More of the letters?

[ecb]

I was just wondering whether there are plans to bring up more of Peter's letters to Barrie during the war (I know these are in the database, but sometimes the pencil is so faint as to make it very hard to decipher).  Also Nico's letters to Andrew Birkin - they leave off in 1976, but they apparently run to either 1978 or 1980 depending on which part of the website you check!  I do especially enjoy Nico's letters since he seems to have written as he spoke and now that I can hear him in the audio section, I can almost hear his voice in the letters!

I'm not being greedy - I know how much work has gone into this site as it is.  Really I'm just wondering

[andrew]

Exactly how I feel too!  The problem is (a) time and (b) that as the letters to me (and a further 300-odd to Sharon) they become increasingly personal and/or don't make sense unless you've read the other side of the correspondance. But I will get round to sifting through the rest one of these days... or possibly just scan them - Nico's writing is wonderfully legible... but then you can't search them. On the subject of scanning, I'd also like to scan Barrie's 300 letters to Nico, which I xeroxed in 1977 before acting as a go-between Nico and Beinecke, to whom he sold them the following year (he never was a sentimentalist!). I also have hundreds of letters from other people - the Welsh Lewises, Daphne du Maurier, etc etc ....  In giving my collection to GOSH I'd hoped to free myself, but it seems all I did was give them the cream = 10% of the total collection!
I've now finishyed transcribing the rest of Peter's letters, and they'll be going up shortly.  Ah - then the Morgue......!  Do I hear volunteers??!

[AnnaPink]

Andrew --  I want to thank you again for what I am sure has been an enormous amount of work. The site is a bountiful treasure trove as-is. And yet I know the prospect of so many more letters makes even the non-greedy amoung us salivate...but patience is a virtue. If you honestly do need help with anything, though, just let us know...you have a little army of cult followers at your disposal.

Also, I was very excited and happy to hear about the prospective Area I DVD release of JMB&TLB...

[andrew]

Many thanks for the offers of help - if only they came from within striking distance of the wilds of Wales!  I've now at last finished transcribing Peter's letters to JMB from the Western Front......  but there's still a great deal of the Morgue to be transferred, and I only type with two fingers!

[Rebecca]

I have two essays that I should be working on for classes, so I promised myself that I wouldn't visit this site until I was done. I'm so glad I cheated! Very exciting to hear that the rest of Peter's wartime letters have been uploaded, and I'm afraid I'll probably stay up too late tonight reading them. Andrew, many thanks to you and your fingers for all the hard work.

[ecb]

Oh thank you so much!  I little suspected when I asked about Peter's letters that they would so soon appear.  They are fascinating by themself as the letters of an intelligent young man facing the horrors of the trenches, but are doubly so because since we have read this particular soldier's childhood letters and know his history, we feel as though we know him in a special way.  Bless you Andrew, we all do appreciate everything you have brought us!