Scope and Contents The two diaries are in matching ruled notebooks, stitched into worn pink card covers: leaf dimensions 22 x 17 cm. Each notebook thumb-indexed with the months printed in French. Numerous loose and rearranged pages. Closely and neatly written, with text clear and complete, on aged paper. Each notebook is numbered on the front cover, with 'JOHN GAWSWORTH | (1246619 | SGT. T. I. F. ARMSTRONG R.A.F.)' On the cover of each notebook Gawsworth directs that they be dispatched to his 'literary executor' Maurice Wollman on the event of his death. Leader of the neo-Georgian movement, and editor of Poetry Review, Gawsworth was well-connected in the English literary world, admired and loathed in equal measure, and a writer who never achieved his full potential. These diaries - a nice mixture of detailed and descriptive - are especially valuable for the light they cast on the frontline wartime activities of a sensitive and deeply-poetic sensibility. Gawsworth joined the...

Scope and Contents ('I.') contains 61 pages in autograph, with a further 50 pages loosely inserted. Autograph title with runic, Latin and English mottos ('I came with the conquerors: I remained - conquered.'). Gawsworth covers all aspects of his service, describing his duties, movements, reading and writing. List of men at rear, with five marked as deceased. Begins: 'Frid 20 Nov | Sqdn left for Djidjelli [Algeria] | Sat. 21 Nov 1942 | In Arab shepherds mountain camp. Archer Hodson, Goulding, Snell Bought Ruth, sheep dog bitch. 3 months. 200 francs. (13/4) Up impossible winding trails over mts. Snow capped. Texenna, Duquesne. Camp of La Jeunesse, skull & x bones. Fleeing populace. Djidjelli ghost town. just bombed night before. Reunion with Party & Joe Watling 154 Squadron. Encamped. 8 p.m. & 4 a.m. enemy recon. plane over. a/a opened up. Ruth fled. Sqdn travelling.' The notebook also contains the following excellent account of an attack (1 January 1943) on HMS Ajax shows Gawsworth's...

Scope and Contents ('II.') contains 55 pages in autograph, with a further 18 pages loosely inserted. Gawsworth is described on the title as at 'Advanced HQ, Desert Air Force | Central Mediterranean Forces'. Mainly comprising more descriptions of Italy and his activities there, including what appear to be descriptions of area covered on reconnaissance flights. Two examples of the types of entries contained in this volume: 'Wed 15 March [1944] | A freezing night, ice on tent pools [sic]; all packed 9.30 left site. Through San Seveso, olive groves 10.8. S. Paolo Civitale 2 baroque churches. Guns coming south. First Army flashes seen going north. - olives. Mounting, look back on snow-capped Appenines. Our First Sunny day, tanks going South. 10.45 Serra Capriola on hilltop, goats, quadruple avenue of small trees in main St. from castle. Down hill - up again, through Campomarino on hill looking down on plain 1/2 mile to sea. Approaching Tesmoli, red roofs, white houses, umber watch-tower. bypass - olives -...

Scope and Contents

[Printed.], approximately 50 pages, oblong quarto ledger, disbound. It comprises printed poems, numbered 4-56 (1-3 perhaps on pages torn out and lost), extracted from magazines with heavy annotations, changes, and corrections in Gawsworth's hand, publishing date and information (e.g. "Suppressed in Confession first issue") usually given.

Scope and Contents

March 133", Notebook (Address Book), octavo, alphabetical, Gawsworth's bookplate (manor house. "T. Fytton Armstrong") and ownership inscription with Denmark Street address, enclosures (business cards etc). Approximately 80 pages used. Entries from Literature abound, as do booksellers, and include: Stella Benson, family, H.E. Bates, Robert Bridges, Beerbohm, Gordon Craig, Alfred Douglas, Lawrence Durrell, the Foyles, A.E. Housman, Wyndham Lewis, Shane Leslie, Arthur Machen.

Scope and Contents

London/ 33 Great James's Street/ W.C. 1" , Approximately 66 pages octavo. Poems, some numbered I-VI, some heavily worked, and, at back, several pages listing "Vocabulary used in the Asiatic Translations of E. Powys Mathers contained in Coloured Stars and The Garden of Bright Waters Noted Down January 2 1938".

Scope and Contents

No date ([a scribbled poem is dated 1940], Approximately 50 pages used, octavo notebook. Bulk of poems numbered 1-112.

Scope and Contents

Fifty Verses [5 December 1940-18 December 1940], 12mo, approximately 140 pages used, with notes and poems (e.g. note "With Nina Hamnett in Pedros", later "An Interlude" discussing Augustus John, 3 pages with John as a subject for poems also, and describing a visit to "George Egerton", 3 pages).