OK, well, thank you very much for agreeing to this this chat, Rachael, and perhaps you could introduce yourself saying your name and what your job is. Yes. So I'm Rachael Marsay and I'm the Roy Davids Archivist writer at the Bodleian Library. So I look after the modern literary archives and manuscripts at the Bodleian. So I liaise with depositors who are looking to deposit material and taking in new material when it arrives.
And I catalogue literary collections to enable researchers to use and view them answering queries. And I do a bit of outreach work, which involves some work with schools or other events which showcase our collections. And the collections must be extensive, I mean, modern literary manuscripts of the Bodleian, I presume, that covers what period is modern cover in that in that definition? Yes, roughly it's anything post eighteen hundred. There's a bit of leeway sort of both ways.
But yeah, that's what we sort of class and it's everything. It's like letters sort of first draughts and so on material. Yes. Yeah. Anything from the juvenilia Jane Austen for example, so early works of authors and as you say, sort of bare handwritten manuscripts of their sort of more famous works and often unpublished works as well. So quite a variety of different material. I can imagine. Yeah, well, I've worked with some of it. I've been very fortunate to, and it's wonderful.
But for the purpose of this podcast, this is a series about fantasy literature and writers in that genre. And we're going to talk about two collections that you have which kind of reveal sort of the breadth of what's in these collections. So could you say something about who we're going to talk about? Yes. Yeah. Well, today we're going to look at William Morris, the designer author, and also the sort of visionary socialist of his time. He was born in 1834 and lived until eighteen ninety six.
And the Bodleian holds a few of his letters and lectures, but also some wonderful illuminated calligraphic manuscripts written by William Morris. So both existing works and also his own compositions in special collections. We also hold a full set of Morrises Kelmscott Press books, so the first editions for his own printing press. Many of these were deposited via sort of legal deposit.
And as the Bodleian is a legal deposit library, so would receive copies of books published in the U.K. and the second writer we're going to look at and we're also looking at Eric Rücker Eddison or E. R. Eddison, who's born in 1882 and died in nineteen forty five. He was a civil servant, an author. We have letters from his friends and quite a few from quite a bit of fan mail. We held some correspondence between him and his publishers and we held a few proofs of his work.
We've got his Egil's translation of the saga that he did in the 1920s. Lots of newspaper cuttings that he himself got out of book reviews of his own books, that his own work. And interestingly, one of the sort of highlights of the Eddison papers are the drawings and stories that Eddison wrote as a young man in sort of exercise books and his sort of own sketches and had sort of initial ideas and his own sort of making of a sort of different world,
as it were, and tested. Well, that's whetted our appetite. So to two very important writers in, you know, for all kinds of reasons, but particularly for the development fantasy. So slightly overlapping in terms of I think Eddison was a boy when Morris died. And Morris is obviously that great 19th century bastion of of of of medievalism. And then Eddison comes along as a slightly more, say, modernist, but he writes in archaic style.
But, you know, a very important figure of 20th century fantasy that influenced Tolkien and Lewis. But am I right in saying they were both Oxford alumni. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yes, 50 years apart. And Morris was a Exeter college in the 1850s. And Eddison was at Trinity College and in the early nineteen hundreds and both there studying classics. That's interesting, isn't it? Because of course, Tolkien came up to study classics.
Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, absolutely. OK, well shall we start with the Morris material, if that's OK. And so you've given us a broad outline there of what we have in terms of manuscripts, but also obviously printed books because of the extensive collection, the Bodleian. But let's concentrate on the manuscript. So. Yeah. And do you want to sort of say a few words about what what immediately leapt out about what you have?
I think the the sort of link between them all is the sort of work that's gone into them. They're not like many of our other authors. He's not just writing them down, as we sort of expect an author to write them down. He's deliberately making these manuscripts beautiful. So he's writing them in. He's doing calligraphy. He's leaving room for drawings around the text and some of which are filled in.
We have many sort of completed manuscripts with full illustrations, and they often have sort of the nice ones on the first few pages and then later on in the manuscripts that he's just left the spaces to be completed. And but it's showing that he's very much thinking of them in terms of manuscripts themselves, suddenly a sort of more traditional sort of sense of a manuscript, a mediaeval manuscript. So he's not only writing the story, he's wanting them to look beautiful as well.
So they're bound in vellum and written on vellum and bound in the sort of style of the mediaeval and mediaeval books. I think you could still get vellum, but he went to that full extent of using that and that's it. And getting the inks and everything. Yeah, he said to be inspired by looking at some of the the medieval manuscripts of the Bodleian. And so he was aware of that sort of their existence sort of even then, which is which is interesting.
I mean, it was quite late in his life that he sort of came back to doing this style of writing. The manuscript states the eighteen seventies. So this is sort of sort of midway through his career, he sort of returned to this after his early poetic phase. Yeah. In the 60s. So it's a very interesting sort of time we're looking at in Morris's life and sort of his works really. Absolutely. So the text of these manuscripts, what's the text again, sorry? Oh, so we've got quite a few different ones.
There mainly is his sort of Norse saga style writings. So the story of the Dwellers the air, the story of the Nibelungs, which was published in nineteen seventy six, is the story of the fall of the Nibelungs. So yeah, they're both sort of early, early versions of the published work. Right. Which he's gone the extra mile by trying to produce. They're almost like it's the feel of an illuminated manuscript that said yes when it was first published.
I believe it was published sort of as more of a sort of straight text like a normal published book. He did publish it himself at the press in nineteen ninety eight. So that version is obviously very highly decorated and and stylised in the sort of format of a manuscript. But that's sort of much later on. And the Illuminations to do any of them. Do you remember any of them that they stick out as to what he was drawing?
Were they things from the text or were they just decorative? They were decorative mainly. Yes, sort of floral, as you might expect from Morris. One of them has pictures in from Charles Fairfax Murray. So he's not only doing this himself, he's having some help in there. So that's the one with the figures in which relate to the text. But most of them are just sort of floral sort of decorative illustrations rather than.
And the story, I guess the purpose was trying to put your mindset into Morris, you know, I think Morris is thinking about this. He's doing this really because it's a work of art. It's building on the work he did with the Birmingham Set in Oxford. You know, this reinvigorating the arts, which leads to the arts and crafts movement. It's not that he was trying to produce a kind of forged manuscript? No, no. It's sort of it's a work of art in many senses.
It's not just a text. It has to look beautiful as well. Yes, absolutely. And on one of the other podcasts, we talked about the murals in the Oxford Union, about, you know, the Burne-Jones paintings and so on, which was Morris was part of that circle and went, oh, that's wonderful, OK. And are these accessible? Are these the sort of books that anyone could come in and have a look under certain conditions?
Yes, that's right. Yes. Erm and by reading rooms and the description of the items is available on our online catalogue, for Bodleian archives and manuscripts, and I think at the moment they're not digitally available, but yes, they can be seen in the flesh as it were. So yes, I expect they'll be amazing to see. I would certainly try, OK, so let's move on to our second author. E. R. Eddison, who has, as you've already said, was at Oxford, did classics like Morris.
And but also there's a similarity here in his attraction to Norse literature, isn't there, as well? He starts moving in that direction? That's right. Yes. Yeah. Both Morris and Edison learnt Norse so that they could read the sagas in the original. And I think Eddison himself actually read Morris's Norse works and was inspired by them to learn Norse and then go to the originals. So that's quite a clear sort of a link between the two and they both then.
Were sort of enthralled by them that they both visited Iceland, which in sort of the 19th and early 20th centuries, not not an easy trip at all. And yes, and Eddison was also a member of the Viking Society for Northern Research as well. And this essay, he published his own version of the saga, as well as a sort of more straight translation of Egil's saga, both in the 1920s, just coming out of that sort of love of the north and the sort of Norse myth.
There's something to be asked about what we were doing wrong with Classics teaching. You know, Morris said we're all old age classics or to a degree, but we're attracted by this, you know, Western Myth. Northern Germanic myths. And so. Yes, yeah. So what do we have of Eddison? You did the summary at the beginning. So and we have sort of volumes of letters which were sent from fans as well as friends.
And one of their letters from a fan is interestingly was a tank commander and was writing from Fort Knox. It was a major, Robert Brown, and that writing in nineteen forty five saying how he loved Eddison's works and that two of them had accompanied him on his African and Italian campaigns. So Eddison treasured that letter. You know, the stuff that where his works have been. And I think that sort of appreciation was important to him. Know he wasn't writing commercially.
You know, he had a very successful civil service career, but it was very much out of wanting to share his stories and imagination. And so I think he very much sort of kept all these letters carefully so ones from Lewis survive? Yes. Yeah, that's right. We've got a few letters from Lewis and some of them are in a.
The volume of letters relating to C.S. Lewis, so we have sort of Eddison in another collection, as it were, he read The Worm Ouroboros in nineteen forty two and Lewis wrote a letter of appreciation to Eddison as who's kind of prone to do. And he wrote it in a sort of pastiche of middle English. It's not in how we talk English now, sort of echoing Eddison's own prose in his works. And yeah, it's a lovely letter. So you are saying how much he likes it.
And he says Eddison is a bit like William of Kelmscott, Snorri or Homer. And the correspondence led to Eddison visiting Lewis in Oxford in February nineteen forty three. So he went to Magdalene College and ate in the hall and sort of sort of touched on sort of the Inkling circle sort of on his visit. And so that's kind of interesting, sort of an interesting meeting of minds really. And they kept kept up correspondence and and sort of occasional meeting.
Eddison lived down the south near London, Malmesbury. So it was sort of more occasional visits and keeping in touch via letter as well. So, yes, I'm returning to the letters then. Were there any other highlights that leapt out? Yes, there are some from sort of famous writers like Hilaire Belloc and Rider Haggard, but also from Arthur Ransome, who was brought up, close to Eddison. They shared a tutor at one point when they were very young.
And he's writing from aboard one of his boats moored, moored somewhere. And he's appreciating Eddison's work. And he's sort of referring back to these sort of fantasies that they used to sort of have. And Eddison's exercise books that he filled with sketches and stuff. So Ransome remembers that which we can see that in Edison's published works, is that the juvenilia you talked about? That's right. Yes. You have some of this material. Yes.
Yes. I sort of like the, like, exercise books with tales of these figures that appeared in his works, especially Ouroboros. They were marvellous but lots of sketches of kind of men in sort of mock Elizabethan costume, but a lot of swords and a lot of sort of red ink as the battles are occurring. And I think I don't know whether Sort of this is the youngster with Arthur Ransom that they sort of used to suddenly imagine this world together,
Or whether it was kind of mainly alone, I don't know. Ransome certainly remembers remembers those days. So I think you said at the beginning, Eddison, at probably around the age of 10 there, he's very young. Yes. Yeah. And he's got neat writing and that sort of flows. You know, it's it's coming out of his head and he's writing it down. He's not sort of writing bits and crossing them out. It is kind of sort of complete short stories and tales that he's putting together rather than just ideas.
So they're little tales in themselves. Yeah, that's fascinating to be thinking that young about mythology, which we may have all of done, but to bring it with you into when you're an adult and writing these books and as you say, some of the characters carry over into the world and they're sort of definitely recognisable. They have the same names. You know, he's not changing them sort of substantially at all. So what else is there? Is there any more in the letters?
I think you also mentioned there was other material like reviews and so on that. Yes. Yes. There's some volumes of newspaper cuttings about he's very much sort of diligently cut them out and kept them. And it's sort of to the extent that he he neatly crosses out the sections that don't apply to his book. You know, if it's a review that's covering two or three books, sort of cross out the bits that aren't relevant to him.
And very, very occasionally, he does write marginal comments on the reviews. It's mainly when it's a negative comment, some remark. But most of the reviews were sort of fairly positive. And I think Eddison would have appreciated them. I think some sort of the reviewers agree that he's sort of unique and perhaps wasn't for everybody but could sort of appreciate the work and the sort of vision that he had. So are there any literary manuscripts, any drafts of any apart from the juvenilia?
Is there any drafts of any of his stories? We've got one one draft for the Saga and the proofs for Saga. And most of his literary and sort of draughts of his novels were donated by his widow to Leeds Central Library. And they hold the letters and drafts for his work as well as a bit of correspondence. OK, and these drafts, are they actually there? They're handwritten drafts or they are typed scripts - there are a bit of both in the some of the letter books that we have.
He actually drafts his replies, which are in the letter books, but he's written them on the back of the typescript drafts of his work. So whilst we don't have a sort of complete sort of set for anything, he obviously is sort of reusing this paper. So we do have the occasional sort of page. It's often upside down. And I think that he sort of jotted down which which is interesting in itself.
One of the things with literary archives is how the authors themselves see their drafts and how they keep them. And it does vary so much between authors. You know, some keep them very religiously and others just use drafts as sort of scrap paper later on. Yeah, yeah. Well, what you were saying earlier about some of his letters ends up in the Lewis collection because it depends where the emphasis is placed, but that's it. But I guess what we forget now is just how valued paper was, you know?
Well, that's. Yeah, yeah, of course. And certainly in the war, people, you know, it was something you treasure. It's reused. That's it again. And sort of Eddison's works that many of them are written during war time. And some of the publisher's correspondence refers to that Eddison wants his book published, but there are shortages of paper and they sort of stresses and strains. The sort of publishing world is undergoing during the war makes things very sort of difficult.
And they're trying to explain to an author that, you know what the difficulties are. So I think one of his books was published first in America rather than the U.K., just because of sort of these issues that were going on. Yeah, it's it's an issue that affects Tolkien. Obviously, even after the war when The Lord of the Rings is coming out, you know, they're looking at this guy.
We can't publish anything of that length. And so, Silmarillion, you know, the paper shortage, it's fascinating to pick up those times. They're contextual elements, isn't it, about book publishing? And so that's it. And that can so easily be overlooked. You sort of often hear more of the cost is something. Well, they changed people's lives, but you sort of don't realise when you sort of looking at what books are being published, the sort of other influences that are happening at the time.
Well, it's a fascinating insight because we've got these these two writers, which in many ways share a lot of similarities, you know, interested in Old Norse educated Oxford classics, go on to write fantasy and deliberate in an archaic style that, you know, that's what Eddison was known as.
And Morris. But at the same time, there's an imbalance because Morris is this great known character for all things 19th century, Eddison When I come across Eddison, he's always referred to as the person that Lewis and Tolkien liked. And he's almost diminished. And I was interested in the reviews and you may not of had had a chance to read them too much about. You know, you said they're generally positive, but there was some negative ones in there, was it?
People just couldn't understand what Eddison was getting to. I think yeah. I think it was the grasp of sort of imagining sort of this completely different world. And it sort of wasn't as a sort of established a concept. And then and and I think that is sort of his way of writing could be sort of quite sort of overblown and sort of based on that sort of romance style and both the sort of words and in descriptions.
And I think quite a few saw them as classics and at the time and thought they would sort of endure because they were so different to what was what else was being published. Yeah, absolutely. Well, they are re-emerging now certainly as as text to study and to read. If you want a picture of how fantasy progressed, I remember Tolkien definitely speaks with guarded praise about Edison.
And I think he found from what I recall, apart from the names, which is a sort of thing, Tolkien, Was The Worm Ouroboros basically says violence comes around in circles. And that's the way you know, it's that the snake eating its tail, it's that whole idea that there's a very bleak. Bleak depiction of life in a way, isn't it? Yes, yeah, that's certainly the sort of harken back to sort of chivalric past, I think.
And Eddison wasn't aware of sort of the sort of industrial or high sort of warfare of the 20th century, but he certainly was harking back to a different age. And I think the fact that such conflict occurred in the 20th century sort of sets his books slightly at odds with what was going on. And first, we sort of set these books early in his imagination, sort of thoughts and sort of chivalric dates all around and sort of harking back to the sort of Norse.
Norse Sagas. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. If he was 10. So that's what, eighteen nineties, the height of, you know, the boy's own chivalric sort of way of fighting. But then you go through the trenches and well the experience of the First World War and his book seem out of place. That's fascinating. Yes, absolutely. And well, before we finish, is there anything else that you wanted to pick out from the either of the collections?
Oh, yes. I think for the Morris is just such a. Such sort of joy to look at the books, really the manuscripts, because they are so, so well done and some of them sin such a format as well, you know, they're quite small. They're just so tactile. And I think Morris's aim in producing them, when you actually see them, you do sort of understand where he's coming from, you know, because it's just tangible this I think of them and the fact that he's written them as well.
You know, it's all but still in such a beautiful, beautiful way. I think I read that Morris's own favourite was the Nibelungs. So that's probably the highlight for the Morris collection. And certainly Eddison went to see the drawings and stories. As a young man, that young imagination.
So coming through and making a map of the world that he sort of disappears into , he doesn't become a full time writer and he has his own career in the civil service, but he still longs to go back to that world of childhood, which I think is probably his own sort of escape. So, yeah, I think for me, it's definitely that those younger works that are in the collection. That's wonderful. Thank you. Yes, it gives us a picture of the two men, really.
Yeah. In their career in the beginning. Fantastic. Well, thank you very much, Rachael. That was that was absolutely wonderful. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people wanting to come. That that would be great if it's that sort of not so widely known that these two aspects in our collection. So it'd be great to sort of get them out there, as it were. Thank you. Thank you.