712. More Spelling Questions

Although Charles Ricketts was born in Switzerland of both English and Italian descent, and partly raised and educated in France, he apparently never wrote a single letter in a language other than English. (However, he published an article about Charles Shannon in French). 

Charles Ricketts, 'Charles Shannon', L'Art et les Artistes
(février 1910)

His letters to French, Italian, German, Belgian and Dutch friends, curators, dealers and others were all composed in English, which raises the question: how many languages did he actually speak? 

In a letter to his old friend Sydney Cockerell (January 1912), he said to follow

[...]  German & Italian lessons [...] 

[BL Add MS 52746, f 63]

Later, a musical friend of his, Muriel Lee Mathews, was told:

Nice of you to like my article. I have tried to translate it in Italian as I wrote it, many sentences will be better in the other language I believe.

[Letter of 4 August 1919. Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61718, ff 278-80]

However, his Italian articles were most probably translated by the Italian Antonio Cippico, as may be deducted from several letters, including one to his Dutch friend Richard Roland Holst (about 20 April 1920):

Do you read Italian? If so, I will send you my articles on Greece which are being written to be translated into that tongue [...] 
[Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61719, ff 6-8]

Charles Ricketts, 'Lettere inglesi', La Ronda (settembre 1919)

Another letter refers to his 'thinking in French', although he never wrote a letter in French:

Pardon spelling & punctuation. I have been talking & thinking in French and dont know if some of this makes sense.

[Letter to Cecil French, 12 July 1927. Houghton MS Eng 1738]

Even French spelling was beyond his capabilities, as he demonstrated in a letter to Charles Shannon from 19-21 October 1927:

[...] it is before bed time I join in drinking a light champeign [champagne] which I would not do were I by myself.

[BL Add MS 58085, ff 87-8]

He could write faultless letters, but would continue to pretend that this was not the case. In a letter to Robert Ross from 1911 he included a post scriptum:

PS

Why scold me for using two g’s in exagerate, these small imperfections secure my popularity, too perfect I should be a subject for controversy.

[BL Add MS 81717]

In whatever language he thought, as a letter writer, he regularly tried out maxims and remarks that could have flowed from the pen of Oscar Wilde.

711. From the Library of John Le Carré

David Cornwell - better known as John le Carré - died five years ago; his library is now for sale at Maggs in London: John le Carré. Books from The Library of Jane and David Cornwell at Tregiffian (in Cornwall). Le Carré, best known for his espionage novels such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), was an admirer of Graham Greene and John Grisham, but avoided to read too many contemporary novels. His library contains dedication copies of works by Joseph Brodsky (written just after he learned that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize), Philip Roth ('For David- author of a perfect novel') and others.

Charles Ricketts, illustration for
The Passionate Pilgrim. Songs in Shakespeare's Plays (1896)

Cornwell/Le Carré was not a bibliophile, but surprisingly his library contains a Vale Press publication: The Passionate Pilgrim. Songs in Shakespeare's Plays (1896). It is bound for Bumpus in 'green hard grain morocco', 'covers decorated with a border of heart tools, smooth spine lettered in gilt with large and small heart tools, endpaper turn-ins decorated with hearts’. 

There is also a gift inscription: 'For darling Enid with love from Molly Christmas 1920'. 

The identities of Enid and Molly remain obscure.

710. Growing Michael Field Scholarship

During the Great War, Charles Ricketts predicted that in the distant future, the poems of Michael Field (Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper) would attract more readers than in their own time. He made this prediction in a letter to Sydney Cockerell, who was at the time the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, where part of their legacy had found its way.

Works and Days. Extracts from the Journals of Michael Field (1933)

In a letter dated 6 June 1917, Ricketts wrote:

[...] believe me, when we all come into our own, Michael Field will be remembered when the Thompsons, Addington Symon[d]s etc are forgotten.
[British Library Add MS 52746, f 101]

Although Francis Thompson (1859-1907) made the newspapers ten years ago when the building where he lived between 1864 and 1885 - marked with a blue plaque - collapsed, no monographs on his work have been published in the last half century.

Poet and literary critic John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) is best remembered for his book The Renaissance in Italy (1875-1886) and has made a regular reappearance as an early advocate of homosexuality. Following a biography in 1964, his memoirs were published in 1986 and a critical edition appeared in 2016, while a recent study, The Passions of John Addington Symonds by Shane Butler, was made public in 2022.

However, a stack of no fewer than fifteen books about Michael Field have appeared since the end of the last century, not counting the dozens of articles.

It did take a while before academic interest in Michael Field blossomed. A study by Mary Sturgeon (Michael Field, 1922) and a selection from the diaries (Works and Days, 1933) were not immediately followed by a stream of publications about the two women. In the 1970s Paul Delaney published selections from Ricketts's letters to Michael Field. At the end of the twentieth century, the studies on Michael Field gained momentum, thanks in part to the efforts of three individual researchers: Ivor Treby, Emma Donoghue and Marion Twain.

Treby published his archival overview The Michael Field Catalogue in 1998, while Donoghue wrote a concise biography: We Are Michael Field.

Treby then produced a series of collections of Field's poems: A Shorter Shīrazād: 101 poems of Michael Field (1999), Music and Silence (2000) and Uncertain Rain (2002). A third researcher, Marion Thain, published a brief biography and study of the poems: Michael Field and Poetic Identity (2000). Thain became the consultant editor of Michael Field and Fin-de-Siècle Culture and Society. The Journals, 1868-1914, and Correspondence of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper from the British Library, London (Add. Mss 46776-46804, 45851-45856 & 46866-46897). A Listing and Guide to the Microfilm Collection (2003). The publication was, of course, a response to the generally felt need for broad access to the manuscripts to facilitate further research. 

A fresh selection of 'leaves from the journal and letters of Michael Field' was published by Treby in 2006: Binary Star. Thain continued her research with the monograph Poetry, Aestheticism and the Fin de Siècle (2007), a discussion of four of Michael Field's books of poetry.

A selection of books about Michael Field (1998-2024)

After that, the field of research was opened up and publications appeared comprising letter and diary editions and discussions of the works:

• Michael Field and Their World, edited by Margaret D. Stetz and Cheryl A. Wilson (2007): 23 essays;
• The Fowl and the Pussycat. The Letters of Michael Field, 1876-1909, edited by Sharon Bickle (2008): a first scholarly of the correspondence of Bradley and Cooper;
• Michael Field, The Poet. Published and Manuscript Materials, edited by Marion Twain and Ana Parejo Vadillo (2009): a collection of poems, diaries and letters.
• Michael Field. Decadent Moderns, edited by Sarah Parker and Ana Parego Vadillo (2019): 11 essays;
• Michael Field, For That Moment Only and Other Prose Works, edited by Alex Murray and Sarah Parker: first publication of Field's stories and short prose;
• Carolyn Dever, Chains of Love and Beauty. The Diary of Michael Field (2022): an in-depth study of the diaries;
• Jill Ehnenn, Michael Field's Revisionary Poetics (2023);
• One Soul We Divided. A Critical Edition of the Diary of Michael Field, edited by Carolyn Dever (2024)

Meanwhile, under the direction of Marion Thain, an online transcription of the Michael Field diaries is in progress, accompanied by images of the original handwritten pages, since 2021 hosted by Dartmouth University: The Diaries of Michael Field.

709. Barry Humphries ("Dame Edna")'s Collection (Sequel)

Following the high-profile auction of The Personal Collection of Barry Humphries at Christie's - see blog 703. Barry Humphries ("Dame Edna")'s Collection - Forum Books in London announces the sale of The Library of Barry Humphries in a series of auctions starting on 26 March.

Preview of The Library of Barry Humphries (Forum Auctions, image dd 2 March 2025)

The catalogue is not yet available online, but a preview is provided and from certain items one is referred to similar lots, which apparently will also be in the catalogue (but are not part of the preview). For example, the edition of R.M. Rilke's Duineser Elegien in English (Cranach Presse, 1931) mentions, at the bottom of the page, some 'related lots', quite randomly however. On my first reading of the page on Duino Elegies, I was referred to three works, one of which was Daphnis and Chloe by Ricketts and Shannon - in addition to two other editions (a Gregynog edition and a German private press edition) - the second time I was shown Daphnis and Chloe as well as Hero and Leander (in addition to the same German private press edition) and these lucky coincidences never seemed to repeat themselves in the same constellation, sometimes showing no Ricketts material at all but works by the Whittington Press or Editions Narcisse, and every now and then the Duino Elegies itself can be found among the ‘related lots’. 

Preview of The Library of Barry Humphries (Forum Auctions, image dd 2 March 2025)

It is an effective way to tempt you to keep searching through the collection without ever knowing whether you have seen all the interesting objects.

By occasionally viewing the preview again, one is also presented with different selections. For example, a copy of Silverpoints by John Gray popped up, a copy of the ‘regular’ edition, but with a nice attachment and provenance.

Letter from John Gray to Elkin Mathews
about Silverpoints
(Forum Auctions, March 2025)

This copy has the bookplates of Thomas Hutchison and the pre-Raphaelite collector William E. Fredeman, and, tipped in, a note by John Gray about the proofs:

This is the way these pages should be arranged - as I have numbered them - according to Mr. Ricketts. So now Mr. Leighton can proceed with the binding.

Going back and forth through the listed items I stumbled upon some other Ricketts related items, such as one of fifty large-paper copies of J.A. Symonds's In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays (1893) with an ink gift inscription dated January 1893, in the vellum cover designed by Ricketts, and another copy of Silverpoints (no. 219/250), a variant on Spalding paper.