Dickinson (Patrick)

Dickinson (Patrick)

A large archive related to the British poet, braodcaster and playwright Patrick Dickinson, including: various poems; numerous autograph letters and postcards to his mistress and ‘Muse’ Sarah Hamilton, many including poems and covering various topics ("I woke very early this morning & thought of you, asleep, so near. When I wake tomorrow I shall be in London. I always think of you before I sleep & when I wake & send my love for the next day & night. I always shall", 18 March 1962; "My dear darling, | I wonder when I first wrote to you, & if I started “Dear Sarah”? It must have been to Bedford Avenue. I used to come, usually with a bottle of sherry . . . The shop’s gone now. I must have written you thousands of letters since. Here’s the last - for 1982! No, this isn’t going to be a chronicle of time past, though I remember a lot of it, starting with a beautiful girl on the doorstep - a poem I havent written (yet) | I have never thanked you enough for your sweetness & scrupulousness. Being “in love” & “loving” can be different, or be together. With me, they are together. Sheila’s always known so, & you have always been so generous & sweet & I know she loves you, too. So, thank you. | You have made a wonderful added dimension to my life. When I truly believed you had dismissed me (at the bus stop 1/2 way down Park Lane) I was more utterly miserable than if you’d been dead. To have you come back is a miracle - & I say selfishly given to me poems better than ever I could have written without you. Bless & thank you for that too", 30 December 1982; "When I was a little boy, one was taught of history, & particularly of Kings, who “died of a surfeit” e.g. King John died of a “sufeit of lampreys” - I expect he drank too much & choked. I only say this because I might (but wont) die of a “surfeit of poems” (not mine) but I find this impracticle “sedentary trade” is something I cant do for more than hours-at-a-time", 15 March 1988; "I am reading Tom Wolfe’s “A Bonfire of the Vanities.” If New Yorkers, of whatever class, have this two word foul mouthedness I’m glad Im too old to even want to go to U.S.A. Its good though, & full of Swiftian satire. I dont recommend you read it - it may be the talk of London; if you do, you’ll find your eyes glaze at the adjectives & it’s a fascinating story of a people so foreign & yet speaking almost the same language", 23 May 1988; on his grandchildren "My one sadness in extinction is that I will never see these grow up: Sarah or Tom (by the way the new one is to be called Adam.) I might, if my faculties hold, have another five or so years of darling you, & so Charlotte & Erica by proxy. There is only one way to die, for loving people to die, & that is simultaneously - not by accident & not likely. But, come, no Autumn Morbidity! I do hope I’ll see you soon", 19 September 1989; "The implications of a Gulf War are so ghastly. One wakes: what is the thick black writing cloud? & one can do nothing, as ever, save contemplate the human races. The generality of “the human race” was never true. There are, & always have been, more evil than good people. | I cling on to thinking of my loving friends. I could not love an evil person. And foremost of those I love is Sarah Emmeline" 24 August 1990; etc); letters to Hamilton from Dickinson’s wife the poet Sheila Shannon (mostlysigned ‘Sheila’, some signed ‘S’ and one ‘Sheil’, written in a guarded and seemingly-affectionate tone throughout. On 21 March 1992 "This is not the moment to ask you to do anything extra - especially sorting out papers which may still be at Regents Park - but the problem is this. It’s a nice problem really. John Bell, who used to work with the O.U.P. & is now long retired & has been a dear friend of ours for many years, has a hand press which is his pride & joy, & he produces, for friends, small books every now & again. He wants to do a little volume of Patric’s unpublished poems - about 30 or so & has asked me if I can provide them. Unfortunately - owing to my horrid eye trouble & the fact that P. did not keep MSS books but usually left poems in faint pencil on scraps of paper, it’s going to be difficult for me to find 30 finished poems, good enough to publish - without a lot of delay. But when P. had finished a poem to his satisfaction he wd. ask me to go acrosss to the Library to take 2 or 3 copies - one of which he usually marked to send to you. Stupidly, I didn’t take an extra copy for myself - thinking the originals would be here & we would have time to collect them, & when we had enough, to try to get a new book published. We never did."; on 12 September 1997 she writes of a female critic "I cant believe she’s ever written a poem or loved a poet or lived with one . . ." ); a carbon of a closely-written long letter from Sarah Hamilton to Patrick, the content gushing but not betraying any sign of a romantic involvement, 5 May 1961; an holograph ‘Introduction’ to an anthology of poems (apparently unpublished) A "rather long preamble to explain - or excuse? - my choice’. 2pp, foolscap 8vo, sixty-five closely written lines of text, signed at end, "Patric Dickinson"; an autograph pencil response, apparently to a book of poems inspired by Elizabeth Smart, unsigned., n.d.; an unpublished typed playscript "The Golden Touch/ A Love Story", n.d. [1959]; an early draft of Dickinson's 1965 memoir "The Good Minute", with significant variations; miscellaneous material, including a wallet containing twelve photographs (eight of them of Dickisnon), letters and postcards from various individuals (including Piers Plowright and Ursula Vaughan-Williams), drafts, programmes, newspaper cuttings and photocopies; and typescripts of an original play and a few of Dickinson’s BBC radio scripts, v.s. 1962-2000s

(large quantity)