An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Center
Creator:
Wilkinson, Louis
Umfreville, 1881-1966
Title:
Louis Umfreville Wilkinson
Collection
Dates:
1916-1960
Extent:
7 document boxes (2.94 linear feet) and 4 galley folders (gf)
Abstract:
Sixty-seven holograph notebooks chiefly
relating to his published fiction and non-fiction make up the bulk of the Louis
Wilkinson Collection.
RLIN Record #
TXRC02-A6
Call Number:
Manuscript Collection MS-4521
Language:
English
Access:
Open for research. Part or all of this collection is housed off-site
and may require up to three business days notice for access in the
Ransom Center’s Reading and Viewing Room. Please contact the
Center before requesting this material: reference@hrc.utexas.edu
Administrative Information
Acquisition:
Purchases, 1967-1977 (R3456, R7675)
Processed by:
Chelsea S. Dinsmore, 2002, updated by Betsy Nitsch, 2012
Louis Umfreville Wilkinson was born in 1881, the only son of a
clergyman. He attended Radley School where he struck up a correspondence with
Oscar Wilde, then imprisoned in Reading Goal. He attended Oxford for four
semesters before being "sent down" for blasphemousness in 1901. He next went to
St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took his degree and published his first
novel in 1905. Also at Cambridge he made a group of lifelong friends including
Llewelyn Powys, J.C. Squire, Ronald Storrs, and Ralph Strauss. Powys' two
brothers, John Cowper and Theodore Francis, also became close friends.
Throughout his life Wilkinson wrote autobiographical and satirical
novels, publishing them under the pseudonym Louis Marlow. He supported himself
largely through writing, though he also took to the lecture circuit on
occasion. He was married four times and upon his death in 1966 he had two
surviving children.
Scope and Contents
Sixty-seven holograph notebooks chiefly relating to his published
fiction and non-fiction make up the bulk of the Louis Wilkinson Collection,
1916-1958. The collection is organized into three series: Series I. Works,
1934-1952 (2 boxes); Series II. Aleister Crowley's Estate, 1947-1960 (2
folders); and Series III. Notebooks, 1916-1958 (5 boxes).
Series I contains typescripts and page proofs for
The Devil in Crystal,
Forth, Beast!,
Seven Friends, and
Welsh Ambassadors. Also present are galley
proofs for
The Letters of Llewelyn Powys.
Representing Wilkinson's biography of Lord George Sackville,
Sackville of Drayton, are typescripts,
page and galley proofs, drafts of the appendix and indices, and correspondence
regarding publication of the book. Correspondents are listed in the Index of
Correspondence at the end of this guide.
The second series is composed of correspondence regarding Wilkinson's
duties as an executor of Aleister Crowley's estate. All correspondents are
listed in the Index of Correspondence at the end of this guide.
Series III contains 67 notebooks in which Wilkinson wrote drafts for
his novels, drafted letters, jotted down lines of poetry, and noted shopping
and expense lists. The notebooks have been listed under the titles to which
they chiefly relate, where possible. Notebooks that do not contain identifiable
titles have been placed at the end of the collection.
Related Material
Other materials associated with Louis Wilkinson may be found in the
following manuscript collections at the Ransom Center:
