Associate Editor David Wilkinson reports
that since the mention in NCLSN Vol. 38 No. 2. (Summer 2010) it has come to
light that 'The Queen's Preferment', the novel by RA's father Albert E.
Aldington, is one of 65,000 volumes of philosophy, history, poetry and
literature being made available as British Library, Historical Print Editions
by 'print on demand' facilities and therefore, by the wonders of current
technology, downloadable (click here) to those possessing a 'Kindle' portable
reading device.
Links: BL
Press Release | Buy
on Amazon
**********
Editor Andrew Frayn notes an article which
may be of related interest to Aldington scholars on H.D. and 'the entanglement
of literary and cinematic form' in the latest issue of Modernism Modernity.
Reference: Jonathan Foltz, 'The Laws of Comparison: H.D. and Cinematic
Fomalism', in Modernism / Modernity 18, no. 1 (January 2011), 1 - 15.
**********
Biographer Vivien Whelpton asks if any
society members have contact details for Stella Garden, the daughter of Barbara
Clark, the Fallases' daughter. Please contact Vivien directly at v.whelpton@btopenworld.com.
**********
Associate Editor David Wilkinson writes
that, in early April he took Vivien Whelpton (who is currently researching a
new biography of RA) and her long-suffering husband, Barrie, on a walk round
Aldington's Padworth. "The tour was stimulated by being given privileged
access to Malthouse Cottage by the current incumbents Greg and Celia Primavesi
who have accepted the invitation to join the ranks of the NCLS. From there we
walked past the home of Brigadier General George Arthur Mills and 'the
colonel's daughter' and followed RA's walk past the 'infamous block of
cottages' in Mill Lane before crossing the footpath over 'The Berkshire
Kennet'. RA led his guests over these same meadows up to the Norman Church. We
stood at the war memorial commemorating 'The Lads of The Village', took a peek
at RA's favourite gravestone and paid our respects at the family tomb of Major
Christopher William Darby Griffith, the eccentric village squire of RA's time
before stepping into the grounds of his adjoining home, Padworth House. The
circuit back to the cars was completed with a stroll past Lower Lodge - into
which, as the fictitious Holly Lodge, RA moved the colonel and his family - and
back along the canal bank. Naturally lunch was taken in the nearby Butt Inn and
a glass or two were raised to the memory of RA and Frank Flint. We then drove
to Beenham church where a determined Barrie tracked down General Mills' grave
that I had long since 'lost'."
**********
Correspondent Simon Hewett has a letter
from Aldington which discusses his pleasure in the production quality of the
Overbrook Press edition of A Dream in the Luxembourg.
The TLS from Aldington to Altschul dated
20/6/35 on Hotel Fairfax, New York City notepaper:
Dear Mr.
Altschul,
I have been in America several days, but the rush of meeting people and a long but over-occupied week-end
with old friends in the country have kept me from writing to you.
Many thanks
indeed for the copy of the beautiful edition of A Dream in the Luxembourg. It was very delightful to be greeted on arrival here by your kind letter and by
this very handsome compliment to my poem. I like your edition better than the
original American edition, which was designed by Bruce Rogers.
If I express
myself inadequately it is because I don't know how find the words.
Yours sincerely
Richard
Aldington
**********
Correspondent Simon Hewett notes that the
prospectus for Routledge's Broadway library of Eighteenth-Century French
literature, which was edited by Aldington in Memoirs of Marmontel
(1930), announced that an edition of Letters of Voltaire and Madame du
Deffand to be translated by Aldington and with an introduction by Aldington
was in preparation, as was a translation of Royal Prisoners of the
Revolution, also with an introduction by Aldington. Neither appears to have
been published. Aldington had reviewed an edition of Madame du Deffand's letters
to Voltaire in the TLS of March 22, 1923.
**********
Associate Editor David Wilkinson is pleased
to report that after disappearing from our radar, our veteran friend, Correspondent Frederic-Jacques Temple has made postal contact. Emails together with
accompanying Newsletters have bounced back in recent times. M. Temple has been closely associated with RA for sixty years. In the late 1950s he was
Directeur de la Radio in Montpellier and between 1955 and 1957 broadcast a
series of interviews with his friend Richard Aldington. In one small excerpt we
can hear RA's voice on the Imagist web site (hold CTRL and click here). Frederic-Jacques Temple was born in the house in Montpellier that by an amazing coincidence
later became home to Richard and Catherine Aldington. It was an honour to
receive Temple and Alister Kershaw at the Aldington Symposium at the University of Reading in 1986. Wilkinson recalls taking Temple and Professor Mikhail Urnov
on an Oscar Wilde pilgrimage to the gates of Reading Gaol before returning for
a celebratory booze up with bear hugs at Malthouse Cottage. Temple, Kershaw and
the NCLS delegation stood shoulder to shoulder as a civic plaque commemorating
RA's time there was unveiled on Temple's garden wall during the Aldington
Conference at the University of Montpellier in 1992. It is so fitting that we
are back in touch. We have sent F-J hard copies of the last four Newsletters.
Anyone wishing to make contact with Richard Aldington's surviving friend can do
so via David Wilkinson.
**********
Biographer Vivien Whelpton notes that she
has two monographs in the Cecil Woolf War Poets series, to which Correspondent
Michael Copp has also contributed. The are Leslie Coulson: A Singer Once
(2009) and Poets of the Gallipoli Campaign: Heirs of Achilles (2010),
the latter co-written with Vivien’s brother, David Childs. A list is available
at Blogging
Woolf. All of the books published by Cecil Woolf Publishers are available
directly from: Cecil Woolf Publishing, 1 Mornington Place, London NW1 7RP, England, Tel: 020 7387 2394 (or +44 (0)20 7387 2394 from outside the UK). Prices range from £4.50 to £9.95. For more information, contact cecilwoolf@gmail.com.
**********
Biographer Vivien Whelpton has written a
biography of RA for the War Poets Association webpage, which can be accessed here.
**********
Editor Andrew Frayn and Correspondent
Michael Copp both spoke at the 24th
Ezra Pound International Conference, which took place at Senate House in London between 6 - 9 July 2011. Frayn's paper was entitled 'Mauberley,
Disenchantment, and the First World War', and Copp spoke on ' Versions and
Animadversions: Pound and the Imagist Circle'. The event was attended by
scholars from a wide range of countries, perhaps unsurprisingly given Pound's
own range of residence and reference, and also by his daughter Mary de
Rachewiltz.
**********
Editor Andrew Frayn is pleased to report
that, contrary to the information in the previous NCLSN, Charlotte Ward has
been receiving the Newsletter via Meredith Gates-Hart. She writes that she is
currently writing up her research from the Princeton Institute for Advanced
Study on Rabindranath Tagore translated by Juan Ramón and Zenobia Jiménez,
alongside other French and Spanish translations. She has forthcoming a San Diego conference paper on Jorge Luis Borges as translator of Old Norse, and studies of
the Puerto Rican authors Pedro Juan Soto and Rosario Ferré translating
themselves.
**********
Book Review
Marie-Brunette
Spire (ed.). Jean-Richard Bloch & André Spire: Correspondance 1912-1947.
Paris: Éditions Claire Paulhan, 2011.
This collection of 196 letters represents another haul from the
Spire archives, put together by his daughter, who is also a NCLS member (her
last book, Ludmila Savitzky & André Spire: Une Amitié Tenace, was
reviewed in NCLSN, Vol. 38, No. 4, Winter 2010).
In these letters between two Jewish writers we learn of
their attitude towards their own Jewishness, and what it meant for them as
French citizens; also of their network of friendships, and of their involvement
in intellectual, artistic and political matters over a period that included two
world wars. When the Great War began, Bloch (1884-1947) immediately responded
to the call to arms, seeing no dilemma of choice between his socialist and
universalist ideas and his patriotic duty. Spire (1868-1966), being that much
older than Bloch, spent the latter part of the war as an inspector of
agriculture for the government.
Concerning the position of Jews in France, the two friends diverged considerably, and their views illustrate the ideological
tensions that existed among Jews. Spire supported the Zionist cause with energy
and dedication, whereas Bloch was for assimilation, insisting strongly on his
French identity. Spire was not convinced that assimilation was a guarantee
against anti-semitism, and believed that the precious cultural heritage of
Judaism needed to be preserved and transmitted. Simply put, for Spire, Zionism
was for those who could not, or did not wish to, stay in the country in which
they found themselves.
The editor's lengthy and illuminating Preface (nearly
100 pages) makes plain the positions held by the two men, and outlines their
literary activities and political positions as the century progresses.
In a letter dated 6 June 1919 Spire passes on a request
from RA for books by Bloch and also by Bloch's former colleagues on L'Effort.
He tells Bloch that RA “is an excellent modern English poet; he has been
made responsible by the Times (for the literary supplement which has a
circulation of 100,000 copies) for producing a summary of French works. He
wants to publicise the latest modern literature and has urged me in several
letters to send him regularly the works of all the former collaborators on L'Effort.”
The footnote also cites two other letters from RA to Spire, and one from RA to
Bloch (pp. 360-362).
Bloch was wounded several times in the war, and one
letter in particular is a truly magnificent piece of writing, one of the finest
letters by a combatant that I have read. It deserves to be more widely known
and anthologised. Bloch, wounded, wrote to Spire from his hospital bed in Lyon, 8 October 1915 (pp. 248-254). I regret that a selection of short translated extracts
from it would not do justice to its powerful humanity and integrity.
As was the case in her previous book mentioned above,
Marie-Brunette Spire has edited these letters with remarkable detail and
consummate scholarship. The Preface alone is outstanding for its narrative and
analytical clarity.
Finally, I cannot help wondering how Spire and Bloch
would have reacted to the ongoing problematic question of Israel and Palestine in the 21st century.
(I must draw attention to two previous articles by Marie-Brunette
Spire in which she deals with RA: 'Richard Aldington and André Spire in
Correspondence', in Richard Aldington: Essays in Honour of the Centenary of
his Birth, 1993, and 'André Spire and the Imagists', in Florida English:
Special Imagist Issue, Vol. 6, 2008.)
Michael Copp