[Archive]: Manuscripts and Literary Papers, 1916-1968

1968. Very Good. A large archive of manuscripts and related literary papers of gay writer Richard Blake Brown including novels, plays, poetry, travel writing, and memoirs. The collection consists of about 130 holograph and typescript manuscripts: (50 notebooks of holograph manuscripts; 38 volumes of bound typescripts; 39 unbound typescripts; two holograph booklets; one unbound holograph manuscript); seven of Brown's published novels (five of which are annotated by him and have extra material laid in); and about 60 miscellaneous items (including manuscript extracts, letters. and photographs). The bulk of the writings date from the late 1920s-1950s.

Richard Blake Brown (1902-1968) is an overlooked figure in the British literary scene of the interwar period: a remarkable man and an exceptional writer, Brown's open homosexuality was a source of puzzlement even to fellow gay writer Denton Welch, who once exclaimed in response to a 1946 letter from Brown: "Is this exhibitionism or vanity or what?"

The collection contains a number of references to the Queen's dressmaker Norman Hartnell, another prominent homosexual and lifelong friend of Brown's, and Brown's homosexual sensibility permeates the whole of the present collection: from his teenage memoir *The Remarkable History of Hilden Abbey* - in which he describes dressing up with his brother Lincoln and Tonbridge schoolfellow Rupert Croft-Cooke as monks and abbots - to a number of misogynistic limericks written in the late 1960s; and in other writings such as *My Aunt in Pink* and *The Gaiety of God*. However such honesty was received at the time, it now looks courageous in the light of the sort of punishment meted out to Croft-Cooke, who was imprisoned for homosexual activities in 1953. Whatever view the authorities may have taken, it does appear that Brown was indulged by his friends: a copy of Graham Greene's 1958 play *The Potting Shed* survives (not in this collection), inscribed to: "My dear Richard, Many thanks for your letter which has broken a long silence. I am glad you liked the play. What have you been doing with yourself? Any more books on the way? I heard rumours of you at the wedding and how you eclipsed every other male there. Affectionately, Graham."

A useful account of Brown's life up to 1947 can be found in his unpublished autobiography *A Life in the Shade*: born in 1902, in Boston, ‘of American parents who brought him to England later in the same year' (because his father had invented a system of power-signaling for London's Underground Railways), he attended Tonbridge and Berkhamsted public schools, and Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating in 1923. He then joined the Old Vic Company for a season of Shakespeare as a student-actor, uncertain as to whether the stage or the church should be his profession. Having decided on the latter, he studied theology at St. Stephen's House, Oxford, and became one of the 12 curates of the famous parish of St. Mary's Portsea, but voluntarily resigned his orders three years later. He then published 12 books during the 1930s, including *The Apology of a Young Ex-Parson*, and returned to the exercise of his ministry with the approval of Archbishop of Canterbury (Doctor Cosmo Gordon Lang) and went to work in a mining village in Derbyshire. For six years he was a temporary chaplain (R.N.V.R.), including chaplain of the Flagship HMS *Renown* during the sinking of the *Bismarck* episode. After the war he continued in his ministry as a prison chaplain.

Brown remained an inveterate writer throughout his life, and published 14 novels: *Miss Higgs and her Silver Flamingo* (Duckworth, 1931), *Yellow Brimstone* (Duckworth, 1931), *The Apology of a Young Ex-Parson* (Duckworth, 1932), *A Broth of a Boy* (Fortune Press, 1934), *The Blank Cheque* (Fortune Press, 1934), *Joy in Jeopardy* (Fortune Press, 1935), *Rococo Coffin* (Fortune Press, 1936), *My Aunt in Pink* (Martin Secker, 1936), *Spinsters, Awake!* (Martin Secker, 1937), *Bicycle Belle* (Fortune Press, 1937), *God by Lamplight* (Skeffington, 1938), *Mr. Prune on Cotswold* (Martin Secker, 1938), *Yet Trouble Came* (Cassell, 1957), and *Bright Glades* (Cassell, 1959).

Not only does the archive contain some of the manuscripts of these books (including *Miss Higgs and her Silver Flamingo*, *My Aunty in Pink* and *Bright Glades*), but even more important are the large number of unpublished novels and other unpublished writings in the collection, including poetry, plays, and short stories.

Although an assessment of such a large body of published and unpublished work is difficult, a writer such as Brown, praised by the English writer and feminist Vera Brittan for his "scintillating phrases" and "conscious brilliance" deserves to be taken seriously. In response to being described as a "Firbankian" novelist, Brown wrote in 1951: "I grow so weary of being told that my books have been strongly influenced by Ronald Firbank, of whom few people in these days would ever had heard but for his 'Valmouth' being turned into a modern musical a few years ago ... I admit I enjoyed several of Firbank's short novels ... but I possess far too vivid an imagination of my own."

Brown's writing is often described as being unusual and idiosyncratic. Several of the novels (*Yellow Brimstone*; *Yet Trouble Came*; *Thunder*) are set in the future, and although the influence of Firbank is apparent, so is that of Anthony Trollope and Thomas Love Peacock. In Vera Brittan's 1931 review of *Yellow Brimstone* she wrote: "The author, whose delicate improprieties are subtly reminiscent of Mr. James Branch Cabell, undoubtedly regards himself - by no means without justification - as a very clever young man. He is not yet, however, sufficiently aware that the New Morality which his scintillating phrases embody has been stated before; though never, perhaps, with such conscious brilliance."

The following year, on the publication of Brown's autobiography *The Apology of a Young Ex-Parson*, another novelist, Norman Collins, commented that it hard to believe that Blake Brown was not "strenuously parodying himself" in "this unbelievable diary": "Anyone who reads this book will agree with the author when he says of himself; 'I am quite a singular person.' An orthodox churchman - one of the kind that the author hates - might even see evidence of benevolent creation in the fact that Mr. Blake Brown is unique."

The condition of the collection is very good overall, with damp-staining to several intermittent volumes mostly confined to the covers only, or just to the covers and margins of the endleaves, and not affecting any autograph or typescript pages. A few volumes have some additional damp-staining pervading into the leaves at the front or back, with no visible damage to the manuscript pages. Four volumes with partial damage are noted in the individual description. Several volumes have later manuscript notes by RBB, including some in which he added or removed a photograph or other tipped-in material.

A detailed finding aid to the collection (divided into eight sections: Novels; Poetry; Short stories; Non-fiction; Drama; Travel; Miscellaneous; Published works), is available.