The North Ship [antikvár]

Introduction the north ship would probably not have been published if the late William Bell, then an imdergraduate at Merton College, had not set about making up a collection which he eventually called Poetrj From Oxford in Wartime. Oxford poetry was reputedly in the ascendant again following the scarlet and yellow Eight Oxford Poets in 1941 (Keith Douglas, Sidney Keyes, John Heath-Stubbs, Drummond Allison, et ah), and Bell no doubt thought it was time for another roimd-up. When his anthology came out in 1944 it had Allison, Heath-Stubbs and Roy Porter from the earlier collection, and the new names of Bell himself, Francis King, myself, Christopher Middleton and David Wright. How many of the second group had been in hard covers before I don't know: certainly I hadn't. Before it appeared, however, the proprietor of the small but then well-known house that was producing the book wrote to some of its contributors enquiring if they would care to submit collections of their own work. The letter 1 received was on good-quality paper and signed with an illegible broad-nibbed squiggle: I was enormously flattered, and typed out some thirty pieces on my father's old portable Underwood. The publisher seemed to like them, saying that he could undertake publication early next year 'and perhaps have the book ready in February'. Since this was already the end of November, my excitement ran high, but I must (with memories of The Writers' and Artists' Year Book) have parried with some enquiry about terms, for another letter a month later (two days before Christmas) assured me that no agreement was necessary. Looking at the collection today, it seems amazing that anyone should have offered to publish it without a cheque in advance and a certain amount of bullying. This, however, was not how I saw it at the time. As February turned to March, and March to April, my anticipation of the promised six copies curdled through exasperation to fury and finally 7