Beschreibung:

A group of four typed letters signed, 'Louis Macneice, BBC headed paper, 13 July-13 August 1943 & 3 October 1945, to Mrs [Dorothy] Dudley Short in relation to her organising of a poetry recital at the Wigmore Hall [14 September 1943], the first letter suggesting potential poets William Empson, William Plomer, Norman Cameron, George Barker Dylan Thomas '(Subject to certain conditions)... , Ann Ridler & Kathleen Raine (I take it we ought to have some women)', voicing his opinion that he does not approve of Lord Gorell as Chairman, thinking that Cecil Day Lewis and Edith Sitwell are good possibilities, but he is doubtful about having any other Sitwells, 'but you should certainly try for Siegfried Sassoon', the second (longest) letter in response to her draft programme and advertisement, taking exception to the phrase 'Famous Poets', the misspelling of his name, etc., the third in similar administrative vein and the last returning her anthology proofs, a little creasing and soiling, pin holes upper left, all one page, 4to/8vo, together with related autograph letters signed from Cecil Day Lewis (declining the invitation), Edmund Blunden (x2) with mimeographed poem (The Fine Nature) with holograph correction, Clifford Bax, proposing to read two Chinese poems, and noting 'McNiece [sic] reads in a very dull way', Stephen Spender, accepting the invitation, Kathleen Raine (torn with loss and sellotape repairs), Arthur Whaley, William Empson, Ann Ridler, George Yeh (typed letter signed), Dorothy Wellesley (typed letter signed, badly frayed), plus a letter from the artist Patrick Heron enclosing a cheque for two tickets for the reading, an autograph letter signed from Walter De La Mare in 1945 concerning another reading plus various other related notes and letters concerning the reading at Wigmore Hall including the draft foreword to the book then published in 1945 (approx. 25)