Pièce 14 - Letter from Alice Walker to R. B. McKerrow

1 single sheet

The White House, Tite Hill, Englefield Green.—Returns papers relating to Acts I and II of 1 Henry VI, and comments on her annotations. She now has a clearer notion of what she is doing.

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Transcript

at The White House, Tite Hill,
Englefield Green. Surrey.
8 May 1936.

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

Thank you for your letter of the 6th and for the notes etc. on Act I which I am now returning with what I have done on Act II. {1} I have gone through your notes and replies to my queries carefully and where I havn’t made any comment on your MS. or on separate sheets, will you take it that I agree? Where I have replied to your queries or raised an additional point I have put a green pencil mark which should make clear what I have added to my original notes. I havn’t touched either the clean copy of the collation notes or the text as, although some of my additional suggestions are merely matters of routine punctuation, type etc., I think it is much better that you should deal with these. If you find it takes a lot of time finding the context for trivial alterations (such as the insertion or deletion of a stop) I can put these right in future as I notice them, but I have assumed that you would rather I didn’t meddle with these. If you find a stray red tick anywhere on the notes it has no significance. In ticking what had been settled on my copy an occasional confusion occurred between meum and tuum and the ticks got on the wrong copy. I hope I have got most of them out! I hope I have answered all the questions that needed answering. If I havn’t, will you let me know?

I still feel that there are a number of points that still want clearing up, in particular the question of spelling variants of one kind and another (such as the Dauphin/Dolfin business) and the question I have raised concerning the stage-name and stage-direction formulas. On the majority of problems, however, you have thrown a lot of light and I have a much clearer notion of what I am about. I hope the questions I continually raise arn’t too much of a burden. On the stage name imbroglio which I have made, through unawareness of the complexity of formulas such as

(Cap.+)
(Cap.), Mal.+
(Cap.+) Mal.

I will do what I can. I think the best thing will be for me to go through Acts I & II, ckecking† such references again. I don’t think I have been as agile or subtle minded about these as I ought to have been.

I am sending the Act II stuff in the state it was in before you returned the Act I material. I havn’t had time to go through it again, but I think I have dealt with all the major points that have arisen.
I will attend to the stage-direction checking over the week-end {2} and let you have the results at once. When this is done at any rate I. i. ought to be all right. The pity is that as light breaks on the problems gradually it involves much re-covering of the ground one passed over in ignorance in the dark. I hope my crepuscular fumbling and constant discovery of fresh difficulties won’t plunge you in the gloom.

Yours sincerely,
Alice Walker.

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Typed, except the signature, the plus-signs, and two corrections.

{1} The play referred to is to 1 Henry VI.

{2} 9th and 10th.

† Sic.