Just some of the letters from Iris Murdoch to Philippa Foot

Visitors will be welcome to drop into the Archives on these days to see some of the 250 letters from Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot, and to ask any questions you may have of the members of staff on hand.  The Archive is based within the Learning Resource Centre (LRC) at our Penrhyn Road Campus- more information on the Archive including links to maps of the campus can be found here.

We hope to see many of you at the open days, in the meantime if you have any questions about the open days, the letters from Iris Murdoch to Philippa Foot or the Archive please email us at archives@kingston.ac.uk.  Please note that due to the open day we won’t be able to offer any research appointments on 25^th June.

Display panels for the 'Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot: An Arc of Friendship' exhibition

Last week saw the opening of the ‘Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot: An Arc of Friendship’ exhibition at Kingston Museum.  The exhibition is the culmination of a project on the letters from Iris Murdoch to Philippa Foot supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, and celebrates the lives and friendship of these two remarkable women.

The red bag the letters from Iris Murdoch to Philippa Foot arrived at Kingston University in, on display at Kingston Museum

As well as containing original letters and related items, such as the red bag the letters were delivered to Kingston University in, the exhibition also showcases examples of the work by local schools and community groups as a result of their visits to Kingston University Archive and work with the letters.

Responses to the letters from Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot with Iris Murdoch's desk, on display at Kingston Museum

The launch event featured speeches from Anne Rowe, Director of the Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies, and David Rogers, Head of the School of Humanities at Kingston University.  There was also a taste of a storytelling session based on the lives of Murdoch and Foot and the letters, given by Belinda McKenna.  Belinda will be performing the full story at Kingston Museum on certain evenings while the exhibition is in place.

Belinda McKenna gives a preview of her storytelling based on the frienship of Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot

The exhibition will be at Kingston Museum until 25^th May, and a number of events are running alongside it.  For more information please see the Kingston University or Kingston Museum websites.

• Letters from Iris Murdoch to Philippa Foot with the following reference numbers: KUAS100/1/1, KUAS100/1/3, KUAS100/1/5, KUAS100/1/38, KUAS100/1/40, KUAS100/2/4, KUAS100/2/8, KUAS100/2/11, KUAS100/2/21, KUAS100/2/32, KUAS100/2/33, KUAS100/2/36, KUAS100/3/14, KUAS100/3/21, KUAS100/3/34, KUAS100/3/51, KUAS100/3/56, KUAS100/3/57, KUAS100/3/60, KUAS100/4/2, KUAS100/4/3, KUAS100/4/13, KUAS100/4/17, KUAS100/4/37, KUAS100/4/44, KUAS100/4/52, KUAS100/4/53, KUAS100/4/55, KUAS100/5/6, KUAS100/5/15, KUAS100/5/25, KUAS100/5/31, KUAS100/6/5, KUAS100/6/9, KUAS100/6/13, KUAS100/7/1
• First edition of Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net, reference number KUAS25/9
• Letter from Iris Murdoch to Anne Rowe, KUAS21/6
• Booker Prize presentation copy of Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea, MLL 7
• Copy of Philippa Foot’s Virtues and Vices, dedicated to Iris Murdoch by the author and with Murdoch’s annotations, IML 1047
• Reference copies of Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness and Moral Dilemmas
• Programme for No Strings, KUAS48/13/3/55

The items will form part of the exhibition ‘Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot: An Arc of Friendship’ at Kingston Museum which opens on 3^rd May.  The exhibition showcases items relating to Murdoch and Foot’s lives and friendship, as well as the work of community groups who have been looking at the letters as part of a project supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund.

We will post more information on the exhibition next week- please watch this space!  In the meantime if you have any questions regarding the exhibition or the availability of our collections, please contact us.

The focus of the collection is on the ‘ephemera’ of theatre, such as programmes, posters, and publicity materials.  The core of the Society Archive was originally compiled by theatre collector and Sondheim enthusiast Peter Wood, and was then sold to the Society in 2008. Since then the Society has added a great deal more material on subsequent Sondheim productions, and continues to collate material to add to the Collection. There are also few unusual pieces- amongst the Sweeney Todd related material is a promotional apron from the original 1979 Broadway production, as well as the oldest item in the collection – an illustrated pamphlet of the Sweeney Todd tale dating from 1842.  There is also an early 1900’s illustrated copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the inspiration for Into the Woods.

By holding and giving access to the material here at Kingston University Archives and Special Collections, we hope to bring the collection to a wider audience.  The Collection fits in well with the other theatre collections we already hold, such as the Sheridan Morley Theatre Collection and David Heneker Archive.  Chairman of The Sondheim Society David Ovenden said the songwriter’s work represented a significant high point in musical theatre, but stressed it was also important that he was recognised as part of a wider family of composers. “We’re very keen that Stephen’s work is seen in relation to his predecessors and successors,” he said. “Kingston University’s existing theatre archives, and the links it has with other collections, will help to place his work in context.”

(L-R) Katie Giles (KU Archivist), Stephen Sondheim, David Ovenden (Chair of the Stephen Sondheim Society) and Lynne Chapman (Secretary of the Society)

Stephen Sondheim himself was surprised at the amount of material accumulated and was very supportive of efforts to preserve the collection. “I am delighted that Kingston University has taken on the task of collating and conserving the considerable amount of material collected by The Stephen Sondheim Society and its members over many years,” he said. “This work will ensure that the material will be available to academics, theatre practitioners and the public for study and research, and for just plain curiosity, for years to come.”

A large amount of the material is box listed, while listing and repackaging is underway on the rest.  Soon full cataloguing will begin with records appearing on our online catalogue, while books and audio visual material will be listed on our library catalogue.  We will post any updates on progress here.  There will also be an exhibition of items from the Collection in July.  Any researchers wishing to enquire about the Collection should email us at archives@kingston.ac.uk .  For more information on the Stephen Sondheim Society please visit their website at www.sondheim.org

Many thanks for your patience while the catalogue was unavailable for upgrade work.

Further to our earlier post, the online Archive Catalogue still requires some upgrade work and will therefore be unavailable on 26th March 2013.

We are working to make the catalogue available as soon as possible.  Any updates will be posted on the blog.

We’re very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.  If you have any questions about this, or require any help locating items in our Collections then please contact us. A brief summary of most of our Collections can be found on the Archives website.

We anticipate that the catalogue should be available again by the end of the day on the 22nd.

We’re very sorry for any incovenience this may cause.  If you have any questions about this then please contact us.

The Sheridan Morley Theatre Collection holds a wealth of performing arts related material collected by theatre critic Sheridan Morley- for more information on the Collection please see our previous post here.  Catalogue entries for items in the Collection that have recently been made available online include:

• Records from Sheridan Morley’s time at Oxford University, including records relating to the Oxford University Drama Society (OUDS)
• Some of Sheridan Morley’s personal records including diaries, passports and photographs
• Items relating to the work of Sheridan Morley’s father, Robert Morley, and his grandmother, Gladys Cooper
• Theatre programmes collected by Sheridan Morley.  These cover from the early twentieth century onwards.  Some of these programmes contain annotations by Sheridan as starting points for his reviews
• Noel Coward related items
• Theatre memorabilia collected by Sheridan Morley- including posters, postcards, and objects.  There are also playbills from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
• Theatre related publications- including signed and collectible books, and theatre magazines from the early twentieth century

One of the many theatre programmes in the Sheridan Morley Theatre Collection, with annotations by Sheridan

Our online catalogue is available here, and works on a keyword search basis.  The reference numbers for all items in the Sheridan Morley Theatre Collection begin with KUAS48.  Items in the Collection are available to view in our Archives searchroom by appointment.  To make an appointment, or to ask any questions about the Collection or the catalogue, please email us at archives@kingston.ac.uk

We’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused during the time when the catalogue was not working properly.  As always, if you have any questions regarding searching the catalogue please email us and let us know.

Happy searching!

We hope for the catalogue to be fully working again soon.  In the meantime a summary of most of our main collections can be found on the Archives website, and any questions you may have can be sent to archives@kingston.ac.uk.  As usual our books collections can still be searched on the library catalogue.

Many thanks for your patience.