Manuscripts and typescripts of 'serious' poetry and nonsense verse. Some of the typescripts were probably produced by Peake's own typist and others may have been made or commissioned posthumously by Maeve Gilmore.
Contains revised poems in autograph and typescript. Many leaves pasted in. Peake also lists categories for his poems: love, war-time, dejection, ego, objective poems, nature, abstract. There are numerous drawings of heads, figures (including sketches of his children and wife Maeve Gilmore), anim...
Almost complete set of poems as published in Mervyn Peake, Selected Poems (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), lacking only 'Thunder the Christ of it'. With editorial corrections. Includes original folder.
Includes notes on 'alternative ending of act 2' [for 'The Wit To Woo', written in the early 1950s] and draft of speech for the same play [spoken by Percy Trellis]. There are possible titles [presumably for Peake's drawings 'The Works of Adolf Hitler', 1940] alongside a doodle of a man slaying an...
Loose leaves, some with autograph corrections. There are multiple versions or copies of many of the poems. Some supplementary typescript and manuscript leaves have been pasted in. Original dates and places of composition have been inscribed in Maeve Gilmore's hand (these range from 1937-1960). Th...
Autograph Manuscript and Typescript Leaves: 'Unpublished Poems'
Scope & Content:
Comprises: A. Revised autograph manuscript in pencil and ink. 'Serious' poems are at the front of the volume; nonsense poems at the back. Some typescript and manuscript leaves pasted in. Includes drawing of Mervyn Peake's mother on her deathbed and related poem (1939). Includes a later note [in ...
Complete autograph draft of narrative poem written in a juvenile hand. Editorial corrections in ink and pencil. Illuminated letters at the beginning of each paragraph.
Revised autograph manuscript of the poem published as A Reverie of Bone. Complete draft written in a Stationery Office book, 'Supplied For the Public Service', when Peake was stationed at Larkhill. Includes small detailed illustration of a bearded man and various other sketches of skulls, heads ...