| Description | Papers collected and arranged by Alex Comfort. The folder is labelled "General literary MSS, lectures etc. Mostly completed. Last compartment unfinished, offprints, juvenilia, rejects". Typescript drafts with handwritten edits, and handscript drafts. Papers, lectures, book reviews. Also BBC broadcast scripts with related correspondence.
Many of the papers are untitled and undated.. Those with titles are (in the order in which they appear in the folder):
Anarchism and the Conception of Power (LSE Polit Sc Soc, October 1951)
Speech to the Author's World Peace Appeal Congress (London, 29 October 1951)
Shelly's Cenci. Radio Criticism by Alex Comfort
Speech in Defence of Freedom Press, June 1945
Review of "The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd" by Vernon Watkins (Faber)
"The Social Construction of the American Film"
Review of "Poems from the Forces", edited by Keidrich Rhys (Routledge)
Letter to the editor of The Tribune, "Patronage in Contemporary Art"
Review of Henry Treece, The Haunted Garden (Faber) and Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Routledge)
A collection of poems by Comfort, entitled "Image of Venus", The High Birches", "Prospect of Spring", "The Oricles", "For a Farmer Called to the Army", "Chorus from a Lyrical Play". Typescriots, stapled together, Several of the texts are dated 1942.
A collection of poems by Comfort, entitled "Hoc Est Corpus" (Life and Letters 1941)", "The Atell in the Mind" (Life and Letters 1941), "The Tyrants", "Fear of the Earth", "For Sleeping Now", "The Bullocks", "From the French of Heredia" (New Statesman 1941), "Lizard" (Now, 1941), "Cellar - (Balham, 1940)" (The Listener, 1940), "The Lovers", "Carol for 1941", "Elegy on a Hill" (Life and Letters, 1942), "Plow Monday", "City" (Now, 1940), "Two Choruses from 'Cities of the Plain'", "Qvia Aeqvales [for Ruth]", "Letter to a Friend in the Army (Cambridge 1940), "Letter from Safety" (Sussex 1942), "The Tree", "Elegy for a Girl Dead in an Air-raid". Typescripts, stapled together.
"Romantisicm, or, The Cook and the Policeman. A comment on Mr Grigson".
"On the Inside Looking Out", a review of Sir Norwood East, Society and the Criminal (HMSO)
Offprint, Alex Comfort, "The Cultural Unity of Science and Art", World Review [1948-49]
Review of Henry Treece, Invitation and Warning (Faber). Typescript with handwritten note by Comfort dated 2 September 1942, "Not To Be Published".
Poem by Comfort entitled "Address to an American Visitor". Typescript, heavily edited by hand.
"Letter from Ireland"
Letter [to Partisan Review] regarding George Orwell
"Szobel and the Horrors of War"
Poem entitled "Rush". Handscript, dated 23 January 1943
"The Poety of Marron"
"Sarurday Night"
"Portrait of a Lighthouse. Radio feature by Alex Comfort". Script for radio, with related correpsondence from Rayner Heppenstall of the BBC. Typescript with handwritten edits.
"The Study of Ageing"
"The Artist in Society", a lecture delivered to the Literature Study Group of the Brighton Friends' Centre, February 1948. Tyescript with handwritten edits.
"A Meeting of Friends", article dated 4 October 1954,about a trip to Russia
"Do the Way to Peace Converge? Report of the meetings of the Peace Aims Conference, held at Elfinsward, Haywards Heath, Sussex, from 24-27 March 1950", which includes a summary of Comfort's speech on "The Individual's Responsiblity for Peace".
Text of a radio talk, eintitle "The Physiology of Growing Old" for Science And Life, transmission: London Calling Asia, 9 October 1951. 13:40 GMT.
Text of a lecture entitled "The Indvidual in a Mass Society" (Ashridge College, Whitsun, 1953)
Typescript draft and offprint of Alex Comfort, "The Case For Humanism - Or Can Science Make Us Good?" (London: The Ethical Union. April 1957). This the script of the opening contribution to a discussion before the Fifty-One Society, broadcast by the BBC in its Home Service programme on 13 February 1957.
"Development of Moral Ideas"
Draft script on the subject of moral versus technical progress, with a letter commenting on it from John Reed, Assistant Head of School Broadcasting at the BBC. Letter dated 9 March 1953.
Draft of"The Right Thing To Do", a talk by Alex Comfort [for BBC radio].
Draft of "Science is the Measure of All Things. Is Science the Doctor's Only Source of Knowledge About Man?", a talk for a week-end discussion course held from 26-30 May [1961]
"Darwin and Freud", a talk for Third Programme, BBC Radio, ransmission 10 July 1960, 10.00-10.25pm.
"The Comparative Biology of Anxiety"
"Criticism and Tradition in Contemporary Poetry", a talk for Third Programme, BBC Radio, transmission 8 August 1948, 8.15-8.40pm.
"Le Roman et Notre Temps" [The Poet In Our Time], a talk for Chronique des Lettres et des Arts en Angleterre French Service, transmisison 16 September 1948. French translation.
"The Poet in Our Time", a talk for [German radio], transmission 10 November 1948. German translation.
"Prometheus" a dicussion between Alex Comfort and Giles Romilly for Third Programme, BBC Radio, transmission 17 December 1948, 6.50-7.20pm.
"I Speak For Myself", a talk for English Half Hour For The Far East [BBC radio broadcast], transmission 14 June 1949. Draft script.
The Naturalist, No 46, "Snails and Slugs", with Alex Comfort, Bernard Verdcourt and Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald, BBC West of England Home Service, transmission 17 July 1949, 1.10-1.30pm. Draft script.
"Where is Science Leading Us?", Sunday Discusssion: English Half Hour for the Far East [BBC Radio], transmission 17 July 1949. Rough transcript of the broadcast.
<i>Matters of Life and Death</i> No 8, "The Heart". Script for TV programme, recorded 31 July 1950. [Comfort doesn't appear to be in it]
<li>"Electronics in Medicine", talks feature for <i>Science And Life</i> by Alex Comfort and Dr L Bernstein. Transmission: London Calling Asia, 13.25 GMT, 1 August 1951. Script as recorded.
<li>"The Oxford Book of Americal Verse". Review by Alex Comfort for <i>Third Programme</i>, BBC Radio, transmission 9.10-9.30pm, 22 August 1951. Script.
<li>"Spare Parts" discussion by Alex Comfort and R Billingham. Script for Far Eastern S. Script.
<li>"Recordings from the Oxford Book of American Verse". Readings by Guy Kingsley Poynter, linked commentary by Alex Comfort. [BBC Radio broadcast], transmission 10.30-11.00pm, 22 August 1951. Draft script.
<li>Draft script on the subject of violence in art. With letter from [an editor at] the BBC, dated 10 March 1964.
<li>Transcript of a talk and dicusssion on British morals, transmission BBC Northern Home Service, 21.15-22.15, 24 November 1955. Title of talk and programme not given.
<li>"Research. 8. On Growing Old", a panel discussion for <i>Third Programme</i>, BBC Radio, transmission 12 November 1957, 8.15-9.00pm. The panel included Comfort, Professor P L Krohn, Professor J Rotblat and Dr J Maynard Smith. As recorded script.
<li>Transrcipt of <i>This Nation Tomorrow</i>, transmission 14 July 1963.
<li>Draft of script on violence in art, with BBC editor's alterrations.
<li>Draft script for <i>Points of View</i>, transmission 13 March 1964, discussing the edition of "Meeting Point" broadcast on 8 March 1964. BBC TV.
<li>Transcript of <i>Taking Issue</i>, "Censorship of Reading", a panel dicussion featuring Leslie Smith, Norman St John Stevas and Alex Comfort. Third Network [radio?] transmission 6.55-7.10pm, 5 June 1964.
<li>Transcript of <i>Science Survey</i>", "Adult Bodies: Child's Muscles", by Alex Comfort. Transmission BBC Home, 10.00-10.15, 19 March 1966
<li>"Georgianism", a draft paper on poetry with Comfort's handwritten annotation "No, bad and unfinished".
<li>"The Bridge", draft play.
In addition there are some untitled drafts. |