THOMAS, Dylan. Autograph letter signed to Robert Herring, editor of Life and Letters Today , 6 Cwmdonkin Drive, Uplands, Swansea, 1 November 1935. 2 pages, 4to, in blue ink on lined stationery . Provenance : James Gilvarry (his sale Christie's New York, 7 February 1986, lot 253). Apparently Thomas had submitted some verses to Herring, forgetting that he had already sent them to another magazine. "What a very nasty thing to have happened, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it except go down on my knees and apologise. I am awfully, awfully sorry, and I'm a careless old crab and shouldn't be let out. I think you took it so nicely; in your place I'd have probably sent me a dirty postcard and be cross as the devil with me for months. The truth is: sometime in July a chap called Alan Hodge wrote to me, asking for some poems for 'Programme': at about the end of July I sent him the few things I had at hand, and haven't heard a word from him, or from anybody connected with Programme, since. So I thought, as you perhaps, that the paper's died...And being, as I am, a careless old crab, I promptly forgot all about it. Thank the Lord you happened to spot it...I shall send a strong, silent letter to 'Programme' tonight -- though it isn't much of their fault. And I shall have to tie a knot in my handkerchief in order to remind myself to slap myself heartily every now and then. It is a bore, isn't it, this sort of thing happening? Fortunately I have got a poem -- or, at least passages of a poem -- that you might like; I'm enclosing it -- or them -- in the hope that you will like it, despite its obscurity and incompleteness. It's the first passages of what's going to be a very long poem indeed, but each section is a more-or-less self-contained short poem; if you think they're nice, you can use one or two, or all, or whatever you like of them -- calling them 'Passages Towards a Poem' or 'Poems for a Poem,' whichever seems to you least precious...I really do want you to have a poem of mine in 'Life and Letters.' Sorry for the typing and the paper, but my ribbon's despairing and I've run out of proper paper. But as long as the words are legible, the incidental obscurities don't matter so much, do they?...Do you know if Oswell Blakeston is about these days? If so -- or even if not -- perhaps you aren't too cross, or too busy, to come and have a drink one night? DO let me know if you can." In a postscript, Thomas adds: "I've just looked at the mss I'm sending you. It's smudgey and smells of all sorts of things. Sorry. And there are review scraps on the back. Can't be helped." (For a page of the manuscript to which he refers, see the following lot.)
THOMAS, Dylan. Autograph letter signed to Robert Herring, editor of Life and Letters Today , 6 Cwmdonkin Drive, Uplands, Swansea, 1 November 1935. 2 pages, 4to, in blue ink on lined stationery . Provenance : James Gilvarry (his sale Christie's New York, 7 February 1986, lot 253). Apparently Thomas had submitted some verses to Herring, forgetting that he had already sent them to another magazine. "What a very nasty thing to have happened, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it except go down on my knees and apologise. I am awfully, awfully sorry, and I'm a careless old crab and shouldn't be let out. I think you took it so nicely; in your place I'd have probably sent me a dirty postcard and be cross as the devil with me for months. The truth is: sometime in July a chap called Alan Hodge wrote to me, asking for some poems for 'Programme': at about the end of July I sent him the few things I had at hand, and haven't heard a word from him, or from anybody connected with Programme, since. So I thought, as you perhaps, that the paper's died...And being, as I am, a careless old crab, I promptly forgot all about it. Thank the Lord you happened to spot it...I shall send a strong, silent letter to 'Programme' tonight -- though it isn't much of their fault. And I shall have to tie a knot in my handkerchief in order to remind myself to slap myself heartily every now and then. It is a bore, isn't it, this sort of thing happening? Fortunately I have got a poem -- or, at least passages of a poem -- that you might like; I'm enclosing it -- or them -- in the hope that you will like it, despite its obscurity and incompleteness. It's the first passages of what's going to be a very long poem indeed, but each section is a more-or-less self-contained short poem; if you think they're nice, you can use one or two, or all, or whatever you like of them -- calling them 'Passages Towards a Poem' or 'Poems for a Poem,' whichever seems to you least precious...I really do want you to have a poem of mine in 'Life and Letters.' Sorry for the typing and the paper, but my ribbon's despairing and I've run out of proper paper. But as long as the words are legible, the incidental obscurities don't matter so much, do they?...Do you know if Oswell Blakeston is about these days? If so -- or even if not -- perhaps you aren't too cross, or too busy, to come and have a drink one night? DO let me know if you can." In a postscript, Thomas adds: "I've just looked at the mss I'm sending you. It's smudgey and smells of all sorts of things. Sorry. And there are review scraps on the back. Can't be helped." (For a page of the manuscript to which he refers, see the following lot.)
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
