Deborah Alun-Jones - The Wry Romance of the Literary Rectory

Deborah Alun-Jones was brought up in an English village in Surrey and attended Wellington College, going on to study at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and University College, London, where she specialized in the work of Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. The Wry Romance of the Literary Rectory is the result of four years of rectory-crawling around England and Wales and delving into unpublished material held in county and university archives. She is married with four sons and lives in Sussex.

I am very grateful to Fiona Inchyra for starting the ball rolling in the first place and for her good-humoured company throughout. Frances Stonor Saunders provided valuable insights and helped me to hone my ideas. I would also like to thank the many people who generously shared their thoughts on the subject of writers and rectories, including Esther de Waal, P. D. James, Charles Moore and John Walsh, as well as those associated with county and university archives and pertinent societies who were unstinting with their time, advice and encouragement: Dr Nicholas Bennett for his historical insights on Lincoln; Professor Tony Brown at the R. S. Thomas Study Centre, Bangor University; Grace Cummins at the Tennyson Research Centre; Seona Ford, Chairman of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society; Gwydion and Kunjana Thomas; and Anne Trevett of the Bemerton Historical Society who shared her considerable knowledge and was kind enough to introduce me to Alec Roth. The Rectory Society gave sturdy support to the project and to everyone there, especially Alison Everington, I owe a great debt. I am also thankful to the late Major Peter Diggle who made room for a few extra guests at his entertaining lunch for the Sydney Smith Society in York.

I was privileged to have been warmly welcomed through the ever-open door of so many of these former rectories and vicarages by their current incumbents. Michael and Caroline Todhunter were especially generous, but I would also like to record my appreciation of David Carson and James and Sarah Walsh. Dame Mary Archer was kind enough to reward my curiosity by offering me coffee cake and sharing her detailed knowledge of the Old Vicarage, Grantchester. She also introduced me to Lady Christine Jennings, herself an authority on life at the OV before Rupert Brooke. Miss Rosemary Puxley gave me delightful descriptions of life at Farnborough. The Very Reverend Philip Buckler, Dean of Lincoln, allowed me to explore the former Chancery. A previous resident, Edmund de Waal, gave an inspiring talk to the Rectory Society that alerted me to Lincolns rich literary associations.

Rectory-crawling around the country has meant relying on the hospitality of many friends. I give them all my thanks, but in particular Claire and James Birch, Sir Christopher and Lady Ondaatje and Jans Ondaatje Rolls. Tom Woolfenden helped me enormously, Martin Bunting took the time to add his perceptive observations on John Betjeman, and Archie Cotterill kept on reading and made me laugh. My gratitude also goes to Kate Shemilt for her wonderful photography.

I would like to thank the team at Thames & Hudson as well as Mary-Jane Gibson for her support, expertise and thoughtful approach to the picture research.

Above all, to my boys (large and small), who have borne the brunt of my single-mindedness and obsessive research, I say an enormous thank you. This book is dedicated to you.

I would like to thank the following for permission to quote work in copyright:

Extracts from the works of John Betjeman Copyright John Betjeman by permission of The Estate of John Betjeman.

Extracts from 'Unpublished Autobiography' by M. E. Eldridge Copyright 2013 Kunjana Thomas

Church Going taken from The Complete Poems Copyright Estate of Philip Larkin and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

David Higham Associates for Dorothy L. Sayers.

Penguin Books and David Goodwin Associates for permission to quote from The Rivered Earth by Vikram Seth (Hamish Hamilton, 2011). Copyright 2011 Vikram Seth.

Extracts from 'Quietly as Snow, Gwydion Thomas interviewed by Walford Davies', published in New Welsh Review, 64 (Summer 2004), Copyright New Welsh Review and Walford Davies.

Bloodaxe Books for permission to quote from At the End and Manafon by R. S. Thomas, Collected Later Poems, 19882000 (Bloodaxe, 2004).

The Orion Publishing Group Ltd for permission to quote from R. S. Thomas, Collected Poems, 19451990, Copyright 1993 R. S. Thomas; and R. S. Thomas, Autobiographies, Copyright 1997 R. S. Thomas, translation and other material Copyright 1997 Jason Walford Davies.

All other extracts from the works of R. S. Thomas Copyright 2013 Kunjana Thomas.

Extract from Volume I: 19151919 of The Diary of Virginia Woolf, edited by Anne Olivier Bell, published by The Hogarth Press. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited and the Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Virginia Woolf.

Extract from Two Parsons taken from Volume V: 19291932 of The Essays of Virginia Woolf, edited by Stuart N. Clarke, published by The Hogarth Press. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

Extract from Whites Selborne taken from Volume VI: 19331941 of The Essays of Virginia Woolf, edited by Stuart N. Clarke, published by The Hogarth Press. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

In the relevant chapters, manuscript sources are followed by printed sources.

GENERAL

Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Space, trans. by Maria Jolas. New York, 1964

Bax, B. Anthony, The English Parsonage. London, 1964

Blunden, Edmund, The Face of England, in a Series of Occasional Sketches. London and New York, 1932

Blythe, Ronald, Divine Landscapes. London, 1986

Drabble, Margaret, A Writers Britain: Landscapes in Literature. London, 1979; 2nd edn, 2009

Giles, Judy and Tim Middleton (eds), Writing Englishness 19001950: An Introductory Sourcebook on National Identity. London and New York, 1995

Harris, Alexandra, Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper. London and New York, 2010

Hill, Rosemary, Gods Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain. London, 2007

Jennings, Anthony, The Old Rectory: The Story of the English Parsonage. London, 2009

Jones, Anthea, A Thousand Years of the English Parish: Medieval Patterns and Modern Interpretations. Moreton-in-Marsh, 2000

Kilvert, Robert Francis, Kilverts Diary, 18701879, edited by William Plomer. London, 1944

Marsh, Kate (ed.), Writers and their Houses: A Guide to the Writers Houses of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. London, 1993

Morton, H. V., In Search of England. London, 1927

Savidge, Alan, The Parsonage in England: Its History and Architecture. London, 1964

Short, Brian (ed.), The English Rural Community: Image and Analysis. Cambridge and New York, 1992

Skinner, John, Journal of a Somerset Rector, 18031834, edited by Howard and Peter Coombs. London, 1930; revd edn, Bath, 1971

Strong, Roy, Visions of England. London, 2011

INTRODUCTION

University of Sussex, Monks House Papers

Bront, Charlotte, The Letters of Charlotte Bront, edited by Margaret Smith, 3 vols. Oxford, 19952004

Cobbett, William, Rural Rides, edited by George Woodcock. Harmondsworth, 1967

Collins, Irene, Jane Austen and the Clergy. London, 1994

Cowper, William, Cowper: Poetical Works, edited by H. S. Milford. 4th edn, Oxford, 1964

Eliot, George, Scenes of Clerical Life. Edinburgh and London, 1858; London, 1998