DL/A-Z//JAR - [Correspondence with Penelope Jardine]

DL/A-Z//JAR

File

[Correspondence with Penelope Jardine]

28/01/1993-30/04/2007

2 Postcards
2 Letters (typescript and MS)
3 Fax

Spark, Muriel

Jardine, Penelope

001 is a postcard from Penelope Jardine to Doris Lessing, featuring a 19th century Italian portrait in oils. Jardine riffs off the illustration humorously: "Here is a good man for you, and true – not like the Duke of Richmond. How sad he is though..." On a post-it note half-covering the illustration, somebody has written "Fitzgerald?".

002 is a letter from Jardine to Lessing, stating that Jardine's partner Muriel Spark wants to talk to Lessing about "the BBC programme" [about Lessing]. Spark, like Lessing, disliked it, although she admired Lessing's "television persona". Lessing hand writes "[Good?]"

003 is a postcard from Jardine to Lessing, describing a party thrown by Spark and Jardine that Lessing could not attend. Refers to an [unnamed, missing] enclosed item. "Muriel agrees about Copy-editing."

004 is a fax from Jardine to Lessing, following up on an invitation to a memorial concert for Spark.

005 is a hand-written fax from Jardine to Lessing, expressing gratitude that she can attend the memorial concert mentioned in 004.

006 is a fax from Jardine to Lessing, expressing sadness that she did not attend the memorial concert mentioned in 004 and 005. She discusses the music, and the musicians. "A gentleman from Houston Texas 'bought' all the musicians up outright. They, apparently, have no musical quartets in that neck of the woods..." Mentions press speculation about Spark's will, and dismisses the idea that Spark's son was abandoned as a child or cut out of his inheritance. Attacks the "dreaded gutter press". "I am delighted to hear I am to inherit MILLIONS. What good news. It doesn't add up that's all..."

007 is a letter from Lessing to Jardine, addressing the alleged slanders on Spark's reputation. She suggests creating a letter laying out positive "facts that no one knows" about Spark, "Just so that a different set of facts about Muriel stick in the heads of these people who don't seem able to deal with more than half a dozen facts about a person."