Helen and Northrop Frye correspondence

Subjects: Interest in Bach; opinion about Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (June 23); economic depression in Chicago (July 1); reading Don Quixote, vocation as a professor (August 1); Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry, opinions about the Anglican Church and the United Church, interest in astrology (August 25); his literary tastes (September 12).

Includes 1 letter from Northrop Frye to Mrs. Kemp; 2 postcards from the Chicago World’s Fair, 1933; and 1 b & w photograph of Frye at 21 years of age. Subjects: G.B. Shaw (May 28); Chicago World’s Fair (June 17, 20, 22); Medieval and Renaissance painting at the Art Institute of Chicago (July 1); Canadian politics (July 15); Canadian political parties, Liberal and CCF (September 4); family financial woes (September 11); “Parable of an agate” (September 12); involvement with the CCF party in Moncton, New Brunswick (September 22); work on Blake (December 28).

Subjects: Work on Blake, relationship of music and theology to the Christian religion (April 17); opinion on Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and the Ode to Joy (April 19); interest in the relationship between music and Christian dogma (April 24); pastoral duties on the prairies (May 4, 10, 19, 25); abandons plans to enter the “active ministry” (June 6, 19); plans for a thesis on Blake (June 22).

Subjects: plans for a thesis on Blake (July 23); marriage plans (August 13); reads paper on Blake at the Graduate English Club, Roy Daniells, prospects for a teaching position at Victoria College, The Golden Bough (October 19); teaching responsibilities (November 9); Wyndham Lewis, The Apes of God (December 4); marriage plans (December 12).

Subjects: Work on Blake (January); describes marriage with Helen Kemp as a divine comedy (January 16); proposes Helen Kemp work on Blake as a painter (January 25); work on Blake (March 11); Roy Daniells, his life to be devoted to art and religion, message to the modern world “Read Blake or go to hell” (April 23); his knowledge of Blake, evaluation of his creative and critical abilities, The Vicar of Wakefield (May 3); editorial work on Representative Poetry, exhibition of Arthur Lismer paintings, Canadian painting, work on a novel (May 22).

Subjects: Robert Burns, Scottish poetry, proposes to publish work on Blake, editorial work on Representative Poetry (Summer); work on Blake and on a novel (June 28); D.H. Lawrence (July 24); editorial work on Representative Poetry (September 11).

Subjects: source for “The ghost” in a Thomas Mann short story (August 13); plans to sail for England from Montreal (August 17); prepares summaries of The Golden Bough, The Winter’s Tale as a fertility festival (August 20); visit to Hull House in Chicago founded by Jane Addams (August 29); reads H.G. Wells’ The Dream, and stories by Thomas Mann (September 12) en route to England; impressions of London September 15, 21); visits bookshops in Bloomsbury, books on the occult (September 24).

Subjects: D.H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent (October 5); accommodation at Oxford, his tutors Edmund Blunden and J.N.Bryson (October 11); joins the Oxford Union, Elizabeth Fraser (October 20); Blunden’s comments on his papers, life at Merton (October 27); Elizabeth Fraser (November 3, 17, 30); Bodley Club (November 30, December 11); Blake, Blunden (December 17); Elizabeth Fraser (December 30).

Includes paper placemat for the Fryes’ wedding lunch at The Guild of All Arts, Scarborough, in August 1937.

Subjects: Vacation in London with Edith and Stephen Cogs (January 11); Blunden (January 17, February 3, 9); Elizabeth Fraser (February 3, 9); reads a paper on T.S. Eliot at the Bodley Club (February 22); plans to send a general outline of the Blake project to Geoffrey Keynes, Pelham Edgar and a publisher, Elizabeth Fraser, Walter de la Mare, contemporary German painting (March 9); tour of Italian cities with Mike Joseph (March–April); financial problems (May 1, 2, June 8); Keynes to receive the Blake manuscript (May 18); sends the first part of the Blake manuscript to Faber and Faber (June 20).

Includes holograph article by Frye “Canadian Art in London” for The Canadian Forum.

Subjects: Pre-war anxieties, reads Richard Jefferies, The Story of My Heart: My Autobiography (September 29); war preparations in London (September 30); preparation for the Schools at Oxford, opinions about members of the examining board (October 7); lecture on Beowulf given by Tolkien, art collection of Sir Michael Sadler, reviews the exhibition of Canadian art in London for The Canadian Forum (October 21); reception of the Canadian art exhibition in the English papers (October 28); gives a paper on the devil at the Bodley Club, Blunden (November 24); in London views Picasso’s “Guernica” and preparatory studies of the painting (November 9); visit to Paris with Mike Joseph (December 11).

Subjects: Searches for burial site of his brother Eratus Howard Frye at Amiens (January 5); Blunden and Bryson (February 2); Blunden, Kathleen Coburn, S.T. Coleridge (February 24); Merton Dramatic Society (March 8); rampant anxiety about the political situation (April 4); George Moore, Confessions of a Young Man (April 13); in London views an exhibition of paintings by Georges Rouault at Zwemmer’s, Elizabeth Fraser (April 17); his ambitions to be a writer (May 15).

Subjects: Death of Frye’s mother in Moncton, New Brunswick in November.

12 sent 1933.

21 sent 1934.

7 sent 1934; 15 sent 1935.

19 sent 1936.

18 sent 1937.

8 sent 1938.

16 sent 1939.

1 received [1943?], 1948, 1974.

1 telegramme from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp, 1935.
1 post card from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp, April, 1937.
2 letters from Helen Kemp to Northrop Frye, June, July, 1935.

1 letter from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, 1937. Subjects: teaching duties at Victoria College.
1 letter from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, 1938.
1 letter from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, 194–.
1 letter from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, 1941.
1 letter from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, 195–.
2 letters from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, 1955.
4 postcards from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, 1970.
6 letters from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, 1974. Subjects: work in Oxford.
1 letters from Northrop Frye to Helen Kemp Frye, n.d.