A small archive of manuscript poetry and correspondence.

Bookseller Notes

The four poems - 'River with Swans', 'Brownings Abroad. Thoughts from Home', 'Tribute to Tennyson', 'Autumn' - are seemingly unpublished, certainly uncollected. Both letters are dated to March 1945, and the poetry likely dates from around this time - that is, early in Lewis's career, which began around this time. One ALs is to 'My dear Naomi' from her 'poor devoted Henry Spiwah[?]', who admires her work and offers effusive regret that they have not been able to meet; the other is a letter from Lewis to the author Stephen Potter, in his capacity as a producer for the BBC, admiring his work - in particular 'The Tyburn Still Flows' and 'The Muse in Chains' - and expressing her wish 'to do some work for your department', mentioning that she has been published in the New Statesman and has written a feature for the BBC European Service.Lewis grew up in a Jewish family in coastal Norfolk and then attended Westfield College, University of London; she became best-known for her work for children - in particular as a translator of Hans Christian Andersen. Her career spanned some sixty years, but the present group offers a glimpse of its first shoots.