Work in progress

Component identifier:

Item 67

Content Summary:

The contents of this folder are letters mainly concerned with the selection of verses for Beauty Imposes. Although this was a relatively slight volume there was a lengthy correspondence.

These letters by Neilson have been chosen to show Neilson's method of collaboration with his friend, and they do much to dispose of the fiction that the poet's lines came to him easily, or as one critic put it, "out of the sky". As a matter of fact his verse-making was a very laborious process.

Many of the poems contained in this book are under discussion in these letters, which together with notes, total forty pages. The progress was slow. Writing to Devaney, 3 September 1935, Neilson says: "...If I can get a quarter of them finished by next Easter we should have enough to make up a book I think." Because of his inability to see sufficiently clearly to write his own work, he was dependent upon outside assistance and at this time was lucky if he could secure the help of his step-sister Lisette, for an odd half-hour or so on Sundays.

Neilson wished Devaney's name associated with the book. He wanted the words "Edited by James Devaney" upon the title page and the cover. Devaney declined to permit this: whilst promoting Neilson he always effaced himself.

The folder contains a number of Devaney's typescripts of the poems at varying stages of development, with many of his annotations.

Names:

John Shaw Neilson

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