I’ve managed to trace all the titles but 3 and I am almost sure that this is the only illustration your mother did for this series.
Best wishes with your list –
Penelope
Harold Macmillan*
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
19 November 1977
Dear Mr Macmillan,
Thankyou very much for your kind letter about The Knox Brothers. I did find it difficult to write about them, although, or perhaps because, I loved them so much, and I can’t say how much it means to me that you should have approved of my book,
Yours sincerely,
Penelope Fitzgerald
[Macmillan had written to Penelope:
‘I have just finished reading “The Knox Brothers” and I feel I must write to send you my warmest congratulations on the remarkable skill which you have shown in keeping these four lives separate yet strangely conjoined. It must have become extremely delicate and difficult to do and in addition I think you have brought out marvellously well the characteristics of these remarkable men. Naturally the one I knew best was Ronnie with whom I had a deep friendship for many years. Dillwyn I knew fairly well and also Wilfred at one time. You have made it all so living and, to me, in my old age deeply moving.’]
Mavis Batey*
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
25 July 1980
My dear Mavis –
Thankyou so very much for Alice’s Adventures in Oxford – I was feeling deeply depressed as I always do in the middle of summer and am now quite cheered up – the cover is so ingenious in the first place, the water-colour tones on the front match so well, and then on the back the little door opening into the garden give exactly the right idea of not knowing where fact ends and imagination begins, just like L. C.’s preface to Sylvie and Bruno. As for your book, well, I’ve been longing to read the rest of it ever since you let me see the bit of it about the frog footman at the Chapter House door, and what a good book it’s turned out to be – my only complaint is that I’d have liked it to be 10 times longer and perhaps it will be, as I’m not certain whether this is the only version. What struck me was the immense amount of research work, ingenuity and care that must have gone into these delightful stories and resemblances and references. Of course, you don’t really want all this hard work to show, but I wish there was a way of making people notice it more. – I think the talking fish and the chestnut tree in the Deanery garden are my two favourites – for detective work, I mean, if you can call it that – but the whole book is as interesting as it can be and puts Alice in a new light and a very endearing one, I think. What’s more they’ve got it up well and laid out the illustrations in the right places and it’s not too easy to get printers to do that in these days.
I notice you’re listed with Charles, Prince of Our Time, and the Life of Christ, as a Treasure of Britain, Mavis – that looks like a good start! Very best wishes for the success of the book – love Penelope
I love the bit about the decanters ‘finding their way back to the Common Room’.
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
19 November [1990]
Dear Mavis,
Thankyou so much for your letter and for your kind words about my books. The Knox Brothers will (at last) be out in paperback some time next year, and I must try and get this idiotic mistake of mine about Dilly’s birth-date put right, although I’m supposed to have finished doing the corrections. You put it so tactfully – ‘the trouble with the date 1883 having been given previously’ – I did the ‘giving previously’, and you’ve been put to all the trouble of finding out the right date. Not for the first time, the solution has been left to you. I’m so sorry, Mavis, and at the same time grateful to you for putting things straight. – I’m afraid 1883 has been repeated wrongly in a number of places, but from now on they will have to go by the DNB.
I’ll let Oliver know – he has a grandson called Edmund now – whether he’ll turn out to be like my father, who can tell? None of my 8 are like him at all.
I agree with you – too many fifth men – but Frank Birch is still never mentioned.
best wishes and many thanks –
love
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
London, N6
4 September
Dear Mavis,
Thankyou for the letter from Ralph Erskine – I must say I shall be very interested to see what he has to say in his entry on Frank Birch. It could be a great deal, certainly more than I ever found out. – Thankyou too for the copy of your letter to Sir Philip Duncombe and his reply. You’ve gone to the point and so admirably – (I must admit I’d never quite realised that you never actually saw the double-cross machine until they made Station X – ) but the most important point for this particular letter was the cottage and the possibility of restoring it while Peter Twinn and you are still ready and able to help. Really you have been ‘valiant for truth’ in the whole business, Mavis – the truth would have disappeared without you.
I wrote ‘restoring’, but in fact you write the rooms were just as you remembered them – it’s a question of what to put in them. I went to Christopher’s* funeral and couldn’t help feeling that there was very little of Dilly left at Courns’ Wood Cottage, but then I could hardly have expected that there would be.
love, Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
London, N6
22 June [c.mid-1990s]
Dear Mavis,
Thankyou so much for your letter and for sending me what you call a few notes, but is actually a more interesting account of Ultra. You’re quite right, the word seems to have insinuated itself, I suppose because it’s showy. What would Humpty Dumpty have thought of it?
I’ve been trying very hard to remember the name of the man who came to talk to the Highgate Lit. and Sci. Institute. I was asked to meet him at dinner too, and was disconcerted when he wouldn’t talk about Dilly at all. I think he was in charge at Bletchley – but this would have been quite three years ago. The trouble is that the Institute is not exactly closed, but dormant for the summer, so I’ll have to wait to find out from the secretary.
Do please give my address to anyone who might help. I do so much appreciate what you’re doing.
with best wishes to you and to your family –
Penelope
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate
London, N6
20 February ‘99
Dear Mavis –
Thankyou for your letter and, although Dilly didn’t (after all) appear in the Abwehr programme, I must take the opportunity to say that if you hadn’t told the world about him so faithfully and accurately I honestly think his work would have been forgotten, or almost – so many other names and colourful and talkative people appeared, and then there have been dramatisations, like that play, The Code-Breakers – so that altogether, Mavis, we feel truly grateful to you.
I don’t know what you thought of Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen. She’s a very fine writer (Claire, I mean) but even she can’t find out anything more about the Austens. You got as far as anyone can, I think.
Please do send me the details about the future of Bletchley if you have a moment –
love and best wishes
Penelope
Malcolm Muggeridge*
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
30 October 1977
Dear Mr Muggeridge,
Please may I thankyou for your kind notice of The Knox Brothers (as a matter of fact you advised against this title as you said it would sound like a circus, but Macmillans’ wouldn’t listen to me) – and particularly for your remarks about the four of them. It meant a great deal to me to read what you said about Uncle Wilfred. – Thankyou so much –
Yours sincerely
Penelope Fitzgerald
Colin Haycraft*
; 25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
11 April 1978
Dear Colin,
Thankyou very much for your letter and the contract for The Bookshop. I’m returning the carbon. I’m so glad that you and Anna thought it was all right.
Please may I ask one thing, where there are lines dropped, could they stay dropped, I know copy editors can’t bear the sight of this and always close them up, but I did want them there.
As to the biography of Leslie Hartley, it was you who asked for it, so if it ever got into manageable form I should always ask you first whether you would like to see it. But so far although I’ve got some way, I haven’t got family permission to go ahead (therefore you really don’t need to read the rest of this letter). – Your cousin was very kind and as helpful as he could possibly be, he seems to know everyone, and to be a kind of general literary election manager.
I did succeed in getting invited to LPH’s childhood home, unchanged since 1900, with the old brass electric light fittings and baths &c, and by talking to his sister I got the psychological key to his novels, every novelist has one, I suppose, the situation his mind goes back to when he’s alone – and I also discovered that his manservant was trying to poison him with veronal and that was why his bank-manager locked him up and forced him to make a will, not in the manservant’s favour – I was surprised when Francis.** commented on this, that surely anyone would prefer to be murdered by someone they loved, rather than have them leave and blackmail you – these seemed to him the only alternatives, but I can think of so many other duller ones. Anyway, the result of our efforts is that Leslie Hartley’s sister and Lord David have started ‘going through’ his papers, which are all stuffed into old toy-cupboards &c – this is a pity, as Francis says he’s had his letters back, but many are now missing, not surprisingly I suppose. I would say that I have covered the ground fairly well, but the permission simply depends on who drops dead first. There is a Quest for Corvo atmosphere about the whole undertaking I’m afraid –
best wishes
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
23 April [1978]
Dear Colin,
Thankyou for the money, and here’s the typescript of the Bookshop and the notes you asked for, I’m not much good at these I’m afraid.
I regret the jacket, but have to leave that to you of course.
I’m getting on as well as I can with LPH and am going up to Derby when I can manage it to interview the brother of the murderous manservant, but I can’t sign on to write anything because I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to deliver. I can’t even press too hard for permission because then I should have to write under the supervision of the family and Lord D. –
best wishes
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
14 August [1978]
Dear Colin,
I wonder would you be kind enough just to let me know what is happening about Charlotte Mew? On this subject I’m told: 1. Duckworths are bringing out a new edition with a new introduction (Editor of Four Decades of Poetry) 2. Duckworths are not bringing out a trade edition, but Carcanet are printing the Complete Poems with Alida Monro’s introduction (Val Warner, but this was two months ago and I had to meet her for half an hour only in a pizza bar on Victoria station) 3. Duckworths are reprinting the old edition (Arts Council). It’s very hard to get an answer from Val, she asked me (on Victoria station) to find out who Charlotte Mew was in love with, which I did, as it’s hard for her to research in Swansea, but what’s happening I can’t tell. (This is all relevant to my interest in Georgian poets &c I shd: explain.) best wishes Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
12 October [1978]
Dear Colin,
Thankyou so much for the advance copies of The Bookshop. I like it very much, and what’s more the jacket gives a very good idea of Southwold common looking towards the Blyth. I should also like to thank you for a cutting you sent me from the Dutch Library Review. That was really nice. I put it in my scrapbook.
I asked for information about Leslie Hartley in the TLS and got a number of replies, some referring discreetly to the drink problem – one of my difficulties however is that the only person I can find who was actually at Harrow with Leslie (in 1910) is Paul Bloomfield, who is at the same time much too easy and much too difficult to deal with, and also I wonder how much longer he’ll last?
best wishes to you and Anna, Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
21 October [1978]
Dear Colin,
Thankyou so much for your letter. I was staggered as I had to write The Bookshop in rather a few weeks and I remember even the place-names weren’t spelled correctly and had to be put right, but I was so pleased, particularly as to be shortlisted* makes me more typical of The Old Piano Factory**
I’ll make sure my son goes over to Cambridge to vote for John Sparrow – I’m ashamed to say that none of the rest of us have ever had the money at the right time to take our MA degrees –
best wishes
Penelope
I am in hopeless trouble (as usual) with all my Georgian permissions. Except for yourself, everyone who has to deal with them becomes maniacal, secretive, suspicious, very old or very ill. I’d no idea there would be such trouble.
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
1 November [1978]
Dear Colin,
Could I just ask you one or two things, first of all I am very sorry not to be able to come on the 8th, I hadn’t realised it was a Wednesday and so my day off, and I’m due to go to Cambridge and am not sure when I’ll get back that night. 2. About the tickets, (or whatever they are) for the dinner† on the 22nd, my elder daughter would very much like to come, but you said that wouldn’t matter as you would be able to get another invitation (or whatever it is) – evidently there’s much more point in you being there than me – is that all right? 3. If I could ask for a word of advice: do you think it would be a good idea to write another novel or not, as I’m never likely to do much better than this?††
Thankyou very much for the cheque [incomplete]
[postcard]
6 December [c.1978]
I do like your satire* as I was brought up to take Latin very seriously. I must tell you that I think you ought to have kept Catulli as a line ending, it sounded right – Wouldn’t illacrimabiles omnes have done for the runners-up – also doesn’t Jones usually translate as Junius, I think that’s what Milton did? – thankyou very much for the chocolates.
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
19 January [1979]
Dear Colin – Thankyou very much for the notices of the Bookshop. – I’d just like to say, having taken the advice, not to say instructions, you gave me to find another publisher for these novels, that I’m very grateful for the start which you and Anna gave me. – I’m sure you were right in saying no-one else would have taken them, and I was happy at Duckworths and very much admired the firm for its spirited conduct of the war on every front. – Best wishes and I hope you and Anna have nothing but happy years ahead – Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
24 January [1979]
Dear Colin,
I’m terribly distressed at having done the wrong thing and caused trouble when I meant to remove it. That is, I’d thought the most helpful thing to do would be to take myself off without making a fuss. You did tell me, you know, that if I went on writing novels you didn’t want it blamed on you and that Anna thought I should do detective stories and also, by the way, that you had too many short novels with sad endings on your hands, and I thought, well, he’s getting rid of me, but in a very nice way. I don’t at all expect you to remember everything you say to 32 authors, but the trouble is we take all these remarks seriously and ourselves too seriously as
well, I expect.
I would have liked to stay, because I’m not the sort of person who ever has any money anyway, and I admire the firm so much and then you were always so clever and funny that everyone else seemed exceedingly slow by comparison. However having made this mistake, and I’d rather be taken for an idiot than a liar, I’ll be careful to make it clear that it was my mistake, which is what you want, I think.
I told Collins that I wouldn’t give them an option on non-fiction just in case you were still interested in the LPH biography, – by the time I get the necessary permissions for that I expect you’ll have forgotten my various errors and misunderstandings so it would be worth asking you again –
best wishes
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
16 February [1979]
Dear Colin,
Thankyou for your letter, it’s quite true that I’ve been going on doggedly with L.P. Hartley, and got quite a long way with it, but still with the same difficulty, that 1. permission to quote letters &c has to come from his sister, who by the way I’ve come to think is really more interesting than Leslie 2. she’d never give it if she saw the draft 3. I expect her to outlive me by far as she is only 78 and the Hartleys are indestructible, LPH only drank himself to death with the greatest difficulty. If the permissions ever come right, then I’ll see if by any chance you are still interested in it.
best wishes
Penelope
Thankyou very much for the copy of The Bookshop –
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
16 May [1979]
Dear Colin,
Thankyou very much for letting me know about the German translation of The Bookshop – it was a nice piece of news for me – as to the royalty statement &c, you didn’t in fact enclose it, but perhaps one day.
best wishes
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
5 September [1979]
Dear Colin – Thankyou so much for writing, I value your good wishes a great deal,* as you can imagine.
So I Have Thought of You Page 30
