Add MS 88998/2/46

57 communications from Peter Lucas, many of which refer to the formation and the history of the Welsh landscape. Although the main residence of Lucas (and his wife, the poet Anne Stevenson) is in Durham, they also own a cottage ('Pwllymarch' - see item 4 below) in Llanbedr, Gwynedd, which Harwood visited frequently, exploring the locale with both on foot.

• (1). Grantchester, 26 October 1993. Typed letter (1 sheet). Hopes to see Harwood 'on the evening of 17 November for the launch of Anne's new book'.
• (2). Grantchester, 6 February 1994. Autograph letter (1 sheet).
• (3). Llanbedr, 4 March 1994. Typed letter (1 sheet) addressed to Harwood and Harry Guest. Domestic instructions for their (unattended) stay at 'Pwllymarch'.
• (4). Llanbedr, 17 October 1996. Folding card. Harwood visiting 'Pwllymarch' in November.
• (5). Grantchester, 22 March 1997. Autograph postcard.
• (6). Grantchester, 23 November 1997. Autograph postcard.
• (7). Durham, 31 July 1998. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'In this summer our days with you on Cadair Idris and at Tre'r Ceiri are sealed in the memory, an extreme example of that intensification of our delight in Pwllymarch which is your special gift to us.'
• (8). Durham, 22 August 1998. Autograph postcard.
• (9). Llanbedr, 6 December 1998. Folding card.
• (10). Durham, 30 August 2000. Autograph postcard.
• (11). Durham, 30 December 2000. Autograph postcard.
• (12). [Durham], 18 May 2001 (postmark). 'Pwllymarch / Pronunciation' - Rev. Adam Sedgwick to Miss Fanny Hicks, 1846 (1 sheet typed, including autograph note at the foot from Lucas to Harwood), plus envelope.
• (13). Durham, 21 August 2001. Autograph postcard.
• (14). Durham, 23 November 2001. Autograph postcard.
• (15). Llanbedr, 19 March 2002. Autograph postcard.
• (16). Durham, 11 April 2002. Typed letter (1 sheet), enclosing copy letters (6 sheets) from Lucas (10 April) and Anne Stevenson (8 April) to the Snowdonia National Park Authority concerning plans to erect a visitors' building on the summit of Snowdon.
• (17). Llanbedr, 7 May 2002. Autograph postcard.
• (18). Durham, 6 October 2002. Typed letter (1 sheet).
• (19). Durham, 19 November 2002. Autograph postcard.
• (20). Durham, 14 December 2002. Autograph postcard.
• (21). Llanbedr, 9 July 2003. Autograph postcard. 'Belated thanks for the maps. When we get back to Durham I will fill you in on the [Gerard Manley] Hopkins dimension. This will allow you time for further reading before our visit to the area (off the train perhaps?) and to the cave further south near Llandegla.'
• (22). Durham, 15 August 2003. Typed letter (1 sheet), enclosing two maps (2 sheets printed from the internet) of Elwy Valley. The letter includes Lucas's transcription from a journal entry by Gerard Manley Hopkins for 10 September 1874, recording his visit to the same valley, which contains a ruined chapel. Lucas observes that '[Charles] Darwin's cave and Hopkins's chapel are pleasingly close neighbours, as your second map shows. Close too their presences at Barmouth. One day I will try to write something on Hopkins and Darwin, faith and incredulity, in the limestone valley of the Elwy and by the drowned estuary of the Mawddach.' Lucas hopes Harwood willl be able to visit: 'If I meet you at Llandudno Junction we could explore the vale of Clwyd on the way back.'
• (23). Durham, 7 December 2003. Typed letter (1 sheet).
• (24). Durham, 12 February 2004. Typed letter (1 sheet), enclosing 4 photocopy sheets ('Why are Animals Beautiful?'), i.e. an extract from Darwin included in Primo Levi, The Search for Roots.
• (25). Durham, 4 March 2004. Autograph postcard.
• (26). Durham, 19 March 2004. Autograph postcard.
• (27). Pwllymarch, Llanbedr, Gwynedd, 13 July 2004. Typed letter (2 sheets).
• (28). Durham, 6 November 2004. Autograph postcard.
• (29). Llanbedr, 22 July 2005. Autograph postcard.
• (30). Durham, 4 September 2005. Autograph postcard.
• (31). Durham, 23 September 2005. Autograph postcard.
• (32). Durham, 6 April 2006. Autograph folding card, with envelope (annotated by both Lucas and Anne Stevenson).
• (33). Durham, 10 November 2006. Typed letter (1 sheet).
• (34). Llanbedr, 30 January 2007. Autograph postcard. Reading ('struggling with') Geological History of Britain and Ireland.
• (35). Durham, 12 March 2007. Autograph postcard. 'You will surely have read [Vasily] Grossman's Life and Fate, quite engrossing.'
• (36). Durham, 4 July 2007. Autograph postcard. 'Great to have the loan of Heraclitus (who, unlike John Ruskin, has a longstanding invitation to Pwllymarch)'.
• (37). Durham, 21 December 2007. Typed letter (2 sheets). 'So pleased by your response to [Chris Stringer,] Homo Britannicus, you are a great ally. Yes, it is illuminating on the process of progressive Neanderthalisation.' Visiting the British Museum with Harwood on 3 February.
• (38). Durham, 10 February 2008. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'As you are about my only reader, I really do appreciate your response to my piece. It does at least give me confidence to press on doing my own thing in my own peculiar way. I am finally getting to grips with a successor paper, starting with Boyd Dawkins and J R Green and the Huxley-Wilberforce confrontataion of 1860 [....]'
• (39). Durham, 29 February 2008. Autograph postcard. '... if you fancy some geriatric walks....'
• (40). Durham, 21 May 2008. Autograph postcard.
• (41). Durham, 15 July 2008. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'I envy you your week at Lyme. Some at least of the ammonites must be contemporary with the Jurassic we relished in the Ober Engadin.' Invitation to visit Pwllymarch in August or late September/early October.
• (42). Durham, 4 December 2008. Autograph postcard. 'Finished the Richard Holmes with mild fever from untimely virus.' Will be in London at the end of January, 'so, fingers crossed, see you then.'
• (43). Durham, 7 February 2009. Typed letter (1 sheet). Regarding literary executors.
• (44). Durham, 23 February 2009. Typed letter (1 sheet).
• (45). Durham, 16 September 2009. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'Very glad to get the newspaper report about the Georgian discoveries even though it is not immediately obvious what they add to earlier discoveries from more or less the same area.'
• (46). Durham, 13 December 2009. Autograph folding card (Durham Castle). Writing on 'Darwin's seven weeks at Caerdeon in 1869'.
• (47). Durham, 18 October 2010. Typed letter (1 sheet), enclosing 7 sheets (Lucas's transcription of 'the Lowe brothers' Journal 1831', additional draft material, and two Lewis Lloyd reproductions). 'Anne will be going to London on 13 November, the day after your joint Colpitts reading. You are welcome to stay on here but why not come up early and chaperone her down to London'.
• (48). Durham, 16 December 2010. Typed letter (1 sheet), enclosing 6 sheets (including Lucas, 'Cross Foxes and Foxes Counter-Salient: Mallwyd to Westminster' - 'for the website of the Merioneth Historical and Record Society').
• (49). [Durham, November 2011]. Undated autograph postcard, with envelope (annotated by Harwood with date '11/11').
• (50). Durham, 16 December [2011]. Autograph postcard, with envelope.
• (51). Durham, 10 February 2012. Typed letter (1 sheet), with envelope (annotated by Harwood: 'last week in March'). Letter remarks upon the happy conjunction of Richard Fortey, Hidden Landscape (1993), Anne Stevenson, Astonishment (2012), and 'your straight nautilus coming through the letter box, condensed expression of the Astonishment which is such a bond between the three of us.'
• (52). Durham, 24 February 2013. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'That you have joined the herbal tea brigade even in advance of your wheelchair is alarming intelligence, untoward and bizarrely incongruous, but do feel free to bring a supply to Pwllymarch without embarrassment.'
• (53). Durham, 11 June 2013. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'Not long ago on our first glorious high spring day, we went back to Birdoswald, the "Red Rock Fault" of Anne's poem (to be read I hope next month at Ledbury), the associations Arthurian and Richard Fortey/geological - an unexpectedly intoxicating brew.'
• (54). Durham, 10 August 2013. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'It cannot match Abergavenny but Anne is to read with Richard Poole at the inaugural Harlech Literary Festival in late September.'
• (55). Llanbedr, 23 September 2013. Typed letter (1 sheet). In need of a quote from Fortey's Hidden Landscape (book left at Durham) for 'Anne's Friday reading at the Harlech Literary Festival' - 'I would like her to include "Cambrian", p. 381 of her big book'. Can Harwood help?
• (56). Durham, 18 February 2014. Typed letter (1 sheet). Seeking advice on cataracts.
• (57). Durham, 3 March 2014. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'Did you know Anne and Richard Poole are reading for John Lucas in London on 4 April? See you then perhaps?'