The Wider Circle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2020
Summary
The first part of this collection of material embraces the figures of the musical world with whom Dora and Hubert Foss had closest contact, and they are those of whom Dora wrote her memoirs. The following part shows the great variety of connections that they maintained from the 1920s to the 1950s, and how the whole breadth of musical life during this period circled round them. Indeed, the circle was wider in that it encompassed not only composers, conductors and singers but writers, publishers and stage performers. It portrays a vivid picture of cultural life between the wars and in the immediate aftermath of WW2. Dora kept a record of the musicians who had played on the family piano: Edward Bairstow, Samuel Barber, Arthur Benjamin, Benjamin Britten, Harold Craxton, John Gardner, Friedrich Gulda, Patrick Hadley, Myra Hess, Herbert Howells, John Ireland, Louis Kentner, Constant Lambert, E.J. Moeran, Gerald Moore, Herbert Murrill, Reginald Paul, Norman Peterkin, Roger Quilter, Donald Swann, Michael Tippett and William Walton.
Margery Allingham
Margery Allingham (1904–66) was a popular writer of crime fiction whose novels usually featured the aristocratic detective Albert Campion (‘well bred and a trifle absent-minded’), who first appeared in The Crime at Black Dudley (1929). Allingham wrote over twenty novels, together with short stories and novellas. She is probably best known for the 1952 novel Tiger in the Smoke that was adapted in 1956 as a film, but omitting the character of Campion. Foss was a devotee of crime fiction.
181. 8th September 1950 Margery Allingham to HJF
D'Arcy House, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, nr Maldon, Essex
Dear Mr Foss,
Many thanks for your kind letter.
By all means see what you can do with the ‘Pig’ and the BBC. I don't think any of my tales have been broadcast (save those written expressly for the medium) and I'd never given much thought to the idea.
Go ahead and see what happens. I fear my agents (W.P. Watt & Son) may insist on putting a finger in the pie if anything comes off but you will find us reasonable, affable and anxious to please –
Good luck,
Yours sincerely
Margery Allingham
I'm very fond of the ‘Pig’ and I'd love to hear it on the air.
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- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019