Previous Lot Next Lot

Auction: 20025 - Historical Documents, Postal History and Autographs
Lot: 685

Great Britain
Art and Literature
T.S. Eliot
1934-37 a fine group of eight TLS from Eliot to Gwyneth Thurnburn at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, Royal Albert Hall and J. Clifford Turner. All letter paper headed either "The Criterion, a Quarterly Review, Edited by T.S. Eliot" or "Faber & Faber Limited Publishers", and both cases addressed from 24 Russell Square, London. The series of letters appears to trace the arrangement of a chorus for the performance of a new Eliot poem, potentially to be performed at Canterbury with the help of Thurnburn from inception to completion.
1934 (31 Jan.) Eliot thanks Thurnburn for her "notes on timing" adding that the "choruses seem to take a half-minute or a minute longer than I had allowed".
1935 (1 March) Eliot encloses a poem (unnamed) "which seemed to me to have greater choral possibilities than Mr. Pugstyles. But you must choose whatever you want. There is another about Billy M'Caw, the Remarkable Parrot, but I do not think it so suitable".
1935 (8 March) Eliot writes to Mr. Clifford Turner promising to send "Mr. Pugstyles and The Difficulties of a Statesman ... The former is unpublished, and the latter has never been published in this country". And in a letter to Thurnburn of the same day they seem to have chosen Mr. Pugstyles as the poem to be performed.
1935 (15 Oct.) Eliot arranges with Thurnburn to attend rehearsals, adding "I do hope that you like the additional chorus, and I feel confident that this performance will be even better than the last".
1935 (25 Nov.) Apparently nearing the performance period as Eliot requests that the "new girls in the chorus ... all [have] copies of the play", adding that "it is never safe to trust the spelling of programmes", adding further "I cannot help wondering at the ability of the chorus to go on night after night, apparently for an indefinite period and in the midst of their work" ... "When I wrote the play I never expected that it would be played for more than a week or two at a time!"
In the two latter letters the relationship seems to drift as Eliot declines multiple invitations from Thurnburn. A wonderful group with insight into Eliot's lesser known poems.




Subject to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium. For more information please view Terms and Conditions for Buyers.

Estimate
£1,500 to £2,000

Starting price
£1500