Showing 4 results

Forty-six manuscript and typescript letters, [c. 1890]-[c. 1934], from Berta Ruck, mostly to her father, Col Arthur Ashley Ruck, [1920s]-[c. 1934], containing mainly personal and family news.
Also included are two letters to her grandmother Mary Anne Ruck, [c. 1890] (ff. 1-4), and a carbon copy letter to her sister-in-law, Georgina Ruck, 15 July 1932 (ff. 86-91). Most of the letters were written either from home or while on holiday in Austria, France, Germany and Sweden. There are references to Oliver Onions (ff. 6-100 passim), Geoffrey Moss (f. 6), Sir Ray Lankester (ff. 9 verso, 10 verso-11, 12, 31, 32, 66), Ménie Muriel FitzGerald (ff. 13-17, 18, 29, 46-47, 56, 59), Alec Waugh (ff. 26, 35-36) and Vita Sackville West (f. 46); she also describes her car accident on 14 July 1932 (ff. 88-91). There are ink drawings by Ruck on f. 2 recto-verso.

Notebook of Berta Ruck, March 1921-June 1924, containing diary entries, ideas for fiction, comments on the progress of her work and impressions of holidays in Vichy, Brittany and Haute Savoie, France; a few extracts were later incorporated in her autobiographical volume A Story-teller tells the Truth (London, 1935).
Letters and papers, 1921-1933, found loose inside have been filed separately (NLW MS 23569iiC).

Notebook of Berta Ruck, December 1922-January 1923, containing a journal of a visit to the south of France and Corsica (ff. 1-21).
The journal records her car journey from Paris to Cannes, in the company of Ménie Muriel FitzGerald, December 1922 (ff. 1 verso-5), her stay at Cannes, including visits to Nice and Monte Carlo, December 1922 (ff. 5-11) and her visit to Corsica, December 1922-January 1923 (ff. 11 verso-21). There are also fragments of journal entries from September 1921 (f. 49) and October 1921 (f. 50 recto-verso). A letter from Dr George Williamson to a Mrs Hueffer, 6 June 1923, possibly about Ruck, is f. 22a. A leaf containing cartoons and jottings is f. 52a.

Fragments of notebooks of Berta Ruck, 1914-1926, containing impressions of travels in England and Merioneth, Wales, 1914-1916 (ff. 1-11), New York, [22]-23 September 1919 (ff. 12-16), Vienna, Austria, 1926 (ff. 17-30 verso), and France, 1926 (ff. 31-36), together with a few notes for fiction. Ephemera (in German) and nine letters, postcards and telegrams, mainly from family, July-August 1926, have been pasted in.
There are references to the First World War, [1914] (f. 2 recto-verso), 1916 (ff. 5 verso, 7 recto-verso), including a description of a Red Cross auction in Corris, Merioneth, 3 June 1916 (f. 7 recto-verso). Ink drawings by Ruck are on ff. 2 verso, 12. A photograph, [1926], of Ruck with her son, Arthur, is on f. 36 verso.