Rhys Jones, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts, writes: On 26 May 2022, with generous assistance from FNL, the National Library of Wales purchased at auction two items relating to ‘In Parenthesis’, the war poem written by artist, engraver and poet David Jones (1895-1974), namely a proof copy of the completed work and a draft radio script.
Jones had enlisted with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in early 1915 and served on the Western Front in the 38th (Welsh) Division, seeing action on the Somme and at Ypres. He was wounded in the leg during the attack on Mametz Wood on 10-11 July 1916 and his active service was ended by a bout of trench fever in February 1918.
Over the next two decades he made his name as an artist and engraver. Then, in about 1928, he began work on ‘In Parenthesis’. This is an epic poem recounting his wartime experiences and culminating in the Mametz Wood offensive, dense with allusions to Welsh and English history and literature and scripture. Its composition took a decade and numerous drafts and was interrupted by a severe mental breakdown.
By early 1937 the poem was being prepared for the press and it was at this point that the first of our new acquisitions, an uncorrected proof copy of the book, was created. Several other copies and partial copies of the same version of the proofs exist but all are heavily emended and corrected. The new volume is ‘clean’, complete and bound and is inscribed on the front cover with the date ‘June 10, 1937’, the day of the book’s publication party.
‘In Parenthesis’ was an immediate success and won the Hawthornden Prize in 1938. It was adapted for radio by Douglas Cleverdon but transmission was cancelled twice, in 1939 and 1942, on account of the Second World War. The third attempt went ahead on the Third Programme on 19 November 1946, with Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton among the cast. This had a pre-recorded introduction from David Jones and the second item acquired by the Library is a three page manuscript draft - probably the final draft - of this introduction. It contains numerous deletions and corrections but in essence it is very close to the script that Jones recorded.
These two items are only the most recent additions to our collections relating to David Jones. The National Library of Wales is home to his personal and literary papers, including his drafts of ‘In Parenthesis’, artistic works and his personal library, acquired in 1978 and 1985. This purchase follows on from two other recent acquisitions of David Jones correspondence, also bought with the aid of grants from the Friends of the National Libraries, namely his letters to Morag Owen (November 2019) and to Valerie Wynne-Williams (August 2020).
Both items have now been catalogued and are available to be read in the Library’s reading room. The proof copy and the radio introduction have the reference numbers NLW MS 24193B and NLW MS 24194E respectively.
