Add MS 89161/6/34

Material gathered during the course of writing The Centre of the Bed (2003).

• W. S. Merwin (New York Times, 1995, downloaded from the internet 2001) and Ted Hughes (Dido Merwin, 'Vessel of Wrath: A Memoir of Sylvia Plath', Appendix to Anne Stevenson, Bitter Fame). Dido Merwin's account has been annotated by Bakewell. See The Centre of the Bed, p. 132: 'The Easter [1959] I was pregnant with Harriet we joined the Aldermaston marchers as they came into Trafalgar Square. Our near neighbour, the American poet W.S. Merwin, had walked all the way. His plimsolls were frayed and his feet blistered, but his wife, Dido, offered us supper that night with another young couple who'd recently moved into the area, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.'
• Michael Dean. Typed letter signed, 24 January 2002 (5 sheets). Recalling Late Night Line-Up moments.
• 'Joan Bakewell Talking to Felix [sic] Topolski'. Undated typescript (4 sheets) - refers to a recent fire in his studio (October 1968).
• Newspaper cuttings and internet-derived material relating to: Martin Esslin (obituary, 2002); Jim Haynes (photocopy, including personal annotation by Haynes); William Styron; George Plimpton; Gloria Steinem; 'Former New York Mayor John Lindsay Dies' (2002); composer Humphrey Searle (internet profile of life and work) - see Chapter 9 ('The Party'), The Centre of the Bed; Uri Avnery ('I used to be a terrorist', Guardian profile, 4 December 2001).
• Brief autograph notes on Alger Hiss, Burgess and Maclean, T. S. Eliot, L.S. Lowry, Jean Paul Sartre, Mark Boxer, Ariel Dorfman.
• Internet material on Cornelia Gracchus, Vittore Carpaccio, Paul Delaroche ('The Execution of Lady Jane Grey').
• Folding promotional literature for Reverend Ethan Acres, London Mission 17-26 October 2002.
• Angela Merici and the Ursulines (1998), with compliment slip from Una McCreesh, Ursuline Convent, Forest Gate.