Manuscript Letters to Audrey Napier-Smith

Item author: John Masefield
Item date: 1952 - 67
Grant Value: 10,000
Item cost: 13,500
Item date acquired: 1999
Item institution: Bodleian Library
Town/City: Oxford
County: Oxfordshire

A remarkable series of 1285 letters, written by Masefield to Audrey Napier-Smith, violinist in the Hall orchestra, provides an invaluable record of the Poet Laureate in his last 15 years. A selection of the letters, omitting most of the personal and biographical material) was published as Letters to Reyna edited by William Buchan in 1983. Grant from the Philip Larkin Fund

Item Provenance
Bequeathed by the recipient to the John Masefield Memorial Trust, sold by the Trust through the Society of Authors