Powys Society Newsletter 88

she did not pursue the project and retained the letters. When Mary Carson inherited
the collection she wondered what would be the best thing to do to conserve the
integrity of the collection as a whole and when she saw our website decided the
letters would find a very good home with the Society and would be looked after in
a professional way.
Although the letters do not add anything new to JCP’s biography they do give
us a very good picture of JCP in his old age, demonstrate the kindness he extended
towards his correspondents, and give insights into his ideas and thinking at the end
of his life.
The correspondence begins politely in 1954: ‘My dear Lady’ but progresses to
a more familiar form of address: ‘My dear Friend’ and ‘My dear old Friend’ in
1957. JCP tells Mrs Reid about himself: ‘I have only two virtues – industry and
gratitude’, as well as about his health, old age and his loss of memory, his belief
in a self cure, his diet, his fear of heights, his family, his writing projects – he was
working on The Brazen Head, called at this time, The Two Barons, and Homer and
the Aether called then Homer and the Aegis, and All or Nothing; he discusses his
writing style, which he admits is ‘long winded’ and says writing essays is much
easier than writing novels. He refers to his self image as a medium inspired by
the spirits of other writers. He discusses his favourite books and writers (Milton,
Anatole France, Coleridge, Thomas Browne, Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Rabelais, Don
Quixote, Goethe’s Faust). He explains he is a born letter writer but fears he may
soon have to give up writing letters although he always wants to go on receiving
them. The letters contain references to the work of Elizabeth Myers, the prose style
of Arnold, Pater, Newman, and Conrad. He gives an insight into the help he and
Phyllis received from neighbours in Corwen – especially the two boys David and
Roger Jones.
The collection of Mrs Reid’s letters will now be deposited in the Powys
Collection at the University of Exeter where they may be consulted by readers on
request to the archivist.
Chris Thomas
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