Hand and Flower Press collection
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
- Hand & Flower Press (Organization)
- Marx, Erica (Person)
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 Later, the press printed the work of largely unpublished writers, releasing commercial editions of fiction, translations, lectures, biography, and especially the poetry with which it is most closely identified.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.
- Allen, Donald, 1912-2004
- Blackburn, Thomas (Thomas Eliel Fenwick), 1916-1977
- Boggs, Tom, 1905-1952
- Causley, Charles, 1917-2003
- Constance, Arthur
- Correspondence -- Poetry, English -- 20th century Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Cunard, Nancy, 1896-1965
- Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965
- Fassam, Thomas
- Hand & Flower Press -- Archives
- Morgan, Edwin, 1920-2010
- Nott, Kathleen
- Peirse, Juanita
- Pool, Rosey E., 1905-1971
- Prynne, J. H., 1936-
- Publishers and Publishing -- Correspondence Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Small presses -- England -- London Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Turnbull, Gael
Source
- The Poetry Collection (Repository, Organization)
- 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
420 Capen Hall
Buffalo New York 14260-1674 US
716-645-2917
716-645-3714 (Fax)
lpo-poetry@buffalo.edu