All of the letters written by Charles Ricketts in this collection have been newly transcribed from the manuscript originals or, in the case of those known only from typed transcriptions at the British Library or Senate House (University of London), are derived from those sources. A few are taken from online digital resources, and others (usually incomplete extracts) from auction catalogues; in the latter category the present location of the original letters is not known. The letters to Cecil Lewis are derived from their use by Lewis in Self-Portrait, the collection of letters and diary extracts which appeared in 1939.
We have endeavoured to provide faithful transcriptions, underpinned by a full but unobtrusive scholarly apparatus. Everything is recorded, including deleted matter, insertions and corrections, so that the evidence of the composition process for each item retains its integrity. All deletions are shown as
Where sense seems to require it, we have supplied the occasional paragraph break. This is particularly the case in the often long letters written from abroad, when Ricketts tended to compress as much text as possible in a single sheet, so as to avoid postage surcharges. These editorial breaks are indicated by a single vertical stroke | before the new paragraph. Punctuation or its absence is left unchanged. Ricketts made no consistent distinction between commas and full stops (period marks), but we have selected whichever is obviously intended in terms of clarity of meaning. His spelling was no better or worse in French than in English, and accents are often misplaced; these have not been corrected.
Very occasionally, a word or passage is enclosed â¨within angled bracketsâ© to indicate instances where we are not entirely confident that our reading is correct. In a few instances we have been defeated by a heavily deleted passage. Where a reconstruction is hazarded the deleted text is enclosed â¨
Ellipses in the editorial material are indicated within square brackets: [â¦] indicates an omission within the sentence and [â¦.] an omission taking in more than one sentence; ellipses not enclosed within square brackets are original.
Printed letterhead addresses are shown in italics, whereas those written by hand appear as standard text. Where original envelopes survive, the address and (where legible) postmark and date are recorded in the preliminary information before the letter itself, and similarly for postcards, as well as the subject of picture postcards, where known. Comments which have been added (in some hand other than that of Ricketts), perhaps suggesting a date or postmark details, are shown together with the initials or personâs name, if known. This occurs as soon as Letter 1: HH: âP.M. 10. NO. 88. Herbert P. Horne Esqr. | 14 Cheyne Walk.â
Titles of paintings, watercolours and sculptures are italicised, and normally given in English. Titles of books, plays and operas are also italicised. Drawings and other manuscript items, as well as the names of exhibitions, appear between single inverted commas.
So far as the dating of letters is concerned, we address this issue in the Introduction. It is a particular challenge in the case of Ricketts, who rarely dated letters himself. A few letters which were included late in the editorial process have âiâ added after the letter number â such as Letter 806i.
We are conscious that in an edition of this kind, repetition within the editorial notes is hard to avoid, and is sometimes desirable, especially for the reader who may not be reading chronologically but dipping in and out of the texts. We have tried to minimise this by cross-referring in the endnotes, but occasional repetitions are inevitable.