Collection Summary
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Quennell, Peter, 1905-1993
Peter Quennell Collection
1925-1973
Manuscript Collection
MS-03361
10 boxes (4.2 linear feet), 1 galley folder (gf)
The collection of British writer and editor
Peter Quennell consists primarily of manuscripts of 16 of his
works.
English
Biographical Sketch
Peter Quennell was an English biographer, critic, and literary historian born in Bickley,
South East Greater London, England in March of 1905. Son of social historians and authors
Marjorie and Charles Henry Bourne Quennell, Peter was introduced to the world of scholarship
early in his life. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford and taught English in Japan
for a year at the Tokyo University of Science and Literature. Married five times, Quennell
had two children: Sarah with his third wife and Alexander with his fifth.
Quennell published his first book,
Masques & Poems, in 1922. He
went on to publish several more volumes of poetry. Later, he distinguished himself as a
biographer of 18th and 19th century authors including Alexander Pope, William Hogarth, and
Samuel Johnson, and was considered an authority on Lord Byron. As a journalist, Quennell was
editor of Cornhill Magazine from 1944 to 1951 and was the
founder and editor of History Today from 1951 to 1979.
A prolific author, Peter Quennell edited and contributed to numerous literary histories in
his final years, including his works
The Last Edwardians and An Illustrated Companion to World Literature. He also published a
two-volume autobiography: The Marble Foot covers his life
up to 1938, and Wanton Chase picks up from 1939. He was knighted in
1992 at the age of eighty-seven, shortly before his death in 1993.
Sources:
“Peter Quennell.”
Contemporary Authors Online
http://galenet.galegroup.com (accessed 7 September 2006).
Scope and Contents
This collection is composed of manuscripts for 17 published and unpublished works by Peter Quennell, along with 3
letters and a small number of miscellaneous items. The first seven boxes contain materials
previously described only in the Ransom Center's card catalog. The final three boxes contain
materials for four additional works, acquired and described separately at a later date.
Acquisition:
Purchases, 1967 (R3533, R3795); 1969 (R4786); 1973 (R5195); and 1977 (R7575, R7749)
Access:
Open for research.
Researchers
must create an online Research Account and agree to the Materials Use Policy before using
archival materials.
Use Policies:
Ransom Center collections may contain material with sensitive or confidential information
that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers
are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living
individuals represented in the collections without the consent of those individuals may have
legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may
arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed
highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the Ransom Center and The University of
Texas at Austin assume no responsibility.
Preferred Citation
Peter Quennell Collection (Manuscript Collection MS-03361). Harry Ransom Center, The
University of Texas at
Austin.
Processed by:
Jonathan Reynolds, 2006; Joan Sibley and Richard Workman, 2018
Note:
Part of this finding aid replicates and replaces information previously available only in a
card catalog. Please see the explanatory note at the end of this finding aid for information
regarding the arrangement of the manuscripts as well as the abbreviations commonly used in
descriptions.
Sir Peter Quennell appears elsewhere in the Ransom Center in the collections of Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc., Richard Church, Nancy Cunard, Constantine FitzGibbon, Graham Greene, John
Haffenden, Gerald Hamilton, Allanah Harper, Kenneth Hopkins, John Lehmann, Philip Lindsay,
London Magazine, Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes, Compton Mackenzie,
Lady Ottoline Morrell, Derek Patmore, PEN, and John Symonds.
Container List
Works:
Alexander Pope: The education of genius, 1688-1728:
1.1-5
Signed Ams with handwritten revisions, 411 pages in 5 notebooks,
1965-1968
1.6-7, 2.1-2
Tms with handwritten revisions and with proofreader’s and printer’s
handwritten notes and markings, 457 pages, 1968
gf 1
Page proofs on galleys with handwritten revisions and printer’s handwritten
note, 145 galleys, 1-9 July 1968
2.3
Alexander the Great, signed Ams / incomplete with handwritten revisions, 90
pages in notebook, 1925-1926
2.4-5
Baudelaire and the symbolists, signed Ams / draft / incomplete with
handwritten revisions, approximately 175 pages in 3 notebooks, 1926-1927. Contains
also translation of The two pigeons by Laforgue, notes and drafts of miscellaneous
items, and pasted-in galley proofs of section on Laforgue.
2.6
Baudelaire and the symbolists, printed book with heavy handwritten revisions
for second edition, 221 pages, undated
3.1
Byron: The years of fame, Ams / draft / incomplete with handwritten
revisions, approximately 210 pages in notebook, 9 March 1934
3.2
Byron: The years of fame, printed book with extensive handwritten revisions
for second edition, 305 pages, undated
3.3
Four portraits, printed book with handwritten revisions for second edition,
236 pages, undated
3.4-6
Hogarth’s progress, Ams with handwritten revisions, approximately 305 pages
in 3 notebooks, undated
4.1
Hostile transaction, signed Ams / unfinished with handwritten emendations, 14
pages, 28 October 1945
4.2
Legendary moralities by Jules Laforgue, signed Ams with handwritten
revisions, 46 pages, November 1926. Partial translation; contains only The miracle of
the roses and Lohengrin, son of Parsifal.
4.3-5
The marble foot, Ams, 344 pages in 3 notebooks, undated
4.6-8
The marble foot, Tms with handwritten corrections, 331 pages,
undated
5.1
Notebook miscellany, Ams / drafts with handwritten revisions, 85 pages,
undated. Contains drafts of translations, reviews, etc., and draft of Baudelaire to
Laforgue, early version of Baudelaire and the symbolists.
5.2-8
Shakespeare: The poet and his background, signed Ams with handwritten
revisions, approximately 415 pages in 7 notebooks, 1960
6.1-4
Shakespeare: The poet and his background, signed T and Tccms with handwritten
revisions and printer’s markings, 457 pages, 1963
6.5-7
The sign of the fish, Ams with handwritten revisions, approximately 250 pages
in 3 notebooks, undated
6.8, 7.1-2
Sympathy and other stories, signed Ams / incomplete with handwritten
revisions, 392 pages in 3 notebooks, undated. Written in one notebook: Part of A
superficial journey.
7.3
Trans-Siberian, Ams / unfinished with handwritten revisions, 44 pages in
notebook, 26 November no year. Written with this: Marcel Proust; The bird cage; Review
of The house in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen; several short drafts of miscellaneous
nature.
Letters:
7.4
ALS to Barrow, _____, undated
7.4
ALS to Harper, Allanah, undated
7.4
ALS, APCS to Massey, Arthur E., 9 March 1927, 14 February 1930
Miscellaneous:
7.5
Albatross Limited. Memorandum of agreement with Peter Quennell re Byron, the
years of fame, signed printed document, 2 pages, 4 March 1947.
7.5
Albatross Limited. Memorandum of agreement with Peter Quennell re Caroline of
England, signed printed document, 2 pages, 28 August 1947.
7.6
Quennell, Peter, 1905-1993. Notes for Shakespeare and The sign of the fish,
Ams / notes, 57 pages in notebook, undated. Pasted in this: TLS Harold Nicolson to
Quennell, 24 April 1956.
Additional Works:
8
1
Byron in Italy (Penguin Books edition, 1955),
proof pages with handwritten corrections
8
Casanova in London and Other Essays
(1971)
8
2
Typescript draft with handwritten corrections
8
3
Proof copy with handwritten corrections
8
The Colosseum (1971)
8
4
"Notebook 1," contains I, II, III, V
8
5
"Notebook 2," contains IV, V, VII, dated 30 June 1970
9
1
"Notebook 3," contains VI
9
2
Typescript with handwritten corrections
9
Samuel Johnson (1973)
9
3
"Notebook 4," contains various notes and drafts
9
4
"Notebook 5," contains VI, I, II, with Bibliog. at the back
9
5
"Notebook 6," contains III
9
6
"Notebook 7," contains IV, V
10
1
"Notebook 8," contains VII, V cont'd, VIII, Epilogue
10
2
Typescript draft with handwritten corrections