Add MS 89422/2/4

Brearley's letters to his friend 'Bill' Duff, as edited and typed by Mara Loytved-Hardegg. The letters span the period 1974-1977.

In her introduction to the letter extracts, Loytved-Hardegg records that at the beginning of 1978, following Brearley' death (19 November 1977), she was passed Brearley's letters by Duff: 'In the autumn of 1978 I started to type out fragments of these letters, especially those parts concerning me and our relationship.' Her edited text is now all that remains of the letters: 'the original letters got lost after Bill's death'. The text established by Loytved-Hardegg was the basis for the slightly abbreviated text of the letters as published in G. L. Watkins (ed.), 'Fortune's Fool': A Life of Joe Brearley (Aylesbury, 2008). According to Watkins (p. 510): 'The original letters were loaned to Mara following Joe's death but were destroyed on their return.'

The file comprises:

• 'Diary of a Relationship', edited by Mara Loytved-Hardegg, 1978-79. Bound, typed and photocopied text (A4), body-text numbered within the copies pp. 1-104.
• A second and unbound text which is largely identical to the bound text save for the addition of two subsequent prefatory statements by Loytved-Brearley (dated 2002 and 2007). The other differences concern the clarification of individual words from Brearley's letters that were apparently not legible to her. Gaps in the text of 'Diary of a Relationship' on pp. 32, 62, and 77 and 96 are here inserted/annotated by another hand (by Watkins?). In fact, pp. 32, 62 and 77 are also present here as photocopies of pages from Brearley's original autograph letters; they are presumably copies that Loytved-Hardegg had kept because of their difficult legibility before returning all of Brearley's original letters to Duff. There are also a few editorial annotations in pencil (by Watkins?).