Add MS 83684-83698

HUGHES-BASKIN PAPERS

83684-83698. Correspondence and literary manuscripts of Edward (Ted) James Hughes, poet (b.1930, d.1998) and Leonard Baskin, artist and sculptor (b.1922, d.2000), comprising letters sent from Hughes to Baskin, many enclosing poetic and other literary manuscripts, together with occasional letters and enclosed manuscripts from Sylvia Plath and three volumes of galley proofs for River, Moortown, Orts and Poetry Is (published as Poetry in the Making); 1958-2000, n.d. Partly typewritten and photocopies. Including several volumes of manuscript drafts without accompanying correspondence, press cuttings, articles and other published material and various items of ephemera. The collection documents the whole of the forty year friendship and creative collaboration between the two men, who first met in 1957. Baskin, an American artist, sculptor, book illustrator and publisher, collaborated with Hughes on a number of publications, including many for the Gehenna Press, a small private press specializing in fine book production which he had founded while still a student at Yale University. The papers have been arranged chronologically as far as possible. Other significant Hughes material may be found at the Robert Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, at the University of Liverpool Library and at Exeter University Library. See Letters of Ted Hughes, selected and edited by Christopher Reid (Faber, 2007) for publication of some of Hughes's correspondence. For bibliographies, see: Keith Sagar and Stephen Tabor, Ted Hughes: A Bibliography 1946-1995 (1998); Dictionary of Literary Biography: Poets of Great Britain and Ireland since 1960, ed. Vincent B. Sherry, 275 vols (Detroit, 1985) xl.i pp. 258-276; Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Children's Writers since 1960, ed. Caroline Hunt, 275 vols (Detroit, 1985) clxi. 197-209. For other Ted Hughes manuscripts held at the British Library, see Add. 78756-78761, Add.74257 and Add.53784. Refer to the Sound Archive catalogues for recordings of Hughes reading his work and other recordings. Purchased from Lisa Baskin, Jan. 2004.

Paper. Fifteen volumes. British Library arrangement.