LETTERS: Correspondence to Islay Lyons.
BRYHER, H.D., GUGGENHEIM AND CUNARD
LETTERS TO ISLAY LYONS
1951-1970
An archive of Islay Lyons’ correspondence from Bryher, H.D., Peggy Guggenheim and
Nancy Cunard; 14 letters, 3 cards, and 22 photographs total, ranging from 1951-1970. Eighteen photographs are by Lyons, of Cunard, and 4 photographs are by Carl Van Vechten, of Bryher, with his stamp in the lower left hand corner of each, and annotations on the versos. Lyons was an English photographer and a friend to these four women. In addition to exchanging correspondence, Bryher, H.D. Cunard and Guggenheim all sat for Lyons’ photographic portraits. These women were also friends with each other; they mention each other in their letters to Lyons; for example, Bryher and Cunard write about Kenneth Macpherson (to whom Bryher was married from 1927 to 1947, and later became Lyons’ lover), and H.D. writes about Bryher.
The archive is broken down as follows:
Bryher 1951-1970:
7 typed letters, signed “Bryher;” 11pp. The final two letters are addressed to “Rover darling” and signed, “Fido.” These two letters were sent to Kenneth Macpherson, who was living with Lyons in the early 1970s; Rover and Fido were longtime pet names that Bryher and Macpherson used for each other.
1 autograph postcard, addressed to “Mrs. Macpherson,” and signed “K”; 1935. “K” is likely Macpherson.
4 black and white photographs, by Carl Van Vechten, 8” x 10,” undated.
In her letters, Bryher talks about topics ranging from photography, literature, books, travel, the Sitwells, psychiatric advice (Bryher was friends with Freud) and taxation matters.
Cunard 1953-1954:
2 typed letters, signed “Nancy,” 4 pp.
1 autograph letter, signed, “Nancy,” 4 pp.
1 Christmas card, signed, “Nancy,” 1 pp.
18 black and white photographs, by Lyons, documenting a lunch she had with Norman Douglas in the early 1950s on Capri, at Macpherson’s Villa Tuoro; 4” x 7,” undated. Some of these images have been reproduced in biographies, including the 1995 book in Lyons.
Cunard discusses African ivories, her issues, depression, photography, Spain, rheumatism, booksellers, plans to get together with Lyons, and mentions a range of acquaintances including Norman Douglas, Iris Tree, Desmond Macarthy, Kenneth Macpherson, Jean Lambert, T.E. Lawrence and Roger Senhouse.
H.D. 1954:
2 typed letters, signed “love from CAT” (a nickname given to her by Bryher) 3 pp.; no date but September, 1954.
1 autograph postcard, signed “H.D.;” 1 pp.; August, 1954.
H.D. writes about her daughter Perdita – who Macpherson and Bryher adopted when H.D. had a breakdown – and also discusses Bryher, Macpherson, Norman Douglas and her depression.
Guggenheim n.d. but 1956:
2 autograph letters, signed “Peggy;” 3 pp.; n. d.
Guggenheim talks about photography and dogs.
***
All of the letters suggest respect and affection for Lyons and his work, and many of them are gossipy and personal in tone. Bryher typed her letters on “Villa Kenwin” stationery, in Vaud, and compliments him on the photographs he took of her and Kenneth Macpherson:
I should never dare squeak one squeal as to a photograph. I have been properly brought up to regard photographers with awe and to be silent. If I might have three of the one of Kenneth and myself, and one each of any 3 of the other by the fountain, I should be delighted. There is one of the Leica ones where I look so fierce that I think it would be fun to send to a friend in America who is preparing my manuscript for printers and objecting to all my pet sentences. I put a little mark on the back. I’d love one of these if it would not be too much trouble. (November 27, 1951)
In her next letter to him, December 20, 1951, she thanks him for the photographs he sent, and it appears she considered using one of them as an author photograph for her upcoming book, The Fourteenth of October (1952). She gushes, “I was delighted to have the photographs – very many thanks for the permission to use them with due credit. I think and hope the wrapper of my book is based on a bit of the Bayeux tapestry only but one never knows, and I am very glad to have a photograph that I can send out if wanted.” In her next letter, sent three days later, she reiterates, “The photographs too have come by the second post, I think they are some of the best I have ever taken, at least I can endure to look at them and the lovely Anticoli garden, I usually feel I want to tear up even the smallest snapshot of myself!” (December 24, 1951)
Bryher’s final two letters are addressed – literally, with pet names – to “Rover” and are signed “Fido.” Bryher might have been especially close to Lyons, thanks to their shared intimacy with Macpherson, and for the fact that he provided photographs for her book, Gate to the Sea (1959).
Cunard’s two chatty letters discuss her forthcoming book about Norman Douglas, Grand Man – to which Lyons contributed the frontispiece photograph – and also mentions Kenneth Macpherson and Lyons photographs (these same topics are referenced in Cunard’s letters to Kenneth Macpherson at this time, separately slipcased). She writes about a book she wrote about Spain (it is unclear which book she is referencing, as she wrote two book about Spain in 1937: one on Spanish poetry, and the other about the Spanish Civil War):
Remember the beautiful photograph you took of me at Villa Touro – the one the sun comes into like a witting shaft (as was well commented on not only by me but by Professeur Denis Seurat). You were distressed that the sun and (as once you saved Auntie’s hideous notes from the file – an equally hideous comparison) so I saved it from outrage and restriction at your hands. THAT is the photograph that sets the key for this book: a sort of looking down into the depths of time. Do you see what I mean? You do, yes.
She talks about the translation she made of Norman Douglas’s Fountains in the Sand:
At present I am at chapter 19 (out of the total 24) of Norman’s ‘Fountains’, and the friend here (the violinist) is an admirable translator. It will really be his work, mine being only the first version in bad French – necessary too! This will soon be finished…Did I tell Kenneth that one of Roger [Senhouse’s] partner’s wrote, recently, saying that the rights of all Norman’s books are with Kilham Roberts at the Author’s Society, and that I should write to them? …I shall never do another book into French it is extremely difficult, far harder than writing directly in French, and it is also a long job of work. What does Kenneth say?
In her next later, sent a month later, she talks about the response to Grand Man:
Yes, my book is out. It came on Aug. 5, and it was a few days later that I heard of this from Roger [Senhouse]. 15 small errors have now been found by me and sent him, just in case there should be a reprinting. He says that the sales were good just on the even of its coming out. I’m delighted at your praise of it and Roger has a fine letter, he wrote since, from Kenneth. I think it IS well produced. Reviews have been incredible imeediate: the “Times” and “The Daily Telegraph” are by far the best (!) and thoroughly good and carefully written.
Both of H.D.’s letters are about her upcoming trip to Rome; she expresses some anxiety about traveling and keeps Lyons informed about her plans. She also mentions Kenneth Macpherson in her first sentence: “I have just posted Kenneth a mad itinerary; this will probably reach you in the same post” (September 1, n.d.), and talks about Bryher, referring to her as “Fido,” (as Bryher herself signs her letters to Lyons):
Do you know if Fido has a room at Grand, next to mine? I would rather if she did N O T, as she is apt to type like blazes and I will be in such a state. I do not mind the actual tap-tap-tap, it is associations, as that was one reason for my bust-up, early after War II. Dear Fido, she did EVRYTHING for me then, as always, but she typed all the time and telephoned outside my door – and I loved her for being there but her tap-tap-tap puts me back in War II; I know, this is madly foolish, and anyhow, I would not be so very long, at Grand.
The “bust-up” H.D. refers to is her nervous breakdown in May 1946. Janice Robinson, in her biography of H.D., explains: “Byher…actually kidnapped her and imprisoned her at Seehof, a private hospital, where she remained until September, when she wrote to Bryher that the breakdown had been due to anxiety about Bryher’s welfare, bomb repercussions, superimposition of the last war illness, and anxiety about the birth and future of Perdita [her daughter]” (Robinson, Janice. H.D. The Life and Work of an American Poet. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982; 340.).
Guggenheim’s letters, written on her “Palazzo Venier Dei Leoni” stationery, are the briefest but still reflect affection; in her first letter, she, too, thanks him for photographs: “Thank you very much indeed for the photos. Mary & I were delighted – Hers were beautiful. One of mine was very nice – the one with the door – the other not so nice” (September 25, n.d., but 1956). “Mary” is Mary McCarthy, who had her portrait taken by Lyons at Guggenheim’s palazzo in 1956, while she was living in that city to research and write her book, Venice Observed. Guggeneim’s second letter expresses gladness that Lyons will be coming to Venice and arranges to have dinner with him when he arrives.
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http://specialcollections.vassar.edu/mccarthy/mm_photos.html
Biographies of Guggenheim, Cunard and H.D. make no mention of Lyons.
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