hamish Hamilton are using? I know that their jacket has reached proof stage – & in fact I will ask them to send you a proof as soon as they become available.
The dust-jacket included here was the Hamish Hamilton photographic collage; it depicts two groups of people and a young man standing on a lawn in front of a large country house.
Isabel Colegate (born 1931) is a British literary agent and author. When she was 19, she began working for the literary agent Anthony Blond. When Blond later became a publisher, he published Colegate’s first book, The Blackmailer (1958). Colegate wrote over a dozen novels depicting upper class life in 20th century Britain. These include A Man of Power (1960), Orlando King (1968), Orlando at the Brazen Threshold (1971), A Glimpse of Sion’s Glory (1985), The Summer of the Royal Visit (1991) and The Winter Journey (1995). The Shooting Party was adapted into a film of the same name, and it also won the W.H. Smith literary Award. Colegate is the recipient of an honorary degree from the Univrsity of Bath, and also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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