Elizabeth Jennings Papers (MSS061), 1954-1968
| MSS Manuscripts
Administrative/Biographical History
Elizabeth Jennings was born in Boston, Lincolnshire in 1926, the daughter of a doctor. Her education was received in private and public schools in England, including an Honours Degree in English from St. Anne's College, Oxford. She began writing poetry in adolescence; her first major publication was in The Spectator, 1949, with the poem, The clock. After graduation Miss Jennings worked for a time in the Oxford City Library and later in the office of a London publisher, Chatto and Windus. In 1953 she published her first book of poems, Poems (Fantasy Press), which received an Arts Council Prize as the best book of original English verse to be published between January 1951 and June 1953. Her poems also appeared in such periodicals as The New Statesman, The Spectator, Times Literary Supplement, The Listener, Encounter, The London Magazine, Botteghe Oscure, and the New Yorker.
In 1956 she received the Somerset Maugham Award for her second book of poems, A Way of looking (Deutsch) and the used the prize for an extended trip to Italy in 1957. Other prizes for her poetry include: the Poetry Book Society Summer Choice in 1961 for Song for a birth or a death (Dufour), an Arts Council Poetry Bursary in 1965, and the Richard Hillary Award in 1966 for The mind has mountains (MacMillan)
Miss Jennings suffered intermittent mental breakdowns from 1964-1968, and was hospitalized in Warneford Hospital at Oxford; this experience is documented in this collection by her correspondence with Rugena Stanley and in several personal notebooks. Subsequently the experience became the subject of much of her poetry. Anne Ridler has said of Miss Jennings: “The unwavering search for truth about an emotion or a state of mind, the refusal to be satisfied with first appearances, is always her strength.” (Guardian) Anthony Thwaite has attributed to her work “The excitement, the visionary quality, of arduous search and sudden discover,” adding, “For my mind she is one of the two best living English poets under forty-five.” (Spectator)
A partial bibliograph includes:
Poetry: Poems, Fantasy Press, 1953
A way of looking, Deutsch and Rinehart, 1955
A sense of the world, Deutsch, 1958
Song for a birth or a death, Deutsch, 1961
Recoveries, Deutsch, 1964
The mind has mountains, MacMillan, 1966
The secret brother (children's poems) 1966
Collected poems, 1967, Macmillan 1967
Translation: The Sonnets of Michelangelo, Folio Society, 1961
Editor: An Anthology of Modern Verse, 1940-1960, Methuen, 1961
Prose: Making human relations work (with Francis Jennings) Boston 1951
Let's have some poetry, Museum Press Ltd., 1960
Every changing shape, Deutsch, 1961
Frost, Oliver and Boyd, 1964
Christianity and poetry, Burns and Oates, 1965.
Administrative InformationUsers of the collection must read and agree to abide by the rules and procedures set forth in the Materials Use Policies.
Providing access to materials does not constitute permission to publish or otherwise authorize use. All publication not covered by fair use or other exceptions is restricted to those who have permission of the copyright holder, which may or may not be Washington University.
If you wish to publish or license Special Collections materials, please contact Special Collections to inquire about copyright status at (314) 935-5495 or spec@wumail.wustl.edu. (Publish means quotation in whole or in part in seminar or term papers, theses or dissertations, journal articles, monographs, books, digital forms, photographs, images, dramatic presentations, transcriptions, or any other form prepared for a limited or general public.)
Accession number 814. Purchase from Bertram Rota Ltd, March 1, 1967.
Accession number 815. Purchase from Herbert Faulkner West, March 6, 1967.
Accession number 819. Purchase from Bertram Rota Ltd, April 5, 1967.
Accession number 832. Purchase from House of Books, July 25, 1967.
Accession number 862. Purchase from Bertram Rota Ltd, September 19, 1967.
Accession number 1061. Purchase from Covent Garden Bookshop, July 1, 1969.
Accession number 1303. Purchase from Covent Garden Bookshop, October 19, 1971.
Accession number 1314. Purchase from Covent Garden Bookshop, October 26, 1971.
Accession number 1627. Purchase from unknown, September 14, 1984.
Accession number 22994. Unknown
