Guide to the Papers of Martin Boyd

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MS 6812

National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record

Collection Summary

Creator
Martin Boyd
Title
Papers of Martin Boyd
Date Range
c. 1918-1982
Collection Number
MS 6812
Extent
3.75 metres (22 ms boxes + 1 medium folio box)
Language of Materials
English
Repository
National Library of Australia

Introduction

Scope and Contents

This collection consists mainly of correspondence, paintings, sketches and books including some rare and early items by Martin Boyd. There is general correspondence for 1919-1972, mainly during his years in Rome. The correspondence includes family letters, Joan and Daryl Lindsay letters, letters from various Australian authors, literary critics, friends and letters from publishers & literary agents about Boyd's books - Brangane, The Montforts, Dearest Idol, Outbreak of love and others. There are sketches and watercolours by Boyd; books by Boyd (some with pseudonyms Martin Mills and Walter a'Beckett), rare copies of Dearest Idol, The Picnic, Why they walk out; books on Boyd by C. Wallace Crabbe, T. O'Neill, Brenda Niall, etc.; extensive book reviews on Boyd's works; photographs of family friends, Boyd's Cambridge and Rome days, and places & buildings he was associated with in Rome and England; personal papers including an extract of his birth certificate, material on his art exhibitions 1964 & 1967 in Melbourne; and short stories and articles.

Conditions Governing Access

Please refer to the collection's catalogue record (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn686028) for the access conditions.

Conditions Governing Use

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.

Preferred Citation

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Martin Boyd, National Library of Australia, MS 6812, [box number and series and/or file number]'.

A separate collection of Martin Boyd Papers is held at MS 6810. Please note that some items originally listed as part of MS 6812 have since been transferred to MS 6810 (Box 6). The contents listing for this finding aid indicates where items have been transferred.

Item Descriptions

Series 1. General Correspondence - Box 1-2

This series is housed in Folders 1-11 (please note: Folder 3 has been since transferred to MS 6810 (Box 6).

This consists mainly of letters from Martin Boyd and covers the period 1919-1972. The majority were written during the years he spent in Rome. His correspondents include members of the Boyd family, Joan and Daryl Lindsay, and several Australian writer's and literary critics. There is a large number of letters to friends in Britain, e.g. Joan Burnett, Pamela Gill, Quintin Geering, and Hertha Hay. A letter of particular interest is one written in 1919 to Frank Mann, a friend from Boyd's R.A.F. days, referring to Lady Headley (Barbara Baynton), whom Boyd knew in London during and after the First World War. The series includes Boyd's correspondence with William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1942-1944, concerning the bombing of German cities during the Second World War. A letter to Joan Lindsay about the book she inspired, Nuns in Jeopardy and one to her sister, Marian (Mim) Pollak, commenting on Picnic at Hanging Rock are worth special mention for the light they cast on the literary relationship between these two novels.

In addition there are extracts copied from Boyd's letters to his sister, Helen a'Beckett Read.

Series 2. Correspondence with Literary Agents and Publishers - Box 2-3

This series is housed in Folders 12-20.

Much of the early correspondence in this series deals with the publication in the U.S.A. of Brangane (The Aristocrat) and The Montforts (The Madeleene Heritage) and is between Boyd's literary agents (Brandt and Brandt, and later, J.B. Pinker) and his U.S. publishers, the Bobbs-Merrill Company. This correspondence contains references to Dearest Idol and to an unpublished manuscript Bitter Sauces.

There is also a series of letters between Curtis Brown, who succeeded Pinker as Boyd's literary agents, and the New York publishers, Norton, dealing with The Lemon Farm and a novel entitled The Shepherd of Admetus, which apparently was never published. There are also references to a novel called Colour and Skin which may have been an early title for Night of the Party. Other missing Boyd novels, Morag and The Prank of Aphrodite, are mentioned in letters he wrote to J.B. Pinker in the late 1920s. The publication of Outbreak of Love is well documented in the John Murray correspondence. Murray subsequently refused Much Else in Italy and Boyd's troubled relationships with his publishers continued, as can be seen in his later letters to Murray and to Lansdowne Press, as well as those to his agent, Reynolds, regarding the placement of his novel, The Tea-Time of Love.

Also included in this series is some correspondence with Rigby of Adelaide regarding the re-publication of The Montforts in 1964, and summaries of correspondence taken from the files of Constable, Murray, Curtis Brown (London), and A.D. Peters.

Series 3. Manuscripts

This series is housed in Folder 21 (please note: this folder has since been transferred to MS 6810 (Box 6).

Few Boyd manuscripts are known to survive. In this series are several early poems, a page from an unidentified play, and an essay on his friend, Hugh Fausset. In 1968 Boyd sent a Penguin edition of Lucinda Brayford with mss corrections and amendments to Lansdowne Press for consideration. This amended version which was not published is included in this collection.

Series 4. Paintings and Drawings by Boyd - Box 3

This series is housed in Folder 22 and a Folio Item.

This series consists of eight paintings, drawings, and greeting cards by Martin Boyd.

Series 5. Personal Papers - Box 3

This series is housed in Folder 23.

This series consists of a copy of Boyd's birth certificate, and material relating to his exhibitions of paintings at Heffer's, Cambridge, July 1964 and at South Yarra Gallery, October 1967.

Series 6. Family History - Box 3

This series is housed in Folders 24-25.

Martin Boyd's interest in his family's history can be seen in the typescript 'The Family of Boyd' compiled in 1945-1946, and the outline, in his handwriting, of the 'Families of Kirby-Medewe', which had been enclosed in a letter to his aunt, Lily Gurner, dated 4 January 1946. Another version of his family history is entitled 'The history and notes of the Boyd family'. The series includes 'My Memoirs' by Eliza Chomley, Martin's cousin, and mother of C.H. Chomley, editor of the British Australasian, as well as the childhood memoirs of C.H. Chomley's daughter, Frances a'Beckett Knight. Newspaper cuttings about members of the Boyd and a'Beckett families are also in this series.

Series 7. Books - Box 4-15

This series is housed in loose publications (Boxes 4-14) and Folder 26 (Box 15).

This series consists of a collection of rare and inscribed editions of Martin Boyd's works, including translations.

Photocopies of the dust jackets and title pages of some of the rarer editions are included. There are two versions of the dustjacket for Dearest Idol, one naming the author as Martin Mills, and the one produced when the pseudonym was changed at the last moment to Walter Beckett.

Series 8. Other Printed Material by Boyd - Box 15

This series is housed in Folders 27-32.

This series consists of poems, short stories, articles, letters to the editor and some pacifist material. Among the articles are some early book reviews, the only known piece of journalism signed 'Martin Mills', "Domestic Architecture in Australia", which appeared in the British - Australasian in 1927, and a piece entitled "The Function of Art is to Entertain" (Oxford Mail, 1955). Many of Boyd's letters to the editor deal with his horror of war and this series contains his correspondence with the pacifist newspaper Peace News. During the Second World War, Boyd supplied text for pacifist broadsheets and stickers printed by the Linden Press, Widdington, Essex, which was operated by Hugh Fausset's son, Shelley. A copy of Boyd's broadsheet, "What Will Happen If I Don't Fight Hitler?" and photocopies of some of the stickers are in this series. Also included is a list of the book reviews by Boyd which appeared in the T.L.S. during the 1930s.

Series 9. Correspondence about Martin Boyd - Box 16-17

This series is housed in Folders 33-44.

During the years 1976-1982, Terence O'Neill wrote to many of Martin Boyd's relatives and friends, people who had corresponded with Boyd, and people who had information about him. Replies from approximately 165 people are included in this series and give information about Boyd at various stages in his life. The letters vary from detailed accounts provided by relatives, e.g. Joan Lindsay, Isla Marsh, Helen Read, and friends, e.g. Alan Shadwick, Joan Burnett, W.R. Crocker, Shelley Fausset, Quinton Geering, Pamela Gill, Barbara Musgrave, Alison Outhwarte, to brief comments from Australian writers who had had some contact with Boyd, such as Patrick White, Desmond O'Grady, Maie Casey, R.D. Fitzgerald, Frank Hardy, David Martin and Manning Clark. Interesting information about the time Boyd spent in the Society of St Francis, in 1923-1924 is provided by Brother Francis Tyndale-Biscoe and Bishop Lash. There are many letters from libraries, publishers and literary agents. In addition to the Terence O'Neill correspondence there is a small number of letters written by Vere Webster to Graham Pollard, and also by Hugh Fausset to his wife, Marjorie, from Rome, with frequent references to Boyd, and extracts about Martin Boyd from Hugh Fausset's letters to Joan Burnett.

Series 10. Recollections - Box 18

This series is housed in Folders 45-47.

Recollections of several of Martin Boyd's relatives and friends have been obtained and are included in this series in the following forms.

(a) tape recordings and transcripts of meetings with Joan Lindsay, Isla a Beckett Marsh; John Alldis (the King's College chorister used as the basis for Brian in Lucinda Brayford), Shelley Fausset, Alan Shadwick, Brother Francis Tyndale-Biscoe, F.A.W. Mann and others.

(b) Typescripts of recollections by Joan Burnett and F.A.W. Mann; photocopied extracts from the journals of Sir Walter Crocker and typescript copy of extracts from the diaries of Isla a Beckett Chomley, later Marsh, which refer to Barbara Boynton as well as Boyd.

(c) brief accounts by T. O'Neill of conversations with Brenda Gurner, Max Nicholson, Patrick and Rosemary Ryan, Dorothy Green, Helen a Beckett Read, David Boyd, Sally Rainforth, Gordon Waterfield, Lady Millington-Drake, and others.

Series 11. Photographs - Box 18

This series is housed in Folders 48-49.

The series contains copies of early photographs, including those of Boyd's parents, and one of Martin Boyd with his brothers Mervic and Penleigh and their grandmother. There are several taken during the First World War and the early 1920s including one of Barbara Boynton. Those taken at West Wittering in the late 1920s and early 1930s include one of Roger Hone (ch. 18, Day of My Delight). A few photographs are from Boyd's Cambridge period including one of Boyd at his desk at Plumstead, Little Eversden; and a few date from the years he spent in Rome.

There are also photographs taken in 1982 of buildings and places in England and Rome, which are associated with Boyd; Penleigh House and churches associated with the a'Beckett family in Westbury and West Lavington, Wiltshire; Dane Court and Lee Priory, Kent; Middle Chase farm and the barn Boyd designed for his cousin, Isla Marsh, at Bowerchalke, near Salisbury; the Friary, Hilfield, and neighbourhood of Batcombe, Dorset; houses where Boyd lived or stayed in the West Wittering area, Sussex; views of Pilsey Island (Silver Island in The Lemon Farm) and Itchenor Harbour; views of Plumstead, Little Eversden and other houses Boyd rented during his years in Cambridge, 37 St James Terrace, London; and the English Centre, Pensione Alto Adige (Boyd's last residence) and his grave in the English Cemetery in Rome. A number of negatives and several postcards are included in this series.

Series 12. Paintings and Sketches Relating to Boyd

This series is housed in Folder 50 (please note: this folder has since been transferred to MS 6810 (Box 6).

Included in this series are photocopied sketches of Martin Boyd by Joan Lindsay, c. 1920, a painting of Plumstead, Little Eversden, by Sir Arthur Hay of Park, and broadsheets of the Linden Press, Widdington, Essex, published during the Second World War by Shelley Fausset. There is a photocopy of a sketch of Lucerne, 26 May 1893, by Arthur Merric Boyd.

Series 13. Printed Material about Boyd - Box 18-20

This series is housed in Folders 51-67.

This series is divided into five sections, as follows.

(a) The books on Martin Boyd written by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Brenda Niall (2) and Brian McFarlane.

(b) articles on Boyd by M. Barnard Eldershaw, Anthony Bradley, Patricia Dobrez, Geoffrey Dutton, Brian Elliott, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, A.L. French, Dorothy Green, Thelma Herring, A.D. Hope, Leonie Kramer, John McLaren, Brian McFarlane, Adrian Mitchell, Pamela Nase, Brenda Niall (MS), Anthony Neate, Terence O'Neill (MS) Hal Porter, W.S. Ramson, F. Wallace, C. Wallace-Crabbie; and other articles in which Boyd is mentioned.

(c) an extensive collection of reviews of all Boyd's books and several of books about Boyd.

(d) biographical material about Boyd taken mainly from newspapers.

(e) obituary notices from newspapers and journals and tributes by Paul de Serville in Ancestor and Desmond O'Grady in Overland

Series 14. Material used in the preparation of books on Martin Boyd by Brenda Niall - Box 21

This series is housed in Folders 68-71.

When Brenda Niall was preparing the books Martin Boyd (Melb., Oxford U.P., 1974) in the Australian writers and their work series and Martin Boyd (Melb., Oxford U.P., 1977) in the Australian bibliographies series, she corresponded with people who knew Boyd, libraries and publishers. Much of this material is included here.

Series 15. Alan Shadwick material - Box 21

This series is housed in Folder 72.

At the suggestion of Terence O'Neill, Alan Shadwick presented to the Library a collection of letters from Martin Boyd (1940-1972) and letters from Cecil Roberts and J. Glorney Bolton concerning Boyd's death. Subsequently, Mr Shadwick was interviewed by Mrs Patricie Dobrez and a tape recording of this interview is held. The Library purchased from Mr Shadwick, a painting, 'John the Baptist', by Martin Boyd, which had been in Boyd's exhibition at Heffer's, Cambridge in 1964.

Series 16. Miscellaneous - Box 21

This series is housed in Folders 73-74.

This series comprises a list of most of Martin Boyd's many addresses, details of Martin Boyd correspondence which has been lost or destroyed, notes on revisions made by Boyd to some of his novels, and articles on research on Boyd carried out by Brenda Niall and Terence O'Neill.


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