Add MS 88675-88853

Kathleen Raine Papers

88675-88853. Papers of Kathleen Raine (b. 1908, d. 2003), poet; late 19th century - 2003, n.d. Partly copies; partly drafts. Mostly English, partly Arabic, French, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

The first of Raine's poems were published in the undergraduate magazine, Experiment, while Raine was reading natural sciences at Girton College, Cambridge. Raine's period at Cambridge brought her into contact with a number of writers and artists, one of whom, Hugh Sykes Davies, a surrealist poet, Raine married in 1930. Raine's marriage to Davies did not last however and in 1937 she married Charles Madge, founder of Mass-Observation, with whom she had two children, James and Anna. At the beginning of the Second World War Raine left her husband and moved with her children to Cumberland. During this period Raine wrote the poems published in her first anthology Stone and Flower (1943). Raine supplemented her income from poetry with translating, teaching and book reviews. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Raine published a number of critical and editorial works on Blake, Coleridge, Shelley and Yeats. In 1981 Raine founded the Temenos Academy to promote the 'arts of the imagination' against the secular and materialist culture which she perceived to be taking hold in the modern world; this theme, related to her interest in Eastern religions and mysticism, was the subject of many of Raine's lectures in the 1980s and 1990s. Raine was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry in 1992 and was made C.B.E. in 2000.

The archive reflects the wide range of Raine's literary output containing drafts of poetry, essays, lectures and reviews; also included is correspondence with a large number of writers, artists and poets contemporary to Raine. Raine's documentation of sittings with mediums records her interest in spiritualism, particularly following the death of Gavin Maxwell in 1971, with whom she had formed a close friendship and at one time hoped to marry. Through the Mass-Observation work of Raine's second husband, Charles Madge, Raine came into contact with Gay Taylor, astrologer and writer. Taylor became a close friend to Raine and on her death left Raine her archive of correspondence and manuscripts. The Raine papers were accepted by HM Treasury in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the British Library in March 2005. For further papers of Kathleen Raine held at The British Library, see Add. 73538, 80783 A, B, 88620-88674 and 88854-88856. For Raine's autobiographies, see Farewell Happy Fields (1973), The Land Unknown (1975), The Lion's Mouth (1977) and India Seen Afar (1990).

Paper. One hundred and seventy-nine volumes. British Library arrangement. Classified as follows:

A. Correspondence: 88675-88757

B. Literary and Critical Works: 88758-88797

C. Papers relating to Gavin Maxwell and Raine's Spiritualist Practices: 88798-88804

D. Journals, Articles and Pamphlets collected by Raine referring to her or her Work: 88805-88808

E. Articles and poetry of other writers: 88809-88816

F. Papers relating to the Journal Temenos and the Temenos Academy: 88817-88818

G. Photographs: 88819-88822

H. Diaries: 88823-88827

I. Financial Papers: 88828

J. Family Papers: 88829-88833

K. Papers of Gay Taylor: 88834-88846

L. Miscellaneous Papers: 88847-88853