Viola Meynell Letters circa 1902, 1948-1950 MS.1986.035 http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1144

Archives and Manuscripts Department John J. Burns Library Boston College 140 Commonwealth Avenue Chestnut Hill 02467 library.bc.edu/burns/contact URL: http://www.bc.edu/burns Table of Contents

Summary Information ...... 3 Administrative Information ...... 4 Related Materials ...... 4 Biographical / Historical ...... 5 Scope and Contents ...... 5 Arrangement ...... 5 Collection Inventory ...... 6

Viola Meynell Letters MS.1986.035

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Creator: Meynell, Viola Title: Viola Meynell letters ID: MS.1986.035 Date [inclusive]: 1902, 1948-1950 Date [bulk]: 1948-1950 Physical Description .25 Linear feet (1 Box) Language of the English Material: Abstract: The letters of Viola Meynell serve as a significant sample of her letters to John Gawsworth, general editor of the Poetry Review; also included are letters by Meynell addressed to "My dear Bartie", discussing family matters and her early efforts to get her writings published. Preferred Citation

Identification of item, Box number, Folder number, Viola Meynell letters, MS.1986.035, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Viola Meynell Letters MS.1986.035

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Publication Information Processed by Elizabeth Delaney; revisions by David Tennant, April 2006; Rachael Young in 2018. This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace.

Restrictions on access Collection is open for research.

Restrictions on use These materials are made available for use in research, teaching and private study, pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source. The original authors may retain copyright to the materials.

Provenance Because the current accessioning system was not used until January 1986, it is not possible to know exactly the dates of acquisition of materials received before that time.

Related Materials

Related Materials Boston College collection of , MS.1986.061, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

J. Randolph Sasnett papers, MS.1989.017, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Wilfrid Meynell letters, MS.1986.042, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Viola Meynell Letters MS.1986.035

- Page 4 - Biographical / Historical

Viola Meynell, the daughter of British Catholic authors Wilfrid and Alice Meynell, was born in 1885. The sister of six brothers and sister, Viola grew up in the literary environment of the Meynell household. Among the visitors to the Meynell home were , , and . Her upbringing was decidedly Catholic, as her parents were converts to Catholicism, and she was given a Catholic education at the Convent of Our Lady of Sion in . More than the rest of her siblings, Viola aspired to become an author like her mother who enjoyed a considerable amount of fame for her poetry, essays, criticism, and novels.

Alice MeynellViola's first novel Martha Vine: A Love Story of Simple Life (1910) was published anonymously, but the novel received strong reviews and compliments from such writers as Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Alfred Noyes anyway. Over the next 46 years, Viola authored numerous novels and memoirs, including a memoir of her mother, Alice Meynell (1928), and one of the friendship between "The Hound of Heaven" poet and her father, Francis Thompson and (1952). She served as editor for several collections of letters of various publishing figures, including Sidney Cockerel and J.M. Barrie, and edited the Love Poems of John Donne (1923), published by her brother's publishing company Nonesuch Press. She also wrote introductions for Oxford University Press editions of George Eliot's Romola (1913) and Felix Holt: The Radical (1913) and Melville's Moby Dick (1925).

Viola married in 1922, the same year her mother died. Her marriage to John Dallyn, a farmer neither literary nor Catholic, was apparently not happy. The couple had a son, Jacob, in 1923. Although in her later years Meynell struggled with a debilitating illness, she remained productive as a writer, publishing her last novel Ophelia in 1951. When she died in October 1956, she was remembered for her graciousness, sense of humor, and "the intense moral seriousness of her fiction."

Source: Raymond N. MacKenzie,Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 153: Late-Victorian and Edwardian British Novelists, First Series The Gale Group, 1995. pp. 204-215.

Scope and Contents

The Viola Meynell Letters includes four letters to "Bartie" circa 1902 discussing family matters, signed by Viola Meynell, and a group of seven letters and postcards signed by Viola Meynell to John Gawsworth, general editor at The Poetry Review.

Arrangement

Chronological.

Viola Meynell Letters MS.1986.035

- Page 5 - Collection Inventory

To "my Dear Bartie", 1902, undated box 1 folder 1

1902 June 29 box 1 folder 1

before 1903 box 1 folder 1

no year May 22 box 1 folder 1

no year July 16 box 1 folder 1

To John Gawsworth, 1948-1950 box 1 folder 2

1948 December 13 box 1 folder 2

1948 December 22 box 1 folder 2

1949 January 11 box 1 folder 2

1949 April 12 box 1 folder 2

1949 August 3 box 1 folder 2

1950 December 6 box 1 folder 2

1950 December 11 box 1 folder 2

Viola Meynell Letters MS.1986.035

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