[Manuscript and Typescript] The Prose of Sylvia Lynd, poet, novelist, 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 Her papers include, typescripts, manuscripts, unpublished illustrated children's 'books', correspondence, a remarkable diary reflecting her personal, social and literary life (and the cross she had to bear in the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.A. ManuscriptED = early draftFC = fair copyHC = heavily-correctedIC = incomplete draftLC = lightly-correctedMB1925 = The Mulberry Bush and Other Stories (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1925)N = notes1: 'This is a curious thing, that though a woman may be much the same sort of person at eighteen, & indeed at eight, as she is at thirty; it is only by the time she is thirty, that people in general begin to notice her.' ['Fainter Echo.'] HC. [1p., only]2. '[...] for himself would stir in her no further excitement.' [1p. Numbered '7'?]3. 'Have you - we ask our memories - Have you some postage stamps, some sewing silk,' LC. [1p. Numbered '16'? Addressed on reverse to 'Mrs. Robert Lynd, | 5 Keats Grove, | Hampstead.']4. 'The Honors of Science. | earthborn, insensible to pain,' N. [On both sides of a review slip.]5. 'The seventies which saw compulsory free education established for the poor and the barrier of the school-leaving age interposed between children & factories, saw also the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children'. HC. [2pp., second page beginning 'Numerous philanthropical societies'.]6. 'Nov. 1st. St. Martin's Summer. A still, pale blue day with a warm sun. Ursula looked in at 11 o'clock to say that the Bulgarian gardener she had promised me has gone back to teaching drawing & won't be coming.' LC. [4pp.]7. 'Shall I tell you a story? You must say what shall it be about?' LC. [1p.]8. [Observations by infant 'S' and 'BJ'] 'S | I can't help rubbing my hands together when I think of that stuffed date.' LC. [1p.]9. 'Something between an Irish peasant & a Roman Emperor, Sir Pierce Avery confronted Mrs. Ely acros the Persian carpet.' ['The Babes in the Wood'.] HC. [2pp.]10. 'Which was reality? Those dark despairing conditions which were huge'. ['Chap'.] LC. [1p.]11. 'When income said that she looked like a cat that has been stealing the cream she replied, closing her eyes & opening them again, "My dear, I look like the cream".' ['"Equal parts of "Ib & W:V".] LC. [1p.]12. [List of 29 poem titles, beginning with 'The Shepherd of the Flowers' and ending with 'Saying Goodbye To Olive Heseltine'.] LC. [1p.]13. 'Before we consider the nature of poetry, we should be wise, I think, to consider the nature of poets.' ['What we Demand of Poetry.'] HC. [33pp., numbered 1-34, with 17A, but lacking 15, 18.]14. 'The nineteenth century was a century which derided superstition. The dominant note was struck when Northanger Abbey appeared in 1818.' [Note at head of page: 'This paper is really a peg on which to hang ghost stories. Credulity is a subject on which I may regard myself as something of an authority. I can believe anything for twenty minutes & almost anything for at least two hours.'] HC. [20pp., numbered]15. 'The title of the present series of lectures is almost daunting in its importance. To analyse living has been the object of philosophers since philosophy began.' ['Analysis of Living. | From the point of view of Belles Lettres.'] HC. [30pp.]16. 'In calling this paper the Return of Form I have not been influenced by the fact that the Flat Racing season is about to begin - Though Form in conjunction with racing is by no means a subject to be ignored.' ['The Return of Form.'] HC. [24pp.]17. 'Fashion as we all know affects every Branch of existence. It affects not only clothes & architecture & gardens but equally markedly morality & creation of the arts.' ['Fashion & Permanence in Poetry.' In another hand: 'A LECTURE given by SYLVIA LYND, about 1933.'] HC. [21pp., numbered 1-18A, with 14A, 14B, 15A, 18A, but lacking 16.] [With typescript (by MG?), 8pp., foolscap 8vo.]18. '[...] at intervals he lifted it out & wiped his perspiring head with it.' LC. [1p. only]19. 'This, I fear, will seem to most readers, a dull story. The only thing to be said in its favour is that it is true.' ['Story for Psychical Researchers, | By Sylvia Lynd.'] HC. [7pp., numbered 1-6 with two p.3s] [On reverse: 'From Mrs. Robet Lynd, | 5 Keats Grove, | Hampstead. | N.W.3'.]20. 'It is claimed by a number of contemporary writers that the modern age has made a complete break with the past.' HC. [4pp., with the upper part of the second page torn away, and the others numbered 1, 3 and 4]21. 'In "Without My Cloak" Miss O'Brien's earlier novel, [ends here]'. ED [1p.]22. 'Mr. Blunden is a writer of fine prose. It is not poetic prose, which as a rule is a clear indication that the writer is a very minor poet; but elegant, dryly witty, sensitive, perfectly lucid prose in the eighteenth century tradition.' HC. [1p.]23. '[...] swear that wherever she found herself in London she would let him know [...]'. ED. [1p. only]24. 'The village of Sparrowfield did not love Lady Mostyn. It regarded her as Londoners regard fog or the people of Provence the Mistral, with hatred. That is, with pride in her hatefulness.' ['Out of all Proportion.'] HC. [8pp.]25. 'Anticipation, reality, remembrance of anticipation, remembrance of reality, it is these that supply the pattern of life, its hopes & its disappointments.' HC. [5pp.]26. [Page of miscellaneous notes, on 'Purity Bank' 4to cover.]27. 'Sir, The problem of education seems to me a much simpler one than Mr. Wells & his opponents suppose.' ['Mr. Wells & Education. | To the Editor of the "Daily News."' Signed at end 'Sylvia Lynd.'] LC. [3pp.]28. ' "You want me to tell you why we lost Number Nineeteen," said the woman in yellow, "the truth the whole truth & nothing but the truth?' ['Number Nineteen.'] LC. [21pp.]29. '"You want me to tell you why we left number nineteen?" said the woman in mauve. "The truth the whole truth & nothing but the truth?" ['Number Nineteen.'] LC. [18pp.]30. 'Psychologists tell us that we only forget the things that we want to forget. It would be truer to say that we only remember the things that we want to remember.' ['The Value of a Bad Memory.'] HC. [16pp., numbered 1-15 with 3A.]31. '[...] represent something besides brute force then. | To return to the question of league tyranny however. Apart from the physical tyranny of boycotts there is also the tyranny of what a man shall think.' LC. [7pp., only]32. 'The little girl sat on the dunce's stool and dangled her legs. Her governess sat reading the grammar book and really looking quite interested in it which was certainly strange when you consider what grammar books are like inside.' ['The Castle in the Forest.'] LC. [6pp.]33. 'Heresy is an opinion opposed to the established or usually accepted doctrine. When I proposed to speak on this subject a year ago, I had a notion that a minority was the wiser, the more civilized, possibly even the persecuted section of a community.' ['The Importance of Heresy.'] HC. [24pp.]34. 'I first heard of her in the Summer of 1918, I think, thus revealing my untrustworthiness as a witness at the very outset.' ['My Astral Body.'] LC. [11p.]35. [p.2 begins:] '[...] Vernon Rendall on Wooden legs Mrs. Pond tells me lizards are to be seen about [...]'. [p.4 begins:] '[...] As they were none of them more than eight years old I was rather sceptical, however I praised them & asked where this happened & how etc.' FC. [2pp. only, numbered 2 and 4]36. '"E finito. It is finished. Assez. Enough." So muttered Hilary Stanhope with what he felt to be soul-searing bitterness as he crammed his round black hat upon his head - hat of so many happy memories'. ['A[n] English Nights' Entertainment. | By Sylvia Lynd'.] LC. [50pp.] [Addressed on reverse of last leaf to 'Mrs. Robert Lynd, | 5 Keats Grove, | Hampstead, | London. N.W.3']37. 'William Targate was a genius. He was a small man with a large, round head, a thin piping voice, & a tendency to develop an inflamed eyelid, so that there was seldom an important occasion in his life on which he was looking his best - such as it was.' ['The Great Day.'] HC. [8pp.]38. 'A friend is the king of the self we would like to be [ends here]'. ED. [1p.]39. 'A friend is the mirror of the self we should like to be'. ED. [1p.]40. 'A friend is the mirror of the self we should like to be, thought Mrs. Gilliat, though she did not condense the thought into the compact form of words.' ['Where Angels Fear to Tread. | A Story.'] LC. [6pp.]41. 'The drawing-room owned the only grate in the hotel with a fire in it.' ['How They Talk.'] LC. [8pp.] [Published as 'A Conversation in War Time' in MB1925, pp.203-211.]42. 'Philip & Clarissa were quarrelling. They had been quarrelling, to be exact, for forty-five long miles & an unascertainable number of furlongs, rods poles or perches.' ['The Monstrous Crow. | By Sylvia Lynd.'] HC. [30pp.]43. [Treatments of seven chapters of novella titled 'The Tree Who Knew', comprising I, 'Lady Calvert's Dinner Party'; II, 'Fog'; III, 'Blood'; IV, 'Scoop'; V, 'The Thunder'; VI, 'In which Lady Calvert is plausible'; [IX?], 'Albert Jarman's Statement'.] HC. In remains of envelope addressed to 'Mrs Lynd | The Stone House | Steyning | Sussex'.44. 'Irish literature may be likened to a river that has reached the sea. The sea is the sea of world literature, world interest, world reputation.' ['Modern Irish Literature.'] HC. [23pp., paginated 1-18 and 14-18.]45. 'Everyone wishes other people to remain unchanged; children to continue children & warm, fire-lit, lamp-bright interiors never to lose their welcome'. ['Beginning of a Novel.' (with 'The Secret History' written subsequently at the head of the first page)] HC. [25pp.]46. 'Everyone wishes other people to remain unchanged; children to be always children & firelit, lamp-bright houses never lose their welcome'. ['Secret History.'] HC. [7pp.]47. 'So there let us leave them under the apple trees, Olivia planting tulips & Nancy phloxes, ducking their heads to pass the corner by the summersweet its boughs not yet arched high enough as they were in another few years, to let a head pass without stooping, & the children filling their red wooden cart with weeds'. ['End of a novel.'] HC. [3pp.]48. 'If a man has large private means he may be considered fortunate; if he has small private menas he may be considered more unfortunate than if he has no means at all.' ['Chap. | Donne Faverham'.] LC. [5pp.]49. [First page of first chapter of (according to separate title) 'Lambikin. | By Sylvia Lynd. | Fallen into the fire & so will you.'] LC. [4pp., including separate title.]50. 'Rachel & James used often to stroll about London together in those days.' LC. [3pp.]51. 'On one of those blue-&-white-striped Spring mornings that make a perfect background for chaffinches, Estelle Moir walked out into her garden.' ['Queen Bee.'] HC. [14pp.]52. 'When June night falls on an earth steeped in warmth & sunlight, it seems as if a golden glimmering went on long after day.' ['The Dream Sharers.'] HC. [17pp.]53. 'One sunny morning in the year 189- a happy young woman was standing on the balcony of her house looking out across the shrubbery of rhododendrons & holly trees that divided the garden from the triangular green of the village.' ['Story with a Happy Beginning. | Chapter I. in White.'] HC. [5pp.]54. '"The starlings come down in a squabbling, guzzling flock" - R. reads from "Times", the Lynds then come down to dinner.' [' Gypsies. | A T & A Divertisement.'] HC. [2pp.]55. 'Tillies Cottage is a brick & timber cottage silvery with age'. HC. [2pp.]56. 'In the month of August 1905 my mother & I were staying in Upper Rathmines, Dublin.' LC. [1p.]57. Four unconnected leaves, apparently torn from the same notebook. First: 1p., headed 2, beginning: '[...] child's eye observes with distinctness & with no blurring speculation'. HC. Second: 1p., beginning: '[...] from the hedgerow twirls it once or twice, settles herself in the saddle, & away she goes gallop a gallop a gallop to the enchanted woods on the road to elfland.' LC. Third: 2pp., beginning: '[...] of our world is different. Perhaps it is because we are tall enough to see over the hedges.' LC. Fourth: 1p., beginning: 'the fluffy scarlet balls of the wild rose.' HC.58. 'Modern children found to resemble the spoilt children of all ages [ends here]'. [1p.]59. 'Preface | The Modern child found to resemble the Elizabethan child' [1p.]60. 'With the arrival of books school-going for all but the poorest, became general & the schoolboy with shining morning face began to be seen creeping like snail unwillingly to school. A century earlier he had not crept so unwillingly & the [ends here]'. [1p.]61. [Pp.18-27 only of essay, beginning] '[...] Lamb's admiration of most of his friends was extreme - though he quarrelled with several of them, including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey & Hazlitt, sometimes childishly - but of none of them was he more idolatrous than of Manning, whom he set even above Coleridge as the greatest man he had ever known.' [11pp.]B. Typescript1. 'Before we consider the nature of poetry, we shall be wise, I think, to consider the nature of poets.' ['What We Demand of Poetry'] [20pp., paginated to 27, but lacking 20-26, with autograph emendations.]2. 'Before we consider the nature of poetry, we shall be wise, I think, to consider the nature of poets.' ['Change & Permanence in Poetry' (amended in manuscript from 'What We Demand of Poetry').] [27pp., with numerous autograph emendations.]3. [pp.9 to 19 only of Item 2 above] [p.9 beginning: 'with the ballad of Walsinghame. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came," is the jewel.'] [11pp., incomplete, with numerous autograph emendations.]4. '"It's still saying Luv Duv," said the doctor, taking the ends of the stethoscope out of his ears, and looking rather severely at the lady in the bed.' ['The Bull. | By Sylvia Lynd.'] [6pp.]5. 'He was airing his socks in the dressing room.' ['Adversaries' At end: 'Sylvia Lynd. | [in manuscript:] Author of "The Chorus"'.] [11pp.] [Label of the London literary agent James B. Pinker on the cover.] [Published in MB1925, pp.120-132.]6. 'Felicity Austen, in her pink dance dress trimmed with silver roses and with her white evening cloak thrown over the back of her chair, sat in her brother's drawing room and waited for a young man who did not come.' ['A Drawn Game. | By | Sylvia Lynd.'] [12pp.] [With stamp of the New York literary agents Brandt & Kirkpatrick.]7. 'Mrs. Leslie Palladin was a singularly lucky woman. She had blue eyes with black lashes and a little house near Harrod's and the Park.' ['The Woman Who Let Go. | By | Sylvia Lynd.'] [13pp.] [With autograph address on reverse of final leaf: 'Mrs. Robert Lynd, | 14 Downshire Hill, | Hampstead. | N.W.']8. 'The room was a panelled one and the panelling had been painted white.' ['The Sixth Act.' At end: 'Sylvia Lynd. | [in manuscript:] Author of "The Chorus"'.] [7pp.] [Label of the London literary agent James B. Pinker on the cover.] [Published in MB1925, pp.184-192.]9. 'When June night falls on an earth steeped in warmth and sunlight, it seems as if warmth and sunlight were intermingled with the darkness, a secret presence, long after day.' [Title in autograph: 'Who passes here so late? | By Sylvia Lynd.'] [15pp.] [Label of the London literary agent James B. Pinker on the cover.]10. 'Philip and Clarissa were quarrelling.' ['The Monstrous Crow. | By Sylvia Lynd.'] [24pp.]11. 'Ma Pearsons was as full of theories as a dog is of fleas and they were all of them crazed, said Willie Mahon who was one of her lodgers.' [Title in manuscript: 'The Irishmen'.] [16pp.]12. 'Mae always felt that her family hadn't done too well for her in giving her Aunt Polly for a godmother for there was no hiding the fact that she was a tippler.' [Title in manuscript: 'Aunt Polly'.] [6pp.]13. 'There was one thing about our street which intrigued me and that was the difference, especially speaking, between one end and the other.' [Title in manuscript: 'The Money Lender'.] [5pp.]14. 'Whenever Steers got a few minutes break from washing she could be found in Margies tiny box of a kitchen with her back to the sink and her feet upon a chair; drinking strong cups of tea and cracking jokes.' [Title in manuscript: 'The Escape Route'.] [15pp.]15. 'Across the crowded teashop he was aware of two eyes watching him, large dark eyes that were brilliant with excitement.' ['Exile | by | Sylvia Lynd.'] [24pp.] [Label of the London literary agent James B. Pinker on the cover.] [Published in MB1925, pp.24-50.]16. "Mrs. Bingham," I said careless of the treason, "is a hateful old woman."' ['Blanche Ailwynne. | By | Sylvia Lynd.'] [34pp.] [Two copies, one Label of the London literary agent James B. Pinker on the cover.]17. 'To look at Anastasia Amellia you would not suspect her of possessing a sense of humour.' ['The Hat Trick. | By Sylvia Lynd.'] [14pp., with a few manuscript emendations.] [Printed label affixed to front cover.] [Addressed in autograph on reverse of last leaf: 'Mrs Robert Lynd | 32 Queen's Gate | S.W.7'.]18. '"Ah, botheration," [last word amended in manuscript from 'deuce take it'] said the girl from the Irish lace stall, "I've dropped a stitch again. I can't think what's the meaning of it all."' ['Omens and Portents'.] [4pp., with minor autograph emendations.] [Autograph address on reverse of last leaf: '(Sylvia Lynd) | Mrs. Robert Lynd, | 14 Downshire Hill, | Hampstead. | N.W.'19. '"I do not wish to attack the young," said my hostess who was preparing to put in tulip bulbs and stabbing a flower bed fiercely with a weeding fork, [...]'. ['The Young. | A Monologue Reported | By Sylvia Lynd.'] [6pp., with extensive autograph emendations.] [With autograph address on reverse of last leaf: 'Mrs. Lynd | 5 Keats Grove | Hampstead.']20. 'She was wearing a pink silk hat - unvarying formula of feminine weakness - and the pointed chin that I caught sight of beneath it proffered no disconcerting evidence of strength.' ['Getting the Sack.' Signed in type at end 'SYLVIA LYND'.] [7pp.] [Label of the London literary agent James B. Pinker on the cover.] [Published in MB1925, pp.212-220.]21. 'In August the strip of garden behind the little house was filled to its fences, overwhelmed with poppies.' ['Journeys End'. Signed in type at end 'SYLVIA LYND'.] [10pp.] [Published in MB1925, pp.61-72.]22. 'I first heard of her in the Summer of 1918, [added in autograph: 'so, at least,'] I think, thus revealing my untrustworthiness as a witness at the very outset.' ['My Astral Body.'] [11pp., with numerous autograph emendations.]23. 'Passing the gate on the way to school in the mornings, she sometimes saw a spider's web stretched across the path between the American currant and the privet bush.' ['Gooseberry | by | Sylvia Lynd.'] [10pp.] [With stamp of New York literary agents Brandt & Kirkpatrick, and label at front.] [Published in MB1925, pp.73-85.]24. 'There is a general belief among people who do not care for books, that books are a kind of food of which it is possible to eat too much.' [4pp., with numerous autograph emendations.]25. 'Anon is not a poet without a name, but a poet whose voice has not been recognized.' ['Some Literary Attributions | Tom o'Bedlam's Song; By Sylvia Lynd'] [7pp., with autograph emendations.] [Published, according to Item 27 below, as 'Men and Books article, TIME AND TIDE, Nov. 9, 1940.]26. 'My hope is that I have now persuaded someone besides myself that neither the eardrum of an elkhound nor even of the Fish Mimic himself could detect the voice of the amiable Basse in the sound of Tom o'Bedlam.' ['More Literary Attributions | By Sylvia Lynd'.] [7pp., with autography emendations.] [Published, according to Item 27 below, as 'Men and Books article, TIME AND TIDE, Dec. 7, 1940'.]27. Covering page for Items 25 and 26 above, reading 'Two copies of SOME LITERARY ATTRIBUTIONS | Tom o'Bedlam's Song (Men and Books article, TIME AND TIDE, Nov. 9, 1940) | Two copies of MORE LITERARY ATTRIBUTIONS | (Men and Books article, TIME AND TIDE, Dec. 7, 1940).' [1p.]28. 'He was tall and very thin and he stooped a little.' ['The Intruder'. Signed in type at end: 'Sylvia Lynd.'] [8pp.] [Label of the London literary agent James B. Pinker on the cover.] [Published in MB1925, pp.103-112.]29. 'It is not of my votive glass that I am thinking at the moment, though when the time comes for thinking of it may I take it as light-heartedly as Mr. Prior - it is another sort of change that I have in mind and my approach to it is from a totally contradictory direction.' ['A Change of Face'. At head of first page: 'From "THE WEEK-END REVIEW". Vol. IV No. 76. August 22, 1931.'] [Two drafts, both 4pp., the second reset and with manuscript emendations.]30. [Strip of paper with seven typed lines, beginning:] 'Just three months yesterday evening since the beginning of the attack. Tonight a cloudless sky again and a tender, misty sunset.' SEE alos related material, sku #s 16322, 16323, 16324, 16226 16327.