Thomas Blackburn Archive
Details
Type of record: Archive
Title: Thomas Blackburn Archive
Classmark: BC MS 20c Blackburn
Creator(s): Blackburn, Thomas (1916-1977)()
Date(s): c.1893-1988
Language: English
Size and medium: 3 linear metres
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8425
Collection group(s): Leeds Poetry | English Literature
Description
The items in this collection relate to Thomas Blackburn's personal life, his career as a poet and his teaching career. Comprises: typescripts, autograph manuscripts and other papers relating to Thomas Blackburn's poetry (2 boxes); 60 notebooks (59 of which are numbered) containing Blackburn's autograph manuscripts drafts of literary compositions and lectures/teaching notes (4 boxes); typescript and manuscript drafts and other papers relating to fictional works including The Feast of the Wolf (3 boxes), critical works including his book on Robert Browning (3 boxes), autobiographical works including A Clip of Steel (2 boxes), and drama (2 boxes); papers relating to appointments and teaching positions held by Blackburn (1 box); correspondence of Thomas Blackburn with others (2 boxes); and family papers and personalia, including Blackburn family correspondence dating to 1893, and a dissertation on his work by Dominique Gatien (1 box). There is also an audio recording on reel-to-reel tape and a
gramophone disc of Blackburn reading his own work. This collection includes some family papers from the Fenwick and Bainbridge families. The majority of items relate to Blackburn's early life up, to his death. Many of the notebooks, poem typescripts and letters date from his time in Leeds. The family papers date from before his birth. The majority of the personal letters appear to come from his later life and are most likely only able to give a fragmentary example of what, with some friends, may have been a lengthy correspondence.
Additional item added to collection Nov 2017: BC MS 20c Blackburn/5/1/84 Letter from Margaret Blackburn to Colin Huggett.
Biography or history
Thomas Eliel Fenwick Blackburn (1916-1977), the English writer, was born in Cumbria. A graduate of Durham University in 1940 and a pacifist, after the war he taught at Marylebone Grammar School, then at two London colleges until his retirement at 60. He made his reputation as a poet during the 1950s, and was a Gregory Fellow at Leeds University in 1956 and 1957. He published 12 collections of poetry, 1 volume of verse translations (with others), 5 anthologies, 3 volumes of criticism, a novel, 'Feast for the Wolf', 1971, and an autobiography, 'A Clip of Steel', 1969. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Provenance
The first part of this archive was received from the author on 28 May 1964; the majority was purchased from his daughter, Julia Blackburn, on 2 September 1987. Further additions were made by the gift of the publisher Peter Owen, 16 May 1988, and purchases from Quaritch and Neate, 31 July 1991, and Huggett, 16 February 1994.
System of arrangement
This collection is arranged into the following subfonds (sub-collections) : Poetry Collections and Published Poems Notebooks and Other Poems Fiction, Criticism and Other Writing Appointments, Teaching and Educational Publications Correspondence and Family Papers
Access and usage
Reproduction
Access
This collection is subject to various access conditions. Please see individual catalogue descriptions for further details on access.
Material in this collection is in copyright. Photocopies or digital images can only be supplied by the Library for research or private study within the terms of copyright legislation. It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain the copyright holder's permission to reproduce for any other purpose. Guidance is available on tracing copyright status and ownership.
On our website
Profile: Thomas Blackburn
A biography of Thomas Blackburn a Gregory Fellowship Poet at the University of Leeds. He was the third Gregory Fellow at the University of Leeds, 1956-58.