The Weeping and The Laughter.: By Viva King

THE DEDICATEE'S MANUSCRIPT REVIEW + SMALL ARCHIVE

WILSON, Angus (1913-1991), English novelist, short story writer and reviewer. [KING, Viva, (1893-1979) 1920's Bohemian]. Small archive relating to the publication of scandalous London hostess Viva King's autobiography, The Weeping and The Laughter. London: Macdonald and Jane's, 1976, the archive includes Wilson's manuscript book review & more. London, 1976.

King writes the Preface to her autobiography, "...Angus Wilson offered to write this book for me. However, I decided to try my luck myself...Illness and other interruptions caused delays in finishing this book, and, but for Angus Wilson's encouragement, I might never have come to 'Finis'; and so, to him with love and gratitude I dedicate this work." With the archive we include a first edition of the book, in dust jacket, whose blurb describes Viva King as "for many years one of London's best-loved hostesses," who "now in her eighties, Mrs. King looks back on the Bohemian-smart world of the Sitwells, Augustus John, Ronald Firbank and Norman Douglas." Here is Wilson's 1000-word manuscript review of the book, 3 1/2pp. 4to, with additions and deletions, in which he writes first about reading Proust, saying "I have never felt so close to Proust as no when, at sixty two, I have been honoured by the dedication of Viva King's funny and touching memoirs. "I who, as a nervous, voluble, painfully thin young librarian of twenty-five was entered in her guest book among all the impressive names as 'Man from the British Museum". Viva then was a brilliant eccentric colleague's beautiful witty wife whose erratic headaches threatened verbal annihilation to those whose conversation didn't come up to her husband...she didn't actually annihilate me but I didn't expect to be asked again..." Wilson describes her as a "Formidable hostess, tough bohemian, sharer of jokes (often bawdy) until we cried, woman of discriminating tastes and sensitive feeling for people and places, all these I have gradually assembled over the years in Proustian interplay...To all who think of the artistic bohemia and the literary monde of the interwar years as a brittle shell I recommend this book to that they may learn that that glittering world had a heart as well as a sense of fun. Angus Wilson." Viva King was described as shy, tough and tender, a "British Higher Bohemian Mother Courage," by Maurice Richardson in his review in the Observer, 2 May 1976. Accompanied by notes for a review by one "Patrick," whom we have not identified, 10 pp. of his preparatory manuscript notes for his review on small, 6 1/4 x 4 1/4" light blue sheets of paper, and the review itself in typescript, 2pp., small folio. Accompanied by King's 2pp. 4to, ALS, on her 15, Thurloe Square, London, stationary, May 20 [1976], in which she says, "Dear Patrick, I thank you so much for your letter & nice review. I know I am apt to denigrate myself to the point where it becomes a bore-all part of my inferiority complex-not really knowing where I belong. I didn't care so much about the dyke's [Miss Kay Dick] review. It was Charles who got in to such a state & I am grateful for all the trouble he took...I am much in the dumps because this house becomes more of a burden than I can bear. I can't afford to live in it nor leave it-However! Cheer Up.! I hope to see you soon. With love, Viva." Accompanied by a manuscript invitation to "Patrick" from the publishers, "to celebrate the publication of Viva King's autobiography," at her house at 15 Thurloe Square, 28 April. There is a printed letter to the Times by Wilson and six others protesting Kay Dick's review, with a typed copy of their collective letter, calling it a "fierce personal attack." There are newspaper clippings of reviews of the book, one by Margaret Drabble who wonders, "While one cannot help wondering what so distinguished an amanuensis as Angus Wilson would have made of this life, we can find here much of his raw material: the darling dodoes, the extravagant fancy-dress parties of No Laughing Matter, the sporting sponging gentlemen of small means who live in studios and boarding houses: they are all here." That's exactly what Wilson's review tells us.