Tag Archives: Inklings

The archives of poet Anne Ridler and printer Vivian Ridler are now available

20th century, 21st century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Humanities, Modern, Newly available (2024), Women, , , , ,

The archive of two Oxford literary lights, poet and librettist Anne Ridler and her husband the printer Vivian Ridler, is now available to readers in the Weston Library.

Anne Barbara Ridler OBE (30 Jul 1912–15 Oct 2001), the daughter of Rugby School housemaster Henry Bradby and childrens’ author Violet Bradby, was an English poet whose first job was as a secretary for the poet T.S. Eliot at the publisher Faber and Faber. Early in life she met the poet, novelist and theological writer Charles Williams, a member of Oxford’s Inklings group (along with J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, who also have extensive archival holdings in the Bodleian, see for example the Barfield catalogue). Anne maintained a close friendship with Charles Williams until his death in 1945 and her archive includes their extensive correspondence. She married the printer Vivian Ridler in 1938 and raised a family while also publishing ten volumes of her poetry and several verse plays (Anne Ridler in the Poetry Archive). Later in life she translated, mainly Italian, libretti for opera companies including the English National Opera. A practicing Anglican all her life, she had a particular interest in Christian poetry and wrote and lectured on poetry and poets including William Shakespeare, Thomas Traherne and T.S. Eliot. Her Collected Poems were published in 1994. She was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1998 and was awarded the Cholmondeley Award for poetry. In 2001 she was appointed OBE for services to literature.

Vivian Hughes Ridler CBE (2 Oct 1913-13 Jan 2009) was a printer and typographer who founded a private press while still in school. In 1931 he apprenticed to a printing firm in Bristol and in 1936 he took a job with Oxford University Press (OUP) as assistant to the Printer of the University of Oxford, John Johnson, whose personal collection now forms the core of the Bodleian’s John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, one of the largest and most important ephemera collections in the world. In 1938 Vivian married the poet Anne Bradby, who in addition to being the daughter of Henry and Violet Bradby was the niece of Sir Humphrey Milford, the publisher at the London office of OUP, and as a result Vivian was summarily fired by John Johnson, who considered Sir Humphrey Milford a rival. During World War II, Vivian Ridler served with the Royal Air Force as an intelligence officer. After he was demobilised in 1947 he became a lecturer in typography and a freelance designer. In 1948 he returned to the OUP and from 1958 until he retired in 1978 he held the post of Printer to the University of Oxford at OUP and from 1968-1969 was president of the British Federation of Master Printers. With his own Perpetua Press and other private imprints like Amate Press he published around thirty books from his garden shed during his retirement, including College Graces of Oxford and Cambridge (a different edition can now be found in the Bodleian shop) and some of Anne Ridler’s own work, including Profitable wonders: aspects of Thomas Traherne (SOLO).

Also newly catalogued and available is a separate album of early jobbing printing work by Vivian Ridler’s Perpetua Press.

An Intern and the Third Inkling: cataloguing the Charles Williams collection

20th century, Humanities, Modern, Spotlight, , , ,

Guest post by Tilly Guthrie
Summer intern at Bodleian Libraries Archives & Modern Manuscripts

As part of the Oxford University Summer Internship Programme, three interns were given the opportunity in the summer of 2019 to experience the working environment of an archivist in the Bodleian Library’s Archives and Modern Manuscripts team, during which time they were allocated a collection, or a number of small collections, to catalogue independently. After spending a few university holidays volunteering in small archives and museums, I was delighted to be offered a place as an intern, to not only see, but also participate in the process of cataloguing from beginning to end. Being allowed to slot myself into this well-oiled machine, I am full of admiration for how archiving is managed on such a large professional scale as at the Bodleian. I have just finished my second year studying History here at the University, and so this opportunity has come at the perfect time to consolidate my interest in archiving, and show me what my next steps should be after I finish the degree (though I will miss being able to sneak behind the scenes at the Weston next term!)

The collection assigned to me was the papers of Charles Williams (1886-1945) – author, theologian, lecturer, and member of the Inklings alongside C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (interactions with whom appear in the collection). The acquaintance with Lewis began in a suitably literary manner, as the two authors coincidentally sent letters to the other simultaneously in 1936, praising their most recent work. Williams stood as the odd one out in this literary set, however, as he did not benefit from an Oxford education to hone the writing style that earned him a place in the Inklings. Instead, he developed his craft as a hobby alongside working for the Oxford University Press; he took up a post in 1908 as a reader at Amen House in London, after failing to fund the third year of his degree at the University of London, and spent his spare time constructing novels and poetry, inspired by his interest in Arthurian legends and theology. This period also saw him write a series of plays for his colleagues based on the world of book publication, in which he blends amusingly mundane titles (‘The Masque of the Manuscript’, ‘The Masque of the Termination of Copyright’ and ‘The Masque of Perusal’) with the language of epic poetry and biblical allusions.

Williams also found the time to write a series of plays to be performed by the Chelmsford Diocesan Drama Society, directed by Phyllis M. Potter, extensive correspondence with whom is preserved in the collection. Their increasingly close friendship over the years is mirrored in these letters, donated to the library by Potter in 1957, and they thus offer insight into Williams’ personal life and sense of humour. It is here that the collection provides the most information on Charles’ relationship with his wife Florence Sarah (Michal) nee Conway, and their son Michael, born in 1922. Michal is also the subject of a series of poems that appears in the collection, and more generally it can be said that Williams’ writing is coloured by his interest in the idea of romantic love as a passage to God.

Charles Walter Stansby Williams, lithograph by Anne Spalding, 1942 © National Portrait Gallery, London (Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

The diverse range of media penned by Charles Williams continued throughout his life, as his repertoire of novels, plays and poetry expanded to include biography, theology, and literary criticism. Consequently, Williams was well qualified to begin a lectureship with the Oxford English Faculty (despite having never graduated himself) when the University Press was forced to move all its operations to the city on the outbreak of the Second World War. It was also at this point that Williams began attending Inklings meetings, though letters with his old thespian friend Phyllis Potter reveal that he largely resented the move to Oxford.

As it happened, Charles Williams would remain in Oxford until his death in 1945, having been awarded an honorary MA with the University two years previously. Obituaries included in the collection reveal a general admiration for the scale of Williams’ literary output, though with the reservation that his speed of writing (often to deadlines) damaged the quality of his work. It is perhaps for this reason, or simply that his sweeping Arthurian allusions no longer have traction with the reading public, that Charles Williams has been so much neglected in our collective historical memory of early twentieth century authors.

– Tilly Guthrie, The Queen’s College

Oxford University Careers Service Summer Internship Programme