Showing 3 results

Notebook of Berta Ruck, October 1926-September 1927, containing a journal, mainly of her visits to Le Portel, near Boulogne, October 1926 (ff. 1-6), August-September 1927 (ff. 19-70 verso), and notes for fiction. Some sixteen letters, playbills and other ephemera have been pasted in.
The correspondents include Sir E. Ray Lankester, November [1926]-August [1927] (ff. 9, 64 verso), Edgar Wallace, 8 February 1927 (f. 18 verso), and Rebecca West, [8] July 1927 (f. 58). There are references to Rebecca West (f. 12 verso) and the late E. Nesbit (f. 23), and descriptions of a travelling French theatre company at Le Portel (ff. 30-31 verso, 33 recto-verso, 35, 45 verso-47 verso, 52-53 verso, 56-57 verso, 65), and of a visit to Paris (ff. 24 verso-28). Ink, pencil and watercolour sketches by the author are on ff. 4 verso, 32, 36 verso-37, 38 verso, and a photograph of her is on f. 55 verso. A ticket for a lecture in Pantperthog, 26 February 1895, is on f. 15.

Notebook of Berta Ruck, March-June 1931, containing journal entries including an account of a visit to Oxford, 16 May 1931 (ff. 28 verso-30), and notes for fiction and other work. Twenty-nine letters, postcards and telegrams, mostly from family and friends, February-June 1931, [December 1935], cuttings, photographs and ephemera have been pasted in.
The correspondents include Oliver Onions, April-May 1931 (ff. 34, 36 verso, 52), Robin Darwin, 20 March 1931 (f. 2 verso), Marda Vanne, 25 May 1931 (f. 8 verso), Alec Waugh, April 1931 (ff. 16 verso-17, 30 verso), and Doris Langley Moore, 12 May 1931 (f. 28); there are also four copy letters from Ruck to her father and others, March-April 1931, [December 1935] (ff. 1 recto-verso, 4-5, 14-15 verso, 38a-b). The volume also contains ink sketches (ff. 27, 30, 42, 44) and verses (ff. 20 verso, 32-33, 36, 40 verso, 44, 46) by Ruck. There are references to Doris Langley Moore's forthcoming biography of E. Nesbit (London, 1933) (ff. 25 verso, 28) and to Gwen Ffrangcon Davies (f. 40 verso). Besides a single copy letter there is no material dating from 1935 onwards (as alluded to on the front cover), presumably having being excised.

Manuscript and typescript drafts by Berta Ruck, [1955]-[1974x1978], of chapters of projected and published autobiographical works, mainly concerned with her life in Wales.
They include a manuscript draft of the first chapter of An Asset to Wales (London, 1970), [?1969] (ff. 1-24); drafts, mainly typescript, of various chapters for projected works entitled 'Welsh Harlequinade' and 'Fanfare for Wales', [1974x1978] (ff. 25-137); a typescript poem entitled 'Stair-case Remorse', [1970x1978] (f. 138); a typescript of various fragments of fiction and autobiographical prose, [1970x1978] (ff. 139-144); a cutting of an article by Ruck, 'A Golden Prince Came to the Castle', [1955] (f. 145); and a cut-out watercolour sketch of a young man (f. 146). There are references to N. C. Hunter (ff. 47-50), Stephen Peet, producer of the 1970 television documentary featuring Ruck (ff. 106-120), and to E. Nesbit (ff. 141-142).