Autograph Manuscript: 'Nonsence' [or Songs of Nonsense]
Scope & Content:
Contains fair copies of poems with minor revisions [probably from the late 1950s - see Mervyn Peake, Complete Nonsense, ed by R W Maslen and G Peter Winnington (Manchester: Carcanet, 2011), p.2]. Label on cover partly obscures old title 'The Parting of the Way'. Towards the back of the volume ar...
Letters from Maeve Gilmore and Mervyn Peake's family. Correspondents are: Lonnie [Ernest Leslie] and Ruth Peake; Ruth Gilmore; János and Vicki [-]; Christopher [Kit] Peake; and Maeve and Mervyn's children Fabian [Peake] and Clare [Peñate née Peake].
Letters of appreciation for Maeve Gilmore's memoir of Mervyn Peake. For manuscripts, typescripts and letters concerning permission to publish A World Away see Add MS 88931/13/1/3.
Unpaginated page proofs (including illustrations) presumably for Mervyn Peake, The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb (London: J M Dent and Sons, 1962) comprising a gathering of four leaves corresponding to pp.1-8 of the printed edition (though two pages are out of sequence).
Contains three proofs of a drawing of Tuveydrop and two of a drawing of Snagsby by Mervyn Peake [presumably for The Drawings of Mervyn Peake (London: Davis-Poynter, 1974)].
Printing plate etched with sketch of man and dog by Mervyn Peake. Surface of wooden block inscribed 'Peake'. This image was used for the Peake family Christmas card of 1981. Undated.
Autograph manuscript in different colour inks and pencil, with authorial revisions and [editor's?] corrections in pencil. As noted on the spine, this is the third volume of Peake's manuscript. Includes list of 'chapters already completed in the rough' on frontispiece. Notes on plot, vocabulary, ...
Revised draft with additional leaves pasted in. At the end of the manuscript there are notes on plot, ideas for titles and dust-jackets and a list of childhood influences [presumably in preparation for autobiography - see Add MS 88931/6]. There are drafts of poems 'As the kite that soars on the ...