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Fourteen items, including three letters from Starkie and seven letters from the Oxford University Press five of them from Geoffrey Cumberlege and two from G. W. S. Hopkins and copies of two letters from Cumberlege to Fry's agent Emanuel Wax, and a copy of a letter from the OUP to Starkie. All dating from 1955. The collection is in fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The three Starkie letters are all in autograph, and total 7pp. The first two are written from Madrid, and the last from the Athenaeum in Pall Mall. All three are signed 'Walter Starkie' and the first (19 April) also has a long postscript signed 'W. S.' It begins: 'Dear Mr Christopher Fry. | I have been advised to write to you on behalf of the Teatro de Camara in Madrid, a Vanguard Theatrical Group to ask whether you would be willing to allow them to translate and produce your play "The Lady's not for Burning". They particularly wish to produce it next season.' He can 'thoroughly recommend' them: 'they have a good company of professional actors and have I think a subsidy from the government. […] Sean O'Casey gave them leave to produce "Juno and the Paycock".' Starkie is 'so glad they are so keen' on Fry's plays: 'We have in the past years devoted a lot of attention at the British Institute and in lectures to Verse plays, especially yours and those of T. S. Eliot. I was at the first night of "Venus Observed" a few years ago and loved it. I think we met in the [Mercury?] Theatre some years ago with my friend Ashley Dukes.' The letter concludes: 'I was for 17 years a director of the Abbey and a lifelong friend of W. B. Yeats'. In the postscript he states that 'the translation is being made by Nicolas Gonzalez Ruiz, the well-known translator of Shakespeare. The translations done in South America cannot be produced here as the Spanish is so barbarous!' The second letter (21 September) begins: 'For quite a long time some of us who are interested in the theatre have been trying to stimulate interest in Verse plays and I used to lecture on your plays and those of Elliot [sic] and W. B. Yeats, with whom I was so many years associated in the Abbey Theatre.' He gives more information regarding the Teatro Nacional de Camara, including names of authors whose plays have been among its 'very good work'. 'They, however, have had a disappointing response from your agents ACTAC, who do not seem to be aware of the conditions obtaining in the Spanish Theatre today.' He describes three 'conditions they impose [.] which make it impossible for the play to be produced', adding 'They have asked me to write to you to see whether anything can be done to surmount these obstacles. […] I have always tried to help these devotees of the theatre who really wish to put on modern works'. He notes that in many cases the plays have been 'taken up by the commercial touring companies in Spain'. He ends by suggesting a meeting when he comes to London, and in the final letter (21 October), written on an Atheneum letterhead, he again puts the proposal from a company 'who are so anxious to produce your play […] They asked me to write you a personal letter about it, which I did, but I have not received a reply so far. I wrote to you because there was such interest in your plays in Madrid and I thought it a pity if one or two of them could not be produced.' Of the seven Typed Letters Signed from the Oxford University Press: five are from Printer to the University Geoffrey Cumberlege, and two from Charles Williams's friend the novelist and translator G. W. S. Hopkins. The first of the Cumberlege letters (12 August), all of which are signed 'Jock', begins with references to Moelwyn Merchant and a play which Fry has 'on the stocks', before turning to the 'Spanish (Sudamericana) arrangements' (these relating to publication in Buenos Aires of a Spanish translation of three of Fry's plays), on the subject of which he has received a letter from 'EW' i.e. Fry's agent Emanuel Wax of Actac (Theatrical & Cinemat.
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