Sheldon Vanauken Message Board
John Holloway posts on 2/6/2006 11:29:58 AM
Hi,
Davy's edition of ASM has a lovely collection of photos along with some of her paintings. Under the mercy has a nice and relatively recent picture of Van inside the dustcover. If you use my names separated by a full stop, followed by at plymouth and then the standard UK government extension, you have my email address - feel free to contact me off line...
John
Bart Thompson posts on 2/6/2006 10:53:50 AM
Hello everyone,
My daughter recently gave me "A Severe Mercy" as a birthday present. The book has touched me deeply, and I want to discover more about Sheldon and Davy. I have many questions:
First, where might I find pictures of Sheldon and Davy? Are any on-line, or are any in other editions of any of his books?
Second, I have read that Davy had actually had a daugher before she met Sheldon and that her daugher was put up for adoption. Evidently, this is a subject in another of Sheldon's books. Is this true?
Third, my daugher and I are going to Oxford and then Cambridge later this month. A business trip for me, and she's tagging along. What are the best places for us to see in order to get a feel for what Davy and Sheldon experienced there in the early 1950s?
Thanks so much for any help anyone may offer.
Kind regards,
Bart Thompson
Trevor posts on 1/19/2006 4:30:41 PM
I would like to know more about Sheldon Vanauken and to see some more pictures of him and Davy if possible. Can you give any pointers?
John Holloway posts on 1/4/2006 9:39:12 AM
Hi Floyd,
I'd love to see the material you mention, but have been unable to find it. If you use the suggestion in my previous posting with at plymouth between my names and the standard United Kingdom Government suffix you should have my details - I don't have yours. Kind regards, John
Floyd Newman posts on 1/3/2006 9:29:24 PM
Welcome to the Sheldon Vanauken board, John. I apologise for the delay in responding to your introductory post, but the holidays kept me so busy I forgot. I also wanted to invite you (and anyone else who is not already a member) to join us on the "other" Sheldon Vanauken board. It seems to be a bit more active than this one. I can't even mention the host company, but it's a popular US search engine. If you do a web search for "Sheldon Vanauken", you should find it. If not, send me an e-mail and I'll send you the URL. You have to register, but it's free, and there is a space to post the photos of the Studio. Hope to see you there!
Under the Mercy
Floyd Newman
John Holloway posts on 1/3/2006 10:16:16 AM
Hi Nathan and Wendy. I've tried to give an indication of how I may be contacted, but the site does not seem to like the attempts I have made so far. You can contact me by using my twonames separated by a full stop, followed by the standard format for a United Kingdon government email address. We'll see if this one works!
John
John Holloway posts on 12/19/2005 3:43:02 AM
Dear Wendy and Nathan,
I do have the photos - somewhere. I may be able to lay my hands on it next summer - I think it is im my old home which is now let to students, so I can't get it before then. If I can find them, you shall have them. It looked exactly like Van's line drawing in ASM, which is remarkably accurate.
Where are you based, Wendy?
Nathan, when I went there in about 1980, Pusey Lane was lit by mercury lights, and on a wet spring evening, I was minded on the lines (quoted from memory, perhape erroneously), "It won't be gaslight in the lane/But just as gentle only brighter". If you'd like to contact me, I'd be only too happy to drop in next time I'm passing Oxford (which will be early January).
I'd be interested to know if Van has any literary executors, and if so, whether they would like the letters which he wrote to me over the period 1980 - 1994.
Nathan Grills posts on 12/18/2005 9:13:38 AM
Dear John,
you must have some very memeories of oxford and Sheldon. We are living in Pusey Lane and would love to see the photo or learn where the exact location was in our Pusey lane. Thanks. Nathan Grills
Wenda Kingma posts on 12/16/2005 8:57:50 AM
John, do you still have a picture of the Studio? I would love to see what it looked like. Also does Mole's End or Ladywood still exist and does anyone have pictures of them they could e-mail Thanks! Wenda Kingma
John Holloway posts on 12/15/2005 10:15:20 AM
I came to know Van in the early eighties, basically because they and we had built relationships on spookily similar lines. I knew and loved Oxford and Binsey, and even had a photo of the Studio. I stood in the upper room there in front of the fireplace twenty-odd years ago. (Actually the name on the door said STUDIO, not with the definite article which Van mistakenly attributes to it -hence the nickname of "St Udio")
In 1990 I wrote a sustantial research paper on Van's poetry for the English Department at Warwick University (England), copying Van in on it. He was delighted and impressed, if a little surprised, and send me a copy of Mercies, endorsed "to John Holloway, Scholar and Friend", which is one of my most treasured posessions.
I also went through the apalling loss of my great love, although in very different circumstances, and without the comfort of a religion.
Curiously, My personal tutor had been a tutee of CS Lewis at Magdalen College, and also knew Van. Small world...
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