Dangos 4578 canlyniad

A volume containing Welsh poetry in free and strict metres, in the hand of David Evans (Dewi Dysul), Llandysul, Cardiganshire (see W. J. Davies, Hanes Plwyf Llandyssul (Llandysul, 1896, repr. 1992), pp. 253-5), mostly written by himself and relating to local events and personalities. Also included are diary entries, 1839-1872, relating to the weather and agricultural memoranda (ff. 70-81verso, inverted text).
The volume contains a Welsh carol, 1828 (ff. 1-2), Welsh poems sent as Valentines, 1850-1851 (ff. 13, 15, 33), a poem in praise of Llanover Hall, [1860s] (f. 52 verso), a poem in praise of John Hopkins (Ioan Glan Tees), 1863 (ff. 53 recto-verso), a Welsh metrical version of Mother Shipton's Prophecy, 1873 (f. 59), a poem on the death of the son of David Davies (Glan Cunllo), 1867 (f. 55 verso), and a chart of early-nineteenth century Welsh poets compiled by John William Thomas (Arfonwyson), [c. 1840] (f. 74 verso).

A manuscript in the hand of a single scribe dating from the second half of the 13th century and comprising Historia Hen Gruffud fab Cynan (p. 1); a treatise on earth, water, air and fire (p. 17); a treatise on the planets (p. 20); and a series of Welsh proverbs in verse (p. 27).
Memoranda in the hand of W. W. E. Wynne have been pasted onto the inside of the front cover. Ff. iii-iv contain a letter from J. Williams ab Ithel, 25 January 1862

Over one hundred letters, 1896-1900, from Edward Thomas to Helen Ashcroft Noble, whom he married on 20 June 1899. The letters contain mainly personal news and reflections, notably impressions of his life at Oxford and of visits to Wales; also included are a few draft poems, probably c. 1897 (ff. 297-301).

Diary of Edward Thomas, 12 December 1900-20 October 1901, recording details of books read, letters and articles written, payments for published work, meetings with friends and other personal notes, together with passages of description and personal reflection.

Twelve letters, 1900-1902, from Edward Thomas to Sir Owen M. Edwards, his erstwhile tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford, written shortly after Thomas had left university, their main purpose being to ask for guidance in seeking employment; they also reflect his attachment to Wales and his interest in the Welsh language.

Diary of Edward Thomas, 21 October 1901-12 September 1902, recording brief details of articles and reviews sent out, payments received for published work, and letters received and sent, with short notes of other activities.

Diary of Edward Thomas, 13 September 1902-13 June 1904, recording brief details of articles and reviews sent out, payments received for published work, and letters sent and received, with short notes of other activities and a few longer passages of personal reflection.

A scrapbook, compiled [1901]-[1909], containing fifty-nine letters addressed to Osmond Williams, 1901-1903, and press cuttings mostly relating to him, 1901-1904, 1907, [1909].
The letters are mostly tipped in between leaves and contain a mixture of congratulations, acknowledgements, routine party business and constituency matters. The correspondents include cabinet ministers, Liberal party supporters and activists in Merioneth, and statesmen including Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 1901, 1903 (ff. 11, 13), Lord Rosebery, 1902 (f. 14), H. H. Asquith, 1902 (f. 17-18), A. J. Balfour, 1902 (f. 25), and David Lloyd George, [1903] (f. 63). The press cuttings relate to his Parliamentary and constituency work and include a colour portrait entitled 'The Champion of the Ladies', [1909] (p. 86). A group of cuttings, 1901-1904, relate to Lieut. Osmond Williams in South Africa (pp. 77-80).

Diary entries, on loose sheets, for [?22] November [1903] (f. 1), 22-30 November 1905 (f. 2 recto-verso), 24-29 June 1908 (f. 3 recto-verso), and 29 August-16 September [1911] (ff. 4-5 verso), a letter, 1903, to Edward Thomas granting him permission to fish, and a transcript by the poet of the folk-song 'O can ye sew cushions'.

A prose piece with the title 'A Castle of Cloud', autograph, 1912, which appeared in a shorter version as 'Cloud Castle' in Edward Thomas's posthumously published collection Cloud Castle and Other Papers' (London, 1922) (ff. 1-6); typescript of the same by Mrs Beryl Thomas (ff. 7-14).

The original manuscript of Edward Thomas, The Heart of England (London, 1906), together with a letter from the author to Jesse Berridge, rector of Little Badow, Chelmsford, [?1913] (f. iii).
The letter was published in The Letters of Edward Thomas to Jesse Berridge, ed. by Anthony Berridge (London, 1983).

Over one hundred and twenty letters, 1901-1913, from Edward Thomas to his wife, Helen Thomas, containing mainly personal news and reflections, including accounts of his visits to Wales in 1910 and 1911, and to Paris in 1912.

Eleven letters, October 1914, from Edward Thomas to his wife, Helen Thomas, in the form of a journal of his bicycle tour in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Glamorgan and Breconshire, together with an account of his visit to Robert Frost at Dymock, Gloucestershire.

Exercise book once belonging to Edward Thomas, containing autograph drafts, 1914, of two of his earliest poems 'The Mountain Chapel' and 'Birds' Nests', together with a draft, [1915], of 'House and Man'.
'The Mountain Chapel' material, dated 17 December 1914 (f. 2), seems to consist of an initial draft (ff. 1 verso-2, 3, 4), a second draft (ff. 5-6) with further revisions to the opening section only (f. 4 verso), and a final draft (ff. 2 verso, 3 verso) which closely corresponds to the published versions; it was first published in his Last Poems (London, 1918), pp. 62-63. The 'Birds' Nests' material, dated 18 December 1914 (on ff. 7, 8), consists of an early draft (f. 6 verso), a second draft (f. 7) and a final draft (f. 8); the latter is very close to the poem as first published in his Poems (London, 1917), p. 54, with only three substantive variants (lines 3, 7 and 15). The single, revised, draft of 'House and Man' (f. 7 verso) closely corresponds to the other known autograph copy in London, British Library Add. MS 44990, and the version printed in Last Poems (London, 1918), p. 90, except for the omission here of the last line-and-a-half ('…veering about, / A magpie like a weathercock in doubt'). 'House and Man' was first published, with a few variants, in Root and Branch, 1.4 (1915), 59, making it (jointly with 'Intervals') his first poem to see print. In The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, ed. by R. George Thomas (Oxford, 1978) 'The Mountain Chapel' is poem No. 10 (pp. 44-47), 'Birds' Nests' is No. 9 (pp. 42-43) and 'House and Man' is No. 33 (pp. 104-105); the dating of the first two in the present manuscript suggests the conjectured chronological arrangement of that volume (and also Edward Thomas, The Annotated Collected Poems, ed. by Edna Longley (Tarset, 2008)), is incorrect.

Notebook, 1914-1915, containing autograph drafts and revisions of some twenty-five untitled poems by Edward Thomas (ff. 1v-27), all published in The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, ed. by R. George Thomas (Oxford, 1978), where the manuscript is designated M1 (p. xxii).

Notebook, 1916, containing autograph drafts and revisions of twenty-seven untitled poems (ff. 7v-41), all published in The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, ed. by R. George Thomas (Oxford, 1978), where the manuscript is designated M2 (p. xxiii) and assumed to have been 'used as a working notebook in camp - and in the train. Like M1 [NLW MS 22920A], it gives an admirable example of Thomas's working method as a poet and, according to his letters to Frost, it contains many of the poems he adjudged to be his best'. Also included are the final words of the essay, 'The Pilgrim' (f. 1) (see note below), an apparently unpublished prose dialogue between P., T. and Jehovah (ff. 1 verso-7) and trigonometrical sketches (ff. 29 verso-30 verso).

Diary, 1915-1916, of Ethel Dora Heins (1886-1933) of Brecon, recording her service as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse in Alexandria.
A photograph of Heins is on f. 26.

Largely disconnected papers of Edward Thomas, comprising journals, on loose sheets, for 29 August-18 September 1903 (ff. 3-5), 30 December-8 January 1904 (ff. 6-7), 14-20 February 1904 (f. 8), 11 April 1904 (f. 9), 28 September-11 November 1904 (ff. 10-15), 31 December 1909 (ff. 16-20), 18-25 April [1911] (f. 21) and a visit to Paris, [1912] (ff. 22-30); lists of essays sent to publishers, 1899 and 1914 (ff. 1, 35); notes on income, 1908-1916 (ff. 31-34); part draft of a book review, [1913] (ff. 38-40); photographs of Edward Thomas, 1895 (f. 41), and Gordon Bottomley (f. 42).

First World War diary of the poet and essayist Edward Thomas, 1 January-8 April 1917, containing descriptions of army life in England and France, observations on the natural world, and brief accounts of letters sent and received. It also contains the only known draft of Thomas's last poem, 'The sorrow of true love' (f. 29), dated 13 January 1917. The covers and leaves of the diary are heavily creased, suggesting that it may have been in Thomas's pocket when he was killed by a shell on the first day of the Battle of Arras on 9 April 1917. For an edited version of the diary's text, see The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, ed. by R. George Thomas (Oxford, 1978), pp. 460-481. Three items found loose inside the diary's covers, including a draft of Thomas's poem, 'The Lane' [1916], have been filed as NLW MS 24030iiA.

The diary, 1916-1917, of Edmund Davies, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Merionethshire, containing an account of his service with the 17th Royal Welch Fusiliers during the First World War.
The diary, which begins in April 1916, records postings in France including action in the trenches and ends in February 1917 when the diarist was injured at the Ypres Salient in Belgium. Papers connected with the diary have been filed separately (NLW MS 23060C).