Vol. 37, No. 4 Winter, 2009-10
Editor: Norman T. Gates
520 Woodland Avenue
Haddonfield, NJ 08033-2626, USA
E-mail: ntgates@worldnet.att.netAssociate Editor: David Wilkinson
2B Bedford Road, St. Ives
Cornwall TR26 1SP U.K.
E-mail: books@book-gallery.co.uk
RA and H.D. Website: http://imagists.org/ Correspondent, website editor, and list manager:
Paul Hernandez Correspondents: Catherine Aldington, Michael Copp, Stephen Steele, Archie Henderson, Caroline Zilboorg
Correspondent and Bibliographer: Shelley Cox.
Biographer: Charles Doyle* * * * * * * * * *
NCLS member F.-J. Temple, whose new book, Beaucoup de jours, was mentioned in the last NCLSN, advises that all of his archives are in the Mèdiathéque Emile Zola in Montpellier. They include his books of and on Richard and the files concerning R.A. This collection should be of great interest to all Aldington scholars.
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NCLS member Dr. John Morris forwarded a photocopy of a page from the October newsletter [UK radio] program “Quote . . . Unquote” where we learn that one Geoff Middleton of Lincoln heard some lines on Radio 4 in the 1980s. “I don’t remember the program but I think of it when I see reality TV shows, traffic jams, supermarkets, night club throwing-out time, people queuing for burgers, texting, riding in stretch-limos, etc ,,,”
We are the far future
Of the distance past,
We are the noble race for whom they dreamed and died.
It was not we that loved,
It was not our lives they died for.
Like arrogant fathers with humble wives
They loved in us only themselves,
They died, not that we should live
But that they should live again in us.
The editors remind us that: “The lines are from part 13 of ‘Life Quest’ by Richard Aldington and can be found his Complete Poems (1948).”
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The playwright T. J. Edwards has just completed a new play in verse of Candide, and asks whether RA’s Candide is still in print. “It is clearly the best translation/adaptation of Candide by a very wide margin.”
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NCLS member Dmitry Urnov came across RA’s name in Hugh McDiarmid’s memoirs The Company I Have Kept. McDiarmid mentions RA among those who sent their tributes to A .R. Orage, published in the New English Weekly (November 15, 1934), ten days after Orage’s demise; there were more than forty writers who did it, including Ezra Pound, Herbert Read, Middleton Murry et al. “It all constituted one of the most remarkable and impressive tributes ever made on the death of an English writer.” Hugh McDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve), The Company I’ve Kept, Berkeley: UCP, 1967, p. 270.
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In 1983 associate editor David Wilkinson undertook a pilgrimage to Heddon’s Mouth and Martinhoe, North Devon, on the trail of RA , H.D., Carl and Flo Fallas and John Mills Witham in 1916. Wilkinson has recently been contacted by Julie Sampson, a writer and, at the opposite end of Cornwall, a near neighbor, who had read of his travels in Caroline Zilboorg’s article “’Soul of my Soul’: A Contextual Reading of H.D.’s Heliodora.” Sampson was seeking assurance that on her travels to North Devon she had correctly identified RA/H.D.’s “Woodland Cottage.”
“The reasons I am researching H.D. are a bit complex but basically I did my PhD on her more then 19 years ago. Now my main focus is on women writers from Devon—hence of course the interest in H.D in Martinhoe. I am trying to complete an essay about her time in Devon . . . However I have always wanted to find about H.D. and her Devon stay, because it seems as though it is one time in her life so far largely ignored in the terms of the influence on her work. Also, I am trying to work on a book based on my research. You will find a bit about what I’m doing on my blog. Latest entry was a quick one about H.D and Heddon’s Mouth, so might be of interest to you. You can find it at http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.com/ “
Wilkinson’s memories of his pilgrimage are hazy. He has therefore consulted Simon Hewett who now holds his archive. As a result, Hewett has sent copies of Wilkinson’s records to Sampson. And in order to complete the circle, Julie Sampson has been put in touch with Caroline Zilboorg and will receive future copies of this newsletter. Julie Sampson can be contacted at julie.sampson18@googlemail.com
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Correspondent Stephen Steele writes that there are many references to RA in Frédéric Jacques Temple’s Beaucoup de jours – faux journal (Lyon:Actes sud. 2009). ISBN 978-2-7427-8106-5, and provides the following in lieu of an index.
FJT meets RA: 81-82
FJT’s portrait of RA’s friend Alister Kershaw: 89
FJT meets Lawrence Durrell at RA’s villa des Rosiers: 104
FJT informs RA of Roy Campbell’s death: 107
RA introduces FJT to his friend Thomas MacGreevy: 108, 287
RA and others in Lawrence Durrell’s “atelier”: 109
RA meets Henry Miller (“ils se sont entendus à merveille”): 110
RA’s library sold – RA’s move to Sury-en-Vaux: 145
RA’s death: 148-149
Ezra Pound “groan[ing]” at FJT’s mention of RA in 1965: 162
Michael Urnov in Moscow, met earlier at Reading conference on RA; 274
RA program on France Culture (1990) from interviews with FJT recorded in 1953: 284
RA Montpellier conference – commemorative plaque for RA at the villa des Rosiers: 293
RA in list of soldier-writers 341
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NCLS member Charlotte Douglas writes: “When I read in the last NCLS Newsletter that Death of a Hero had been published in a new Russian edition, it seemed like a good opportunity to acquire it. (Since most Russian books sell fast, one usually has to be particularly attentive to recent publications.) It turned out that the edition referred to was already almost two years old, but, nevertheless, still available. It is not the edition of my dreams, with lots of footnotes and references to obscure Russian sources. In fact, it is a reprint of a translation that appeared repeatedly since 1961. (I am assuming that since the translator is the same, the text is also; I do not have an earlier edition to compare it to.) The translator is the well-known critic and translator from the English and French, Nora Gal’ [pseudonym of Eleonora Gal’pernia] (1912-1991). The notes are very sparse, mostly translations of RA’s French phrases.
As everyone knows, Russia has a particular fondness for RA. For more than seventy years, multiple editions of his works, including All Men are Enemies, Death of a Hero, The Colonel’s Daughter, The Romance of Casanova, Very Heaven, and two collections of short stories, have appeared in Russia, and throughout the ex-Soviet Union. In 1968, the Aldington scholar Mikhail Urnov published a biography of RA (and over the years he contributed introductions to many of the Russian editions). A four-volume Collected Works was published in 1988-89, and RA has been the subject of quite a few doctoral dissertations.
Death of a Hero has been especially popular. A quick check of the two principal Russian libraries reveals that the first Russian translation of the novel appeared in Moscow in 1932 soon after the English publication. It was followed by editions in 1935, 1961, 1976, 1981, 1985, 1986, 1988, and 2004, often in very large printings—the 1976 publication is listed as 1,000,000 copies!
For anyone else who might be interested in obtaining a copy of the 2007 edition, it is called Smert’ Geroia in Russian; the ISBN no. is 978-5-91045-034-3. It is readily available online from the bookseller Esterum.com. And one more thing: in Russian Aldington is spelled Oldington.”
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In connection with the above item David Wilkinson notes that he made a record about his copy of Smert’ Geroya that is now with Simon Hewett. It reads as follows: “Smert’ Geroya [Russian language edition of Death of a Hero]. Richard Aldington. A Russian publishing company. It is believed, from a conversation with him at the Reading Symposium in 1986, that Professor Mikhail Urnov had a hand in this publication. Laid in is a note by Professor Robert Winter that confirms this.”
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Our Associate Editor David Wilkinson reports that he was among many hundreds who attended the open-air gathering at St. Ives War Memorial to mark the 91st anniversary of the end of the First World War. With the ever increasing public questioning about happings in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Pakistan, there was an added significance to the event this year. The local brass band led the procession. There followed members of all the armed services, the British Legion, the Police and local sea-air rescue services. The Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and other organizations complimented the occasion as the church clock struck 11-o’clock. A respectful two minutes silence was observed. At that moment, 91 years ago, recently promoted Captain Richard Aldington was setting signals in the final push on the Western Front. Death of a Hero is Aldington’s fictional account of the final days of war. On 8th of October he completed a short course on active warfare to break the static trench warfare of the previous four years. He returned to his battalion only to be involved in one of the most ferocious battles in the short history of the 9th Royal Sussex Regiment. On the 9th October, in company with the 7th Northamptons and the 13th Middlesex regiments, the Royal Sussex led the attack on the battle for Cambrai. There was to be no let up until Armistice was declared on 11th November.
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St. Ives artist Roy Ray, a close friend of our associate editor, has embarked on what he has termed his “Evilution Project.” This marks his response to the horrors suffered by the innocent victims of warfare and terrorism. The five panels completed so far were on display in St. Ives Parish Church during the commemoration of Armistice Day and represent the horrors imposed by 9/11, Auschwitz, Coventry, Hiroshima and Dresden. A number of other works are planned to compliment the overall concept and will relate to the artist’s emotions on contemplating the events of the First World War, towards which end Aldington’s experiences have formed a continuing topic of conversation. Since being exhibited in Falmouth Municipal Gallery, Roy Ray’s panels have taken off on a journey of their own. They will be installed in Coventry Cathedral during Lent of next year for a service of reconciliation linking Coventry and Dresden. Further information appears on the Evilution Project website: http://www.evilution-project.com/about.html
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Simon Hewett contributed this and the following interesting items: In 1933, Casanova Booksellers of Milwaukee published the second of its Checklists of Twentieth Century Authors . This publication, which was limited to 500 numbered copies, includes a list for RA as well for James Joyce, Aldous Huxley, Martin Armstrong and Christopher Morley. The preamble states “Mr. Aldington’s translations, etc., are so numerous that we believe the wiser choice was to ignore them, since our checklists are devoted to Principal Works.” The last such work listed is Soft Answers of 1932.
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In 1939, Percy Muir issued a catalogue entitled The Library Of A Collector And Man Of Letters, Catalogue #79 from Elkin Matthews. The Collector was A.J.A. Symons, founder of The First Edition Club and friend of Holbrook Jackson, who published The Berkshire Kennet. Included in Symons’ collection were the limited edition of Euripides’ Alcestis and the unlimited edition of Fifty Romance Lyric Poems.
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Simon Hewett has bought from David Holmes a letter (TLS) from RA to Roy Campbell dated 15 September 1954 that describes, in fairly intemperate language, progress on the pamphlet described in the Newsletter, Vol. 36, No. 4, page 3.
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NCLS member Michel Pharand writes: “I’ve just finish my (very positive) evaluations for new University Press of Florida manuscripts: DEATH OF A HERO (ed. Andrew Frayn) and BID ME TO LIVE (ed. Caroline Zilboorg). Both books should be out in 2010.”
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Member Pharand, when rereading Death of a Hero, noted the following “splendid (and biting) Aldington aphorisms”:
Religious convictions are such an easy excuse for being nasty.
Friendship accompanied by sexual desire is love, the phoenix or unicorn of passions.
Nothing can be more fatal for a girl than to marry an artist of any kind.
Females know instinctively or by bitter experience that males like to tell them things.
Loves are like mirrors—each gazes rapturously at himself reflected in the other. How delicious the first
flashes of recognition!
Youth is so much more valuable than experience; it is also far more intelligent. Few things are more
astounding and touching than the kindly tolerance of the young for their imbecile elders.
Those men who have most contempt for women are generally most successful with them.
There are two centers or poles of activity in every adult life—the economic and the sexual. Hunger and
Death, the enemies.
It is the misfortune of youth never really to credit the aged with their full meed of perfidy and dislike.
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The following notice was received from H.R. Stoneback dated 16 November 2009:
Herewith the final announcement and Call for Papers for the VI International Aldington Society Conference (also known as the II Imagism Conference, to be held at Brunnenburg Castle in Italy, June 20-22, 2010. The Call for Papers particularly invites presentations (8 double-spaced pages, 16 minutes in oral delivery) related to the conference theme: “Imagism and Ezra Pound: Richard Aldington, Lawrence Durrell, F.S. Flint,, Ford Madox Ford, H.D., Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Amy Lowell, Elizabeth Madox Roberts & Others.” Other topics will be considered—e.g., discussions of Pound and/or Aldington, their connections with other writers, Imagism and the Great War, the legacy of Imagism for writers of later generations, etc. Send your paper title and 150-word abstract before the January 15 deadline to BOTH of the conference co-directors, Professors Daniel Kempton and H.R. Stoneback: <kemptond@newpalz.edu> <stonebah@newpalz.edu> Include your name, academic affiliation, and e-mail address with your abstract.
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