[MANUSCRIPT] The Diaries of Sylvia Lynd, poet, novelist and Irish nationalist.

Note: Sylvia Lynd, née Dryhurst, poet, novelist, reviewer, significant member of the Book Society, Irish nationalist, daughter of anarchist and suffragette, Nannie Dryhurst (1888-1952). Her papers include, typescripts, manuscripts, unpublished illustrated children's 'books', correspondence, a remarkable diary reflecting her personal, social and literary life (and the cross she had to bear in the alcoholic, Robert Lynd), and substantial autobiographical fragments."Their home in Hampstead was the resort of those in literary circles", including James Joyce (whose wedding reception was held there), W.B. Yeats, Max Beerbohm, H.G. Wells, Rebecca West, etc, etc. More political (nationalist) friends included Roger Casement.Four bound notebooks, 4to, black gilt buckram, unpaginated , 21 Oct. 1935-27 Sept.1939, with unbound Manuscript, [9 Feb.1939-22 April 1940].Vol. 1, 144pp., 21 Oct. 1935-28 Nov. 1935Vol. II, 144pp., 30 Nov. 1935-29 Jan. 1936Vol. III, 144pp., 29 Jan.-18 Feb. 1936Vol. IV, 36pp. used. 26 Feb.-27 Sept. 1937Manuscript, 106pp., 9 Feb. 1939-13 Nov. 1939 and 11-22 April 1940 (some lost?).A frank personal diary in which she writes of her life in literary society, but also of private matters including the difficulties husband, Robert Lynd's, alcoholism causes, financial affairs (personal and literary), her "failure" as mother and writer, her regrets, and her lover(s). Initially she writes against a backdrop of Italy and Abyssinia, but we are made aware of Russia and Spain later, in far greater detail, of movements towards War with Germany, and eventually life in wartime. She reveals strong contacts and friendships in the Literary and Publishing Worlds, partly deriving from her importance in the Book Society. There are more than a few appearances by close friends such as Rose Macaulay and Max Beerbohm, the latter, like others in the Diary, telling anecdotes unrecorded elsewhere.[NOTEBOOK ONE]This diary was begun the day after a typical Lynd literary dinner-party in which diary-keeping was discussed: (21 Oct. 1935) "If I am going to keep a diary - and we were talking of diary-keeping last night - Max Beerbohm telling me that Harold Nicolson writes his up every morning after beakfast - & has so done for numerous years - I may as well begin with yesterday [...]"Her lengthy entry for "yesterday", ending in a typical Lynd dinner-party, introduces us to many of the main topics and themes of her diary and her life: Newspaper-reading; Book Society activities [she was a founder of the Society]; what she had for breakfast, weather; visit to an elderly relative; plants [wider theme of Nature]; preparations for the dinner-party; Robert Lynd's reading; visit from a 'young artist', a protégé of Sturge Moore who wanted "to make drawings of us as Hampstead celebrities"; a headache [general theme of her ill health]; menus for supper; guest-list including Beerbohm, Rose Macaulay, Alan Herbert, Lionel Hale & others; [samples of conversation, mainly literary] Beerbohm talks of his bad memory for poems then tells an anecdote about Forbes Robertson; later conversation about William Morris wallpaper including Beerbohm's opinions, and about fashions in slang (blotto, squiffy etc. [alcoholism a major theme, especially Robert's]); Beerbohm tells anecdote about the British Fleet at Rapallo, Rose Macaulay tells of her time in Italy as a child (the only drunks were British sailors), and Alan Herbert tells a story involving Hilaire Belloc and himself - they found themselves in Weymouth by mistake and decided to visit Thomas Hardy on the spur of the moment; Mrs Max Beerbohm tells a story about an Italian maid and the discovery that she had become old; Alan Herbert and Sheila [Lynd daughter] debate communism, Beerbohm interpolating; Beerbohm reflects on modern poetry (Eliot 'a charlatan'); Herbert 'tight' suggests they all want to be "Communist Jews" [casual anti-semitism as of the age throughout the diary]; party ends c. 2a.m, Herbert falling over, people leaving and Sylvia tidying up.Rest of Notebook One: events, topics and themes, many recurrent:Writing and receipt of letters (e.g from Rose Macaulay, Priestley); her car[s] and driving; the home and household (coal, groceries, shopping, maintenance, servants, etc.); visits (e.g. Sarah Purser, artist, in Dublin); gossiping by phone; casual meetings with literary friends (especially Macaulay); financial matters; Koteliansky; stiff neck; her reading; Robert's work; her extensive reviewing; Mark Gertler [more details in later notebooks - see below]; local (Hampstead) issues; B.J., daughter, goes to have tea with Virginia Woolf by car (reported back); anniversaries of her mother's death [Nannie Dryhurst, suffragette, anarchist and Irish nationalist]; another party attended by the Waughs, and Wells who didn't speak to her; she and Robert go to rugby matches [ witnessing two tries by Prince Obolensky and Ireland's coming of age as a rugby nation]; Gertler visits and tells story about Ottoline Morrell, the Katherine Mansfield/Lawrence circle, and more; tea with various (Drinkwaters etc); discusses the Shackleton expedition with the doctor who was on it; Robert is not keen to repeat the experience of dining with the Rothensteins; party including Gollancz and Norman Collins with much publishing chat (annoying to her because it touched a nerve - "Having ceased to be an author never having made more than £200 by any book [...]"); theatre attendances "Murder in the Cathedral", for example, which she discusses; visit to Sarah Purser in Dublin [discussed below in some detail]; explanation of why Sarah Purser dislikes Yeats (story involving ingratitude); Sylvia has issues with Yeats also (his promise that she should play Deirdre first [she was then 15 ½, and starting her creative career as an actress]); "News Chronicle" office in turmoil for a time, personalities involved, and drinking culture; anecdote about Eliot and his wife/dog; court case involving patent medicine, Hugh Walpole and Ethel Smythe; Gollancz wants Robert to write a book of aversions; "R[obert] affectionate last night & I didn't get to sleep until nearly 7 o'clock"; usual guests at a dinner party, retailing conversation (mainly Beerbohm); underclothes from Harrods; END OF NOTEBOOK ONE.NOTEBOOKS TWO to FOUR & MANUSCRIPT:Similar themes, subjects, the same density of literary anecdote and social activity, illnesses, response to birds and plants. There's a change in balance in the Manuscript section, when they have moved to the country - Nature and world events (the War) become more prominent - at the expense of social life.People encountered, mainly in her social orbit, include those mentioned in Notebook One (friends like Rose Macaulay, etc) but also: Julian Huxley, Clemence Dane, Lovat Dickson, Hugh Walpole, Joyce Cary, Margaret Kennedy, Logan Pearsall-Smith (with Robert Gathorne-Hardy), James Dillon, Elizabeth Bowen, Jack Yeats, Malcolm Muggeridge, William Orpen, L.P. Hartley, Cyril Connolly, Cecil Day-Lewis, Patrick Campbell and others. At a public dinner, she encounters H.G. Wells (giving an account of his 70th birthday dinner) and Bernard Shaw, with whom she and Robert also corresponded; and others.She usually retails conversation and anecdotes, and gives her opinion of the distinguished people she meets.GENERAL POINTS:Diary-keeping irregular. She occasionally doesn't write for a day or days. At the end of the first notebook, she toys with the idea of sealing the volume (i.e. privacy), later (vol.II) destroying it. She thinks it "has some amusing things in it" (vol.II), thinks she should "stop telling tales and making complaints", worries about neglecting the diary, speculates about publication ("it will be an amusing book in a hundred years' time"), thinks she appears in a poor light and should destroy it before seen by others (or keep it to amuse her old age - or others) (vol. III). Once she says she has to hide the diary when Robert comes in (i.e. secret). While in Dublin she writes of herself as "thin-skinned" among other faults. She expresses the need for "emotional companionship" (vol. II). She is "hopeless about money". Her politics is subterranean, but surfaces with an eye witness account of attending a significant Mosleyite Rally at the Albert Hall with Rose Macaulay and James Dillon (vol. III). She is also a member of the "Council of Action" (relating to the Spanish Civil War), suggesting Labour Party affiliation.Book Society activities included the receipt of proofs, the selection of the monthly choice. Some importance in the Literary World, judging a "New Statesman" competition, for example.Her lover is first mentioned late 1935, when she expresses the hope to see him (not named), writing "How tenderly I love him ... really he has been my life [...] for 161/2 years" [22 Oct. 1935 - dating slightly awry at this point] When in Dublin, Nov. 1935, she discusses at length her feelings towards her lover (identified at one point as Gordon Campbell [?], later Minister in the Irish Government - "Robert has left [her] so lonely" he walked into her "vacant heart". She tells Sarah she is giving him up, a "sacrifice" (13 Nov.). She later gets a letter from Gordon suggesting he should come and see her (22 Nov.).She mentions her working on reviews throughout, and articles for "Harper's", but feels at one stage at least, "My talent has died of inanition". She rarely discusses her work (such as it was) apart from mentioning extensive reviewing, but does mention, as if a breakthrough, that she "suddenly wrote a new bit of my 'kingfisher' poem which some day will be done & have some charming things in it", the completion of two poems (24 Feb. 1936), AND "[...] my lecture on Fashion [...] in poetry which will be scamped alas though it is a lovely subject"(vol.III). She occasionally reveals what Robert is working on.She always "write[s] on her knees" not a desk.Robert Lynd's alcoholism is a major theme. She has to experience his drunken rage on occasions, and sometimes put him to bed. His irregular hours disrupt the household ("Robert didn't get up till teatime") and more than inhibit her own writing. She also chronicles his attempts to moderate or give up - futile. She feels at times that it has ruined her life, contributing to her 'failure'. "Robert is killing himself and killing me". Other occasional references to Robert include recollection of his humorous contributions to a dinner-party, and terms for publishing a book of essays. Also their twice yearly argument about his turning out the light. Sex: She hears "the howling of a dog or rather I suppose a bitch. How strongly sex affects the female sex no one could doubt who has heard that sound of misery" (9 Feb. 1939). She expresses a parent's love but also disappointment with her daughters, essentially their boyfriends, lack of achievement, and communist activities. She had hoped B.J. (later Maire Gaster) would marry Bryan Guinness (only fault "fussy"). Their politics are also an issue throughout. At one stage she wonders how they feel about Stalin as he allies himself with Hitler. Mark Gertler features throughout, obviously a close friend of Sylvia at least. In Notebook One he treats his company with anecdotes about the Ottoline Morrell/D.H. Lawrence set, and others. There's gossip later about his staying "with his patron Taylor [...] and excruciatingly bored" (taking "8 aspirin tablets a day"). He is in a sanatorium later, "a year of unhappiness has evidently told on his lungs" (unhappiness originating with Carrington). And she reports and discusses at length Gertler's suicide, when it happens, in her MS. Notes.Dublin visit, 8 -13 Nov. 1935; staying with Sarah Purser, artist; dinner-party with guests including Oliver St John Gogarty; "his talk very amusing, very spiteful", treating Sylvia like a "potential Blackmailer" - extensive reporting of his conversation; she describes the experts who came to see Purser's paintings, including "a Jew of the hook-nosed, receding chin mild variety"; calls made include a Mrs Geoghahan who was also entertaining the Lennox Robinsons (she'd been "a little in love with him", and this inspired her first short sketch - she hints that something happened between them, when Robert was "ailing or refusing to go out"); visits mother's grave; visits Lady Fingal who has Pam Hinkson with her, writing her autobiography - she is trying to get Pam's mother, Katherine, a Civil List pension; other socialising in Dublin; Lady Fingal's party described; her Irish lover (discussed elsewhere) to whom she wrote, asking him to burn her letters; thoughts on B.J.'s unsuitable lover. She ln a world in which servants drift in and out, occasionally causing problems. During the War, they were becoming too expensive and twere liable to be called up. Her social level is also implicated in her car-ownership and her shopping at major stores like Harrods, and mixing with upper classes and aristocracy (Bryan Guinness etc). She and Robert also appear to be in touch with movers and shakers. For example, they have inside information on the relationship of Edward with Mrs Simpson, and had an invitation to the Coronation of George VI. Otherwise, particularly when War starts, she makes extensive informed comment, with sometimes emotional responses.SEE ALSO: her Autobiographical writings, sku #16322. Related Sylvia Lynd material, sku #s 16324, 16325, 16226 16327.