Pièce 33 - Letter from Alice Walker to R. B. McKerrow

2 single sheets

2 Bankfield Lane, Southport.—Sends 2 Henry VI, Act IV. Discusses the question of her remuneration, and responds to his inquiry on behalf of a girl who is thinking of going to Oxford University.

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Transcript

2 Bankfield Lane, Southport.
15 June 1936.

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

I am sending herewith Act IV of 2 Henry VI (I am hoping to get Act V off by about Wednesday {1}). The parcel of slips looks rather bulky, but I expect you have a waste-paper basket and will manage to get rid of some of them! I have put down whatever occurred to me as I read and will leave you to separate what matters from what doesn’t. Many of the things I have noted concern small points such as the omission of stops, brackets etc. in the text. Would it be a help if I put in things like this, in green pencil or something easily distinguishable from your markings? You would see them then as you read through the text and it would save you the bother of finding the place from the slip and putting them in yourself. I find I can waste a lot of time looking up references in your text—but perhaps you are quicker at finding your way about backs and fronts and reckoning your sixes and twos than I am!

Your letter of the 13th reached me this evening. I’m sorry you are feeling so worried about the financial side of this business. I fear it is all my fault as I am probably doing far more than you want me to—but I didn’t think it was the slightest use my glancing through your notes or merely verifying line numberings and readings, as this wouldn’t have given me any idea of the kind of thing you have had to contend with. It wouldn’t have been any foundation for helping you with the later plays, if I had just ‘looked through’ these early ones—but I don’t see why you should consider the time thus spent should be at your cost! I should think it was very adequately offset by the time you have spent answering my questions and explaining difficulties! If, however, you prefer to make some definite arrangement later, when I have helped you with the proofs, I should say that the £5 you mention is a very generous return indeed for my share. For the present, however, why not liquidate your debt (if you really think there is one) by lending me your spare Theobald and Capell? I should be very grateful for the loan of these, because they would certainly save my writing slips on small points which, with the books at hand, I could settle for myself. I will promise not to badger you about Capell’s punctuation! I am all for eliminating as many punctuation collations as possible and would like to suggest leaving out every punctuation note that didn’t indicate a real difference of opinion concerning the meaning of the text. I find the punctuation of F1 far more intelligible than that of its editors.

I decided to buy the 39 volumes of the Cambridge edition, but they havn’t turned up yet. I am hoping they won’t prove as bulky as they sound! I enquired about the date and found it was 1892—so it is probably the edition you mention. I thought it would be more convenient in single volumes as I do so much travelling about—but if you would like me to verify your collations from the 1st edition, will you send the relevant volume with whatever text I have? It would perhaps be as well to check your readings with a different edition from the one you used.

About the Oxford colleges—I am afraid I know very little about them that is likely to be of much use. I think the name of the bigger colleges (L.M.H. and Somerville) carries most weight and I believe that while L.M.H. is popularly supposed to attract the lily of the field Somerville is credited with a large percentage of hard-working toilers and spinners—but what real basis there is for this distinction, I don’t know. If the girl you mention is likely to turn out a physicist, I should have thought that Cambridge was the place for her. Girton, I know, does a great deal to help its students and, as it is a wealthy college as regards scholarship endowments etc., it certainly does what it can to ease the financial burdens of the less fortunate. I don’t know anything about Newnham, but I do know the person in charge of the physics department there is a really competent and charming person. I can easily, however, find out more about the Oxford colleges as Dr Chattaway was a science Fellow of Queen’s and his daughter, also a scientist, was and is now connected with St. Hugh’s. {2} In the meantime, I should think that the best thing for the girl to do, if she definitely wants to go to Oxford, would be to write for particulars of the scholarships available at the different colleges to see which is likely to offer most financial help. I don’t think there is much difference in fees between one college and another, (but this is merely an impression that the fees at all resident women’s colleges run to about £150 a year) and I don’t think there is likely to be very much difference in teaching between one college and another in physics and mathematics, as the numbers (at any rate among women) in these subjects are small and tuition is therefore managed on inter-collegiate lines. Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville definitely cut most ice and if the girl has a fastidious eye L.M.H., other things being equal, is the place for her. I don’t know much about St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s—save that the latter is powerful in prayer. But I am afraid this is too vague to be any real help. I will find out more.

Thank you for new light on Cymbeline! The child’s interpretation of the text, as you say, is so adequate a motive for murder! I don’t think you need feel at all worried about the amount of time I am spending on this job—I get quite a lot of kick out of it! And I am always hoping to solve one of my major Shakespearean problems. A friend of mine was getting up an amateur dramatic performance in a Yorkshire village and desperately trying to head the villagers off Shakespeare. Seeing they were determined to do a Shakespeare play she asked them why. The answer was ‘We can understand him; he talks like one of us’. I often wonder what the villagers had read and how they had read it!—I am quite sure, however, that the reference wasn’t to the horrific words of the sea-captain I have just been wrestling with!

The green tape is giving out. Worse is to follow. You have been warned! I have some perfectly vile pink tape I am proposing to use up on your parcels. When I asked my sister to get me some quiet coloured sealing wax to tone it down and showed her what wanted toning she ejaculated ‘Christ!’ and brought me a stick of tar-black. The combination will look awful. Probably the post-office will confiscate the parcel as looking too sinister. The only other way I can think of for using up the material is to get a pair of shoe socks and make a surréaliste picture like one I saw in Venice a few years ago—it’s a pity I am a bit late for the exhibition!

My spirits you see are rising (if my sense is evaporating!). It is because I have cast the financial problem aside. Frankly, I hate haggling over money-matters and I would much rather not bother or have you bothered about them. Why not take what I do as a gift?

Yours sincerely,
Alice Walker.

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Typed, except the signature and a correction. Sent with MCKW A4/34.

{1} 17th.

{2} Margaret Chattaway, a botanist, was a commoner at St Hugh’s College from 1920 to 1923, and perhaps later a Fellow there.

Sent with MCKW A4/34.