Published Occasionally by the Friends of the Bancroft Library University of California, Berkeley, California 94720
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PUBLISHED OCCASIONALLY BY THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720 No. 66 February 19 J J ^Dearest Violas- Letters of George Moore In December of 1952, Roland E. Duncan, a member of the Bancroft staff who was in London to oversee the microfilming of docu ments in the Public Record Office, crossed the Channel to Paris to conduct an interview with Alice B. Toklas, an interview which would become the first in the Library's Oral History program. During this same week Duncan journeyed on to the village of Lardy in Seine-et-Oise, seeking the villa of the late Viola Rodgers, a California-born journalist who had died in 1944, where he hoped to find her correspondence from Frank Norris and a file of letters written to her by the Anglo-Irish novelist, George Moore. The letters from Norris had disappeared, pre sumably during the war, but those from Moore had indeed survived the German oc cupation of the villa; they were not then available to The Bancroft Library. Now, twenty-four years later, it is good to an nounce that all one hundred and thirty-two letters have come to the Library as the gift of an anonymous donor. George Moore, perhaps best known for his novels Esther Waters and Evelyn Inness and for his memoirs including A Story teller s Holiday and Memoirs of My Dead Life, studied painting in Paris from 1872 to 1882. While in the French capital he read deeply in current literature and when he returned to England and to a career of fiction he be gan to utilize the realistic and naturalistic techniques of Flaubert, Zola, and others. Viola Rodgers in France during World War I With William Butler Yeats and Lady Greg said "could not have been done at all with ory he collaborated in the planning of the out Moore's knowledge of the stage." Irish National Theatre, a work which Yeats Moore first met Viola Rodgers in 1907 [• ] when she came from London to Dublin for Dujardin. He mentions other friends in pass Perhaps the earliest book written entirely an interview. In an unpublished memoir, ing, notably Nancy Cunard, whose own 30th Annual Meeting on Costa Rica is John Hale's Six Months which is also in The Bancroft Library, Miss memoir of Moore, published in 1956, re William Saroyan, the internationally fa Residence and Travels in Central America Rodgers describes this meeting: counts that all of his letters to her disap mous Fresno-born dramatist and novelist for through the Free States of Nicaragua, and I had a telegram from the New York peared when her house in Normandy was whose play, The Time of Your Life, he was particularly Costa Rica: Giving an Interest office [of the Hearst newspapers] ask occupied by German soldiers during the sec awarded, and declined, the Pulitzer Prize in ing Account of that Beautiful Country . ing me to arrange for George Moore to ond World War. He announces that Cath- 1940, will be the principal speaker at the with the Peculiar Advantages offered by the write an article on art for the Cosmo leen Nesbitt, who is to play the lead in his thirtieth Annual Meeting of The Friends Government to Settlers, showing the most politan Magazine. I took the train and play The Coming of Gabrielle, is coming to of The Bancroft Library on Sunday after Eligible Place for Cutting the Projected boat over to Dublin where he was living luncheon and says: "I wish it were you." noon, May 8th. A special exhibition of mate Canal, to Unite the Atlantic and Pacific in his lovely house in Ely Place, not far Moore airs his literary tastes: rials drawn from the Library's extensive Oceans . published in New York in 1826. from the Shelburne Hotel... Mr. Moore Hawthorne the great master of English theater collections will be installed in the Hale is enthusiastic about the possibilities was there with his hair and moustache prose could not mould a tale; and it is a Gallery, and the annual Keepsake, to be for potential immigrants, and his account a pinkish shade (not red in any sense great pity he was no tale teller for he edited by Professor Travis Bogard, Depart is rich in detail concerning the Indians, of what one calls a "brick top.") The wrote beautifully, far better than any ment of Dramatic Art, will also have a climate, soil, mines and minerals, incipient most noticeable thing about him was English writer, Pater excepted. theatrical theme. An announcement and in industry, and the subsidies provided by the his beautifully formed white hands, with He also has definite feelings about how vitation will be sent to members in April. government to settlers. the long tapering fingers. He was tall Shakespeare ought be played: Grammar of the Miskito Language with and straight and his eyes the bluest of I have seen Barrymore in Hamlet and exercises and Vocabulary was compiled by blue eyes—kind, witty, mischievous — was surprised to learn that a man can Central American Rarities H. Berckenhagen, a Moravian missionary, and his face pink and white, with his study Hamlet month after month with and printed in Saxony, in the English lan drooping moustache covering a full out discovering that use of the mono With funds contributed by The Friends guage, in 1894. The Mosquito Coast, whose mouth, sensuous and red. logue is to communicate the prince's of The Bancroft Library, a remarkable col capital was Bluefields (or, as in Bancroft, They fast became friends and remained so mood to the audience . Barrymore's lection of Central American books and pam Blewfields), occupied a portion of the east until Moore's death early in 1933. The rec Hamlet is too hateful to be mentioned. phlets, many of them so rare as not to be ern coast of Nicaragua and Honduras; a ord of their friendship, at least from Moore's In 1923 Moore is enthusiastic about his listed in the standard bibliographical guides, German colony, Carlsruhe, was established point of view, is told in these letters, written new play, The Apostle, but writes to Miss has recently been purchased. This area of there in 1844, and the author may have been over a quarter of a century, primarily from Rodgers that it "cannot be acted in England the western world was part of Hubert Howe a descendant of these earlier settlers. In a his London home in Ebury Street. because the law forbids plays in which Jesus Bancroft's "literary territory," for volumes prefatory note he states: "Though this little Viola Rodgers was born in Watsonville in and Paul are the chief or among the minor six through eight of his histories deal with grammar is still imperfect, it is hoped how 1874, educated at the Irving Institute in San characters." He is, however, hopeful that the peoples and development of Central ever to be a guide into the language for Francisco, and became a reporter on the San "there will be no objection to the play being America, and these sixty-four new items those, who have to acquire it." Francisco Examiner. In 1903 she traveled to performed in America — a country, inhab nicely enhance the Library's collection in The final title to be noted here is Regula China to visit a brother who was in business ited, I believe, mostly by Unitarians." this field. tions For The Better Government of His there, and upon her return she settled in The letters of the last years chronicle Pelaez Francisco Garcia's Vindicacion del Majesty's Subjects in the Bay of Honduras, New Y>rk where she joined the staff of the Moore's illnesses; the final communique, Sistema Federal de Centro-America, escritaPresented to them by the Honourable Sir New York American after her initial assign dated December 30th, 1932, foretells his ap en Guatemala . was published in San Sal William Burnaby, Knight . , printed in ment for the paper proved a scoop. Follow proaching death: vador in 1825. This essay calls for a Central London in 1809. By terms of the Treaty of ing this success she achieved what she later I think of you constantly, for you have American Confederation, which, in fact, Paris in 1763, the British demolished their called "the greatest beat of my journalistic been a good friend to me. The past was came briefly into being following the Mexi fortifications around the Bay of Honduras career, the first exclusive interview and story pleasant but I am afraid there is no re can Revolution. An equally rare title, simi but were permitted to continue cutting wood of her life with Evelyn Thaw," better known turning to it. It is very probable that I larly not listed in the British Museum, is in this area. Sir William Burnaby was sent as Evelyn Nesbit, great friend of Stanford shall never see you again. William Perks' Relacion de la Vida Publica to Belize to establish the limits within which White who was murdered by her husband, In her memoir, Viola Rodgers notes this del Coronel Guillermo Perks, published in the wood-cutting was to be confined and to Harry K. Thaw. After six months in New letter and concludes her comments on George Guatemala in 1826. Perks, an English soldier draw up a code of laws for the regulation of Y>rk her editor sent Miss Rodgers to France, Moore: of fortune, had come to Guatemala from the the colony. The Burnaby Code, as it came by way of London, to become the Paris cor He left this world the following month United States and Mexico in 1825, and this to be known, was for many years the only respondent for the American.