Forster (E.M., novelist, 1879-1970) 3

Forster (E.M., novelist, 1879-1970) 3 Autograph Letters signed to Peter Burra and 11 Autograph Letters signed and 1 Postcard signed to Mrs Ella Burra (Peter Burra's mother),

together 22pp. & 4 envelopes, v.s., Abinger Hammer (nr. Dorking, Surrey) & King's College, Cambridge, 29th November 1934 - 29th October 1960, following the publication of Burra's monograph The Novels of E.M. Forster in the literary magazine The Nineteenth Century and After (Nov. 1934, vol. CXVI), "nothing I have read about myself has ever given me more pleasure: more than that I feel that you have brought me great help at the moment when I am needing it.... I have been looking at my books lately, partly on account of your article. I think A Passage to India stands, but the fissures in the others are considerable. I wish one didn't date so, though it is hopeless to try and avoid datibility while writing" and discussing his novel "The Longest Journey", "I have been looking at some of my novels, and particularly at The Longest Journey. I am amazed and exasperated at the way in which I insisted on doing things wrong there. It wasn't incompetence; it was a perversity the origins of which I can no longer trace. But for this it would have been my best piece of work, I am sure. (Howards End I lose patience with - A Passage to India is certainly the best). The L[ongest] J[ourney] has never stopped working in my mind; it is the only book which has ever given back something to the places from which I took it", Burra's article on Forrest Reid, "I flew through the Forrest Reid [article] with great interest... I agree it isn't altogether successful, but there is material in their for something condensed and as echoing as your creation out of me. Would you let F.R. read it if he chooses to do so? I agreed with most of your judgements and must have another try at Brian Westby which most of his admirers like so much. There are threads, as you suggest: the ugly devil-ghost, taking the shape of the long white face at the foot of the bed which he tells me he did see once; and the exciting sexy 'devil' - vision of him in Following Darkness and Deverell in which Stephen incarnates him; he's good which F.R. doesn't see!", commiserations on the death of Peter Burra, written two days after Burra was killed in a flying accident, "I venture to express my deepest sympathy in this terrible disaster. Like your son, I am a writer, and so can perhaps realise the irreparable loss that he is to literature as well as to those who loved him. I thought him the best critic of his generation. Please excuse me for troubling you with this letter, but I knew and appreciated him", and arrangements by Ella Burra to commemorate Peter Burra's life by publishing a selection of his works to be published as "Essays & Poems", and Forster's agreement to write an introduction, "I was glad to be invited to do such a thing, and wanted to do something, but felt it difficult, partly because I hadn't any general conception of your son's work (how could anyone have? he was just beginning)... I've thought it over now, and if the book is to be for private circulation, I would like to contribute...", and other correspondence relating to the proposed introduction, thanking Ella Burra's commiserations on the death of Forster's mother and thanking her for her appreciation of the dramatisation of A Passage to India; and 2 proofs of the order form flyers for Essays & Poems, manuscript corrections and additions, folds(17)