[Z] Laurie Lee (1914-1997): An important literary and Cotswold cultural archive

Laurie Lee (1914-1997): An important literary and Cotswold cultural archive of 107 catalogued items, comprising first editions, signed and association copies, rare publications, periodical appearances, broadcast material and significant Slad/Gloucestershire provenance. The books are all are first edition, first impression copies (excluding two), many signed or inscribed by Lee, including scarce examples, and frequently in near fine condition.

An original 168-page BBC-2 production screenplay for Hugh Whitemore’s television adaptation of Cider with Rosie, bearing BBC and working-production markings and apparently the only known example in currently in private hands, together with the Garrick Theatre programme, likely the example catalogued by Bernard Quaritch from Lee’s personal library, with further broadcast and recorded material including a factory-sample/not-for-sale LP set read by Lee and an unopened signed and numbered cassette collection.

Association highlights include first edition, first impression copies of Cider with Rosie, the Alan Major/Slad Valley local-association copy; As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, inscribed to Joan Wharton with Hammicks signing testimony; and The Voyage of Magellan, inscribed by Lee to the journalist and historian Donald McCormick. From Lee’s personal library are Stephen Potter’s Some Notes on Lifemanship, inscribed to Lee; Kathleen Raine’s The Year One and Other Poems, inscribed “one exile to another”; and Lee’s signed copy of The Poet’s Sphere, retaining its pressed flower.

The archive contains numerous signed first edition, first impression works by Lee, including signed examples of The Bloom of Candles, We Made a Film in Cyprus, My Many-Coated Man, The Firstborn, I Can’t Stay Long, A Moment of War, Selected Poems and Two Women, the latter retaining the “Envy” quotation and the suppressed nude photographic plate, with further items of provenance including The Firstborn, an Epstein volume bearing Lee’s signed introduction, and a signed Bryan Wharton portrait, all confirmed as having been signed during John Norman’s personal visit to Lee at his home in the Slad Valley.

Authorial self-documentation forms another notable strand. A Fifth English Course, described as originating from Lee’s personal library, is signed and annotated by Lee to identify a passage from his own A Rose for Winter, while a 1979 autograph letter written from his home in Slad encloses a page cut from A Rose for Winter, bearing a list of his works and annotations in his own hand, with the self-deprecating observation that his output was “not very extensive”. Also included are original letters from Edwin Brock and Terence Tiller concerning a proposed poetry reading with Laurie Lee.

Further scarce works include City of the Sun, one of only 150 copies; the four Cheltenham Festival poster poems, each issued in a run of 125; The Secret Garden, no. 59 of 250; Poems for Alan Hancox, no. 43 of 350; and Only the Flame Remains, signed and numbered 3 of just 40 copies.

The periodical material contains numerous early and first appearances of Lee’s poetry and prose, particularly in Horizon and The Listener, together with the complete four-part New Yorker sequence of As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning before book publication.

A substantial and carefully structured Laurie Lee archive, bringing together the bibliographical, literary, performance and Cotswold strands of one of the best-loved English writers of the twentieth century. The collection is anchored by Lee-authored first editions and separate publications, but its real strength is its breadth: signed and inscribed copies, association and personal-library material, rare periodical appearances, press witnesses, broadcast and theatre material, recordings, musical settings and Slad/Gloucestershire provenance.

Highlights include the 1944 debut Sun My Monument, signed early poetry and documentary works, a first-state local-association copy of Cider with Rosie, the limited City of the Sun, a Donald McCormick association copy of The Voyage of Magellan, a signed suppressed-state copy of Two Women, a Kathleen Raine presentation copy to Laurie Lee, original manuscript and autograph material, a signed Bryan Wharton portrait photograph, and material connected with John Norman / Slad Valley provenance.

The archive presents Laurie Lee as a poet, prose writer, broadcaster, performer, subject of national and local reception, and enduring voice of the Cotswolds. Its combination of literary firsts, association copies, provenance, periodical reconstruction and media/performance afterlife makes it especially suitable for a serious private collector, an institutional library, a Cotswold/Gloucestershire cultural collection or twentieth-century literary archive.

A detailed descriptive bibliography and supporting provenance file accompany the archive.