Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1937-1979 (Creation)
Level of description
Sub-sub-fonds
Extent and medium
70 folders
LA1/1-2, 5-25; LA3/7-8 placed in melinex sleeves within ringed box at NLW.
LA1/3-4; LA2/1-6; LA3/1-6, 9-10 guarded and filed at NLW.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The group contains manuscript drafts, typescript drafts, proofs, broadcasts and commentaries, reviews and correspondence.
David Jones, The Anathemata: Fragments of An Attempted Writing (Faber and Faber, 1952) is a long prose poem with illustrations, which Jones began writing in 1937 or 1938, and was first typed in 1949. David Jones suffered another breakdown in 1947. In 1953 it won the Russel Loines award for poetry from the Institute of Art and Letters, New York.
The manuscripts came to the Library via Harman Grisewood who sorted the manuscripts before they came to the Library, marking the pages on the bottom left. The worksheets which have survived are incomplete and possibly less than half of the manuscripts survive. The Anathemata grew in the middle as it developed, the first complete text being 7 pages only, the second 75 pages and the third 166 pages. Early drafts are in pencil and later drafts are in ink, with exceptions. The division into eight sections did not occur until the typescript, although implicit in earlier stages. Pre-typing David Jones had three sequences of numbers, referred to as the first, second and third foliation.
A detailed explanation of the arrangement process, of the foliations, and of the watermarks, was prepared by Daniel Huws and P.W. Davies for the proposed NLW printed catalogue of David Jones' manuscripts in [1981] which was never published. The notes are crucial to understanding the complexity of the development of the text and are available as NLW ex 2393. Some of these notes have been incorporated into the descriptions where possible.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Arranged into six series: manuscript drafts, typescripts drafts, proofs, broadcasts, reviews and correspondence, and commentaries.
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
All material in this group is from the 1978 purchase except where noted on file level. The files include notes by Daniel Huws and P.W. Davies.
Note
Preferred citation: LA