[No surviving envelope]
I have your note of July 18 and must write briefly to catch you before you depart for Grand Manan (I note that The Anchorage, Grand Manan, New Brunswick, is the address) where I shall write at more length. I shall be relieved when you are no longer at Commonwealth Avenue – please give them the enclosed cutting, whichPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt)and Hidcote House;i7 will interest Aunt E. to whom I had already mentioned the project for preserving the garden of Hidcote House1 – and really, I hope, resting; andFoss, Mary;a5 I hope that the journey down, with Mary Foss and Peggy Williams (whom I remember very clearly indeed, and very agreeably – I wonder how she remembers me) will be a very happy one. CONFIDENTIAL14 Alexander Street, Princeton, New Jersey;a3: IThorp, Willard;c5 have had a letter from Willard to say that he hears thatStauffer, Professor Donald;a2 the man who shares with Professor Stauffer the house allotted to me in Princeton, and who was expected to be there at week-ends, has had a break-down; so at his hint I have written to Princeton to ask whether I should stay there or not – but stay somewhere I will. Meanwhiletravels, trips and plansTSE's 1948 trip to America;g5;a7 I ask you whether I should come to see you at Andover, as soon as I can get up to do so; and whether I can come to Andover without any fuss – I mean, it is so difficult to come to see anybody at an educational institution without its being a public event. MeanwhileCocktail Party, Thetitled and nearly drafted;b8, IBrowne, Elliott Martin1949 Edinburgh Cocktail Party;e7TSE's intended first reader for;a2 am trying to get on with the first draft of Act IV, so as to submit the first draft of the entire play (now called provisionally THE COCKTAIL PARTY – for it seems to me that a Family Reunion at which only a part of the family was present, is balanced by a cocktail party consisting only of the guests whom the host couldn’t put off because he couldn’t get to them) to Martin before I leave. IFabers, the1948 Minsted summer stay;h7 am going down to the Fabers’ in Sussex for ten days on Thursday, andBrocklebank, Charlotte Carissima ('Cara')visited in Stratford-upon-Avon;b1 on the 18th have promised to go to Mrs. Brocklebank in Stratford (withWavell, General Archibalda 'pet';a9 the added inducement of being motored down by my pet Wavell, who seems to be a protegé of hers) for a Shakespeare orgy – includingHelpmann, Robertas Hamlet;a1 theShakespeare, WilliamHamlet;b6 Hamlet of Robert Helpman [sc. Helpmann], whom I have already seen in that role and who I think is most unpleasing.2 OtherwiseTambimuttu, Meary James Thuairajah ('Tambi')T. S. Eliot: A Symposium;a1, I shall be in London until the 24th September, when I sail – escaping the publication of Tambimuttu’s book3 andBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)marks TSE's 60th birthday;d9 theFour QuartetsBBC broadcast TSE reading;b1 celebration of my 60th birthday by the B.B.C.4
ChristopherHollis, Christopher;a1 HollisNoyes, Penelope Barker;e85 tells me that Penelope Moyes [sc. Noyes] is about – she has been staying with them, it seems, in Wiltshire – but I have not heard from her. DorotheaMerriman, Dorothea (née Foote);a5 Merriman came to tea yesterday;6 andEliot, Dr Martha May (TSE's cousin);b1 I am taking Martha Eliot to dinner tomorrow; and there are many American visitors, but not Emily.
I hope to write a better letter than this – to Grand Manan!
1.TSE to Edith Perkins, 11 July 1948: ‘By arrangement between the National Trust and the Royal Horticultural Society, the gardens of Hidcote Manor are to be taken over and preserved … I was particularly pleased, because I remember so well your taking me there; and of all the gardens I have visited (mostly with you) that is the one I loved the most.’
2.Having staged a version of Hamlet to Tchaikovsky’s music, in 1944 Robert Helpmann took the title part in an Old Vic production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which was revived in 1948, directed by Michael Benthall, with Helpmann and Paul Scofield alternating the title role.
3.T. S. Eliot: A Symposium, eds Richard March and Tambimuttu (Editions Poetry London, 1948).
TambimuttuFaber, Geoffreyapproached for essay on TSE;k9n had approached Geoffrey Faber on 20 Feb. 1948, asking him for a contribution to this ‘collection of short studies, essays, reminiscences, with a human emphasis, which will give a picture of the poet and the man’. He hoped Faber might write on TSE as publisher. Faber replied, 24 Feb.: ‘I should like to be able to say yes; but my very close association with Eliot obliges me to make certain in my own mind that he would not dislike such a contribution from me. And this I must decide, necessarily, without consulting him.’
MearyTambimuttu, Meary James Thuairajah ('Tambi') James Thurairajah Tambimuttu – ‘Tambi’ (1915–83) – Tamil poet, editor and publisher, was born in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and educated at Columbo before arriving in London in Jan. 1938, aged twenty-three. In 1939 he launched Poetry London, which ran for fourteen volumes through the 1940s, publishing figures including Lawrence Durrell, Kathleen Raine, Roy Campbell, and Keith Douglas. In 1943 he established the imprint Editions Poetry London: works produced included Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Keith Douglas’s Alamein to Zem Zem and Cleanth Brooks’s Modern Poetry and the Tradition. After three years back in Ceylon, 1949–52, he ventured to New York – launching Poetry London–New York (1956–60) – and spent his last years in London. TSE published his anthology Poetry in Wartime (1942). See further Tambimuttu: Bridge between Two Worlds, ed. Jane Williams (1989).
4.‘T. S. Eliot reads his “Four Quartets” on records’: BBC Third Programme, Sun. 26 Sept., at 7.10 a.m.
5.ChristopherHollis, Christopher Hollis (1902–77): schoolmaster, university teacher, author; Conservative MP for Devizes in Wiltshire, 1945–55; convert to Roman Catholicism.
6.Dorothea Merriman, née Foote (1880–1970), married Roger Merriman (Master of Eliot House, Harvard University) in 1904.
2.CharlotteBrocklebank, Charlotte Carissima ('Cara') Carissima (‘Cara’) Brocklebank (1885–1948), only surviving daughter of Gen. Sir Bindon and Lady Blood, married in 1910 Lt.-Col. Richard Hugh Royds Brocklebank, DSO (1881–1965). They lived at 18 Hyde Park Square, London W.2, and at Alveston House, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire: see Biographical Register.
4.E. MartinBrowne, Elliott Martin Browne (1900–80), English director and producer, was to direct the first production of Murder in the Cathedral: see Biographical Register.
1.DrEliot, Dr Martha May (TSE's cousin) Martha May Eliot (1891–1978), pediatrician: see Biographical Register.
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
1.MaryFoss, Mary Foss was an old friend of EH: they were contemporaries at Miss Porter’s School, Farmington, CT, where they acted in plays and were members of a Shakespeare club. EH would often visit the Fosses at their home in Concord, and she taught the daughter, Sally Foss, while at Concord Academy.
2.RobertHelpmann, Robert Helpmann (né Helpman; 1909–86), Australian ballet dancer and actor, director and choreographer, joined the Vic–Wells Ballet in London under its creator, Ninette de Valois, in 1932. In Feb. 1944 he starred in an Old Vic production of Hamlet, directed by Tyrone Guthrie (1900–71) and Michael Benthall (1919–74); he alternated the title role with Paul Scofield (1922–2008).
5.ChristopherHollis, Christopher Hollis (1902–77): schoolmaster, university teacher, author; Conservative MP for Devizes in Wiltshire, 1945–55; convert to Roman Catholicism.
12.PenelopeNoyes, Penelope Barker Barker Noyes (1891–1977), who was descended from settlers of the Plymouth Colony, lived in a historic colonial house (built in 1894 for her father James Atkins Noyes) at 1 Highland Street, Cambridge, MA. Unitarian. She was a close friend of EH.
5.TSE rented Prof. Donald Stauffer’s white frame house at 14 Alexander Street for the first term of the academic year 1948–9. StaufferStauffer, Professor Donald (1902–52) was Professor of English at Princeton; his works included English Biography Before 1700 (1930). TSE worked at composing The Cocktail Party for the most part in his third floor office (room 307) in Fuld Hall at the Institute for Advanced Study. (At14 Alexander Street, Princeton, New Jerseylater inhabited by Randall Jarrell;a2n aJarrell, Randallsubsequent inhabitant of 14 Alexander Street;a1n later date, the poet Randall Jarrell lived at 14 Alexander Street.)
MearyTambimuttu, Meary James Thuairajah ('Tambi') James Thurairajah Tambimuttu – ‘Tambi’ (1915–83) – Tamil poet, editor and publisher, was born in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and educated at Columbo before arriving in London in Jan. 1938, aged twenty-three. In 1939 he launched Poetry London, which ran for fourteen volumes through the 1940s, publishing figures including Lawrence Durrell, Kathleen Raine, Roy Campbell, and Keith Douglas. In 1943 he established the imprint Editions Poetry London: works produced included Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Keith Douglas’s Alamein to Zem Zem and Cleanth Brooks’s Modern Poetry and the Tradition. After three years back in Ceylon, 1949–52, he ventured to New York – launching Poetry London–New York (1956–60) – and spent his last years in London. TSE published his anthology Poetry in Wartime (1942). See further Tambimuttu: Bridge between Two Worlds, ed. Jane Williams (1989).
1.Margaret Thorp, née Farrand (1891–1970), contemporary and close friend of EH; noted author and biographer. WillardThorp, Willard Thorp (1899–1990) was a Professor of English at Princeton University. See Biographical Register. See further Lyndall Gordon, Hyacinth Girl, 126–8, 158–9.
5.GeneralWavell, General Archibald Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883–1950), Commander-in-Chief Middle East in the early phase of WW2. He was later Commander-in-Chief in India and finally Viceroy of India until not long before Partition.