Correspondence and papers relating, chiefly, to the Arts Council’s appraisal of the Poetry Book Society
Scope & Content:
Includes the Society’s submission as part of the appraisal process, the Council’s appraisal report, discussion of the report’s findings amongst Society members and management, and the Society’s initial reply to the report. The appraisal was part of the Arts Council’s programme of assessment of it...
Papers relating to W. H. Auden from the Poetry Library of the Arts Council
Scope & Content:
Contains a photocopy of a typewritten, unpublished W. H. Auden poem ‘Ode to the New Year (1939)’, and related correspondence. The library copied the poem from a copy lent to Charles Osborne by Tom Driberg but Auden’s literary executor, Edward Mendelson, asked the library to remove its copy from s...
Correspondence of the Poetry Book Society with the Poetry Society
Scope & Content:
The correspondence relates to the confusion that arose when Faber and Faber published two books, Vernon Watkins’s The Death Bell and Norman Nicholson’s The Pot Geranium, with bands suggesting, incorrectly, that the books had been chosen and recommended by the Poetry Society. As a consequence of t...