Michael's letters

[mikewill]

On page 291 of J. M. Barrie & The Lost Boys is the quote: "Cynthia [Asquith]  had arranged a 'great cave' of Michael's letters, starting with his first attempt, written as a child of five."
Question: Do these letters still exist or were they destroyed as "too much"
by Peter Davies in 1952?

[Nicholas]

Janet Dunbar gives the following information regarding the situation at the end of May or beginning of June 1921 on p259 of J M Barrie:

"It was harrowing later, when Michael's clothes and other belongings were sent to the [Adelphi] flat, along with a box of letters which Barrie had written to him: they dated back to Michael's first half at Eton.  Barrie took the letters and asked Cynthia to dispose of the other things.  He turned to her to help him with all practical matters connected with the tragedy."

Dunbar's source was (presumably) Cynthia Asquith herself.  I would think that an "editing" process probably began at Oxford (who packed up Michael's things?) and continued right through to when Peter burned the letters in the 1950s.

[tcarroll]

I find the fact that Barrie and Michael wrote to each other every day very sweet.  I am a mother, and had my daughter needed that kind of encouragement, she certainly would have gotten it. I feel Michael and the others boys were loved by Barrie just as he would have loved them had they been born to him.  The Llewelyn Davies boys were very fortunate to have an adult who loved them as he did after losing both parents while they were so young.  I would love to have read Michael's letters, I am sure they would have been wonderful.  As fascinated as I am with this family and Barrie, I find this such a sad and tragic story.
                                                                              tcarrol

[andrew]

I don't think anyone would have dared "edit" the Barrie/Michael letters while Barrie was alive. When he died in 1937, everything was packed up and put into storage, where it remained until 1946. It was then that Peter began writing his massive "Morgue". He planned to finish it with Michael's death in 1921, but in the event only managed to get as far as George's death in 1915, which evidently undid him. Read his letters to Mary Hodgson on the database to judge for yourself, but my guess (and Nico's too) was that he burned the lot in the early 1950s... "they were too much".

[Nicholas]

I'm sure Barrie's letters were untouched, but I was thinking of Michael's other personal property, like letters from friends, his own writings, his sketches and so on. 
It's very touching that Michael kept JMB's letters as he must have reread treasured passages.

[andrew]

I quizzed Nico very closely on the subject, and his best guess was that all Michael's effects that were saved and stored after his death were all burned by Peter.

[mikewill]

Andrew; Thank you for the clarification about Michael's letters and affects.
Very sad that Peter burned them. Coincidentally, very like what Robert Todd Lincoln did for much of the correspondence between Mary Todd  and Abraham Lincoln and the letters Willie Lincoln wrote to him (Robert) from Springfield and Washington (I just published a book on Willie Lincoln and my great-grandfather, a sgt. in the Pennsylvania Volunteers who was stationed at the White House 1861-62 and was befriended by Willie, who, although younger than Michael when he died, also had great potential).
The book is entitled Mystic Chords of Memory by Donald Motier.

No one has replied to my other query about the origin of Michael's fear of water. Any ideas?

PS: I live in the US and hope to visit Michael's grave someday.
Also, please accept my belated sympathies for the death of your son.

[CoriSCapnSkip]

Wow, your book sounds fascinating.  I will get it for my collection of other books about Willie and Tad!

A children's book called Christmas for Tad was written in a similar fashion--the author's ancestor was a soldier stationed at the White House.  This was supposed to be Christmas of 1863 but had Willie dying about a year later than he really did and some other literary license.  The part about the soldiers is of interest, being a family story passed down.

[andrew]

Fascinating!  Would your friend be prepared to share photos of the watch - and Michael's hair - with this site??

[mikey2573]

Oddly enough, I believe the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library also have locks of hair from all of the boys. Apparently cut by Sylvia when they were still children.

[ecb]

If you go to the Database and do a search on hair you will see the hair saved by Sylvia for both Michael (I suppose it was Sylvia who saved it) and Nico (includes the envelope with Sylvia's handwriting - Nicholas' hair).

They have a reddish glint - but I believe that sometimes older examples of cut hair sort of tend to go "red". 

[andrew]

Sadly for us, Nico was 99% certain Peter had burned the lot. That was in 1976, and nothing has shown up since apart from one letter (in my book and the database) that was muddled up with Barrie's letters to Nico. One of these days I'll get round to scanning/transcribing the Barrie-Nico letters, but with soooooo much else going on in my life - arrrgh!