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Hand and Flower Press collection

 Collection
Identifier: PCMS-0032

Scope and Content Note

The Hand and Flower Press collection contains manuscripts by Thomas Blackburn, Tom Boggs, Charles Causley, Arthur Constance, Thomas Fassam, Erica Marx, Edwin Morgan, Kathleen Nott, Juanita Peirse, Rosey E. Pool, and many others; page proofs for the anthologies Black and Unknown Bards and Beyond the Blues; business records including sales and royalty statements, contracts, receipts, ledgers, news clippings, and various documents relating to the production of Beyond the Blues; correspondence to Erica Marx from Donald Allen, Nancy Cunard, T. S. Eliot, Gael Turnbull, J. H. Prynne, and many others, including most of the authors published by Hand and Flower; correspondence from Marx; correspondence written on Marx's behalf by her secretary; business correspondence regarding book sales and publicity; miscellaneous photographs and some original copies of the artwork published in Hand and Flower books, including two colored drawings by Elizabeth Neild and a pencil drawing by Mariette Lydis; printing plates of the press' name and design from throughout its history; and various peripheral items.

Dates

  • 1940-1966

Creator

Terms of Access

The Hand and Flower Press collection, 1940-1966, is open for research.

Copyright

Copyright of papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns. Researchers must obtain the written permission of the holder(s) of copyright and the Poetry Collection before requesting photocopies and/or publishing quotations from materials in the collection. Once permission is obtained, most papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures unless otherwise specified.

Historical Note

Edited by Erica Marx (1909-1969) in Kent, England, the Hand and Flower Press began in 1940 by publishing limited editions of books such as Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Guy de Maupassant's Caresses. Later, the press printed the work of largely unpublished writers, releasing commercial editions of fiction, translations, lectures, biography, and especially the poetry with which it is most closely identified. Marx's dedication to promoting new writers and her belief in making poetry available to wider audiences are evident in the 1951 and 1952 series of Poems in Pamphlet. Priced at a shilling each, these monthly publications were "devoted to the work of a writer hitherto not published in book form in England" and featured early poems by Charles Causley, Thomas Blackburn, Charles Tomlinson, Peter Russell and Michael Hamburger. Producing over seventy individual titles between 1940 and 1963, Hand and Flower also published books by Muriel Spark, Edwin Morgan, Bertrand Russell, Erica Marx as well as Black and Unknown Bards: A Collection of Negro Poetry (1958) and Beyond the Blues: New Poems by American Negroes (1962), two of the earliest British anthologies of African-American poetry.

Extent

50.25 Linear Feet (202 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

The Hand and Flower Press collection contains manuscripts by Thomas Blackburn, Tom Boggs, Charles Causley, Arthur Constance, Thomas Fassam, Erica Marx, Edwin Morgan, Kathleen Nott, Juanita Peirse, Rosey E. Pool, and many others; page proofs for the anthologies Black and Unknown Bards and Beyond the Blues; business records including sales and royalty statements, contracts, receipts, ledgers, news clippings, and various documents relating to the production of Beyond the Blues; correspondence; miscellaneous photographs and some original copies of the artwork published in Hand and Flower books.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in nine series.

Acquisition Information

Arriving in 1970, the materials in this collection were bequeathed to the Poetry Collection by Erica Marx.

Accruals and Additions

No further accruals are expected to this collection.

Processing Information

Collection processed by Poetry Collection staff, 2008.

Source

Title
Finding aid for the Hand and Flower Press collection
Status
Completed
Author
Finding aid prepared by James Maynard and revised by Marie Elia.
Date
2010
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the The Poetry Collection Repository

Contact:
420 Capen Hall
Buffalo New York 14260-1674 US
716-645-2917
716-645-3714 (Fax)