Dates
Biography
John Riley was born in Leeds on 10 October 1937 and raised in the city. After National Service in the Royal Air Force from 1956 to 1958 he attended Pembroke College, Cambridge (matriculated Michaelmas 1958, B.A. 1961, M.A. 1965). In 1966 he founded the Grosseteste Press with Tim Longville, and a magazine, the 'Grosseteste Review', in 1968. He held teaching posts in schools near Cambridge and later in Bicester, until returning to Leeds in 1970 to devote his full time to writing. He was received into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977. Riley was murdered in Leeds on October 27-28 1978. His publications in his lifetime included poems ('Ancient and Modern', 1967; 'A Legend of St Anthony', with Tim Longville, 1967; 'The Civil War', with Tim Longville, 1968; 'What Reason Was: Poems, 1967-1969', 1970; 'Ways of Approaching', 1973; 'A Meeting', 1978; 'That is Today', 1978), translations ('In The Arms of the Gods' versions of Hölderlin, volume 1, with Tim Longville, 1967; 'What I Own: Versions of Hölderlin, volume 2, with Tim Longville, 1973); and prose ('Correspondences', 1970; 'Prose Pieces', 1974). His posthumous publications include 'Stalin Ode Sequence, from the Second Voronezh Notebook', from the Russian of Osip Mandelshtam, 1979; 'John Riley, The Collected Works', edited by Tim Longville, 1980; 'Selected Poems', edited by Michael Grant, 1995; and 'What I Own: Versions of Hölderlin and Mandelshtam', with Tim Longville, 1998.
Found in 8 Collections and/or Records:
Series
Series
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10000/2
Scope and Contents
58 letters, eight cards and 16 sheets of poems. With three envelopes. The poems present include: "I'm tired of this word love it's over-..."; "and Kenner, who made modern literature..."; 'it seems to me'; "That purple stuff..."; 'Walking Through London'; 'Autumn Journal'; 'This Time Of Year'; 'Love Poem'; 'The Full Moon is Bathing these Fields'; 'A Fine Way to Carry On'; 'A Picture: an Historical Perspective'; 'Bright Feast, The Desert in a Pagan Year'; 'To Flower, To Ripen'; 'In a Time';...
Dates:
11 Jan. 1970-31 Jan. 1978 (and undated)
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection contains personal correspondence. The provisions of the Data Protection Act (1998) apply to access. Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
Fonds
Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10315
Scope and Contents
126 letters and cards from Riley to Hammond, mostly with envelopes, and 2 letters from Tim Longville to Hammond.
Dates:
1956- 1978
Conditions Governing Access:
Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
Fonds
Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10038
Scope and Contents
The collection consists of bound and unbound poetry and prose, chiefly by Riley; correspondence, chiefly addressed to Riley; and miscellaneous printed and manuscript items. The notebooks include some entries relating to the administration of the Grosseteste Press and Grosseteste Review, and in several places in the collection there are evidences of Riley's creative and business relationship with Tim Longville.
Dates:
1955-1979 (circa)
Conditions Governing Access:
The collection contains personal correspondence. The provisions of the Data Protection Act (1998) apply. Access to documents may be restricted if they contain information exempted from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, 2000. Some correspondence files are closed for specified periods for reasons of confidentiality.
File
File
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10304/37
Scope and Contents
Typescript copies (two top copies, one carbon copy) of three poems by John Riley: 'A Conversation', 'Two Photographs' and 'A Picture: an Historical Perspective'. With a photocopy of a photograph of Pamela Collins, and a note by Rosemary Chorley regarding Pamela Collins and John Riley, written on a printout of Riley's Wikipedia entry.
Dates:
Mid twentieth century
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
Sub-Series
Sub-Series
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10038/4/4
Scope and Contents
Riley and Tim Longville collaborated on several poems and poem-sequences. These were afterwards gathered into a typescript collection with the overall title ‘Common Objects’, sub-divided into four sections: ‘Common Objects’, ‘The Lou poems’, ‘The Civil War’ and ‘A Legend of St. Anthony’. A typescript draft of the collection was found in an original folder labelled ‘Common Objects’ and bearing Riley’s address in Bicester, Oxfordshire where he taught from 1966 to 1970.Each of the four...
Dates:
circa 1966-1970
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection contains personal correspondence. The provisions of the Data Protection Act (1998) apply. Access to documents may be restricted if they contain information exempted from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, 2000. Some correspondence files are closed for specified periods for reasons of confidentiality.
File
File
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10038/8/38
Scope and Contents
Seven letters and occasional poems from John Riley to Carol Barbara Jones (afterwards Riley) (d.2015). Poems are inscribed on the reverse of many of the letters and include versions of ‘Brahms/blue summer sky’, ‘sheltered under a tree in a wilderness with flowers’, Rough Tor, Cornwall, this landscape what song, and If The World.
Dates:
1970-c.1973
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection contains personal correspondence. The provisions of the Data Protection Act (1998) apply. Access to documents may be restricted if they contain information exempted from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, 2000. Some correspondence files are closed for specified periods for reasons of confidentiality.
File
File
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10013/2/51
Scope and Contents
Letters, poems and translations by Tim Longville and John Riley.
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection contains personal correspondence. The provisions of the Data Protection Act (1998) apply. Access to documents may be restricted if they contain information exempted from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, 2000.
File
File
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.9750/303-305
Scope and Contents
2 letters, typescript and photocopied typescript, with a copy of Riley and Longville, 'In the arms of the gods' (Grosseteste Press, 1967).
Dates:
1963-1967
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
