Scope and Contents
Literary and academic papers. The collection contains material in the following categories:
Poetry: includes files marked ‘Early Poems / Poems 1967-1985 / (Alibi)’, ‘Poems 1975-1992 / TLS Alibi, Summer Snow, Angel’ and ‘Poems 1990-2002’; and material relating to Padel’s collections ‘Angel’, ‘Rembrandt Would Have Loved You’, ‘Voodoo Shop’, ‘The Soho Leopard’, ‘Darwin – A Life in Poems’, ‘The Mara Crossing’, ‘Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth’, ‘Tidings – A Christmas Journey’, ‘Emerald’ and ‘Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life’.
Prose fiction: includes a file marked ‘Prose 1960-1980 / Fiction / Short stories, school play / “Elsewhere” notes, Heraklion 1979’; and material relating to ‘Where the Serpent Lives’, ‘Daughters of the Labyrinth’ and ‘Firebird’.
Academic and critical work: includes: ‘The Wandering of Psyche’ (Wolfson College, Oxford, 1975); a copy of Padel’s 1976 Oxford D.Phil. thesis ‘In and Out of the Mind in Greek Tragedy’; and material relating to ‘In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self’; work on Cretan myth (in particular Ariadne and labyrinths), and women in Greece; ‘I'm a Man: Sex, Gods and Rock 'n' Roll’; writings on male representations of female desire; work on Robin Hood and George Seferis; and ‘Silent Letters of the Alphabet’ (Newcastle / Bloodaxe Poetry Series lectures).
Correspondence: includes letters from publishers and editors, including Christopher Reid, Michael Schmidt, Peter Scupham, Wendy Mulford and Michael Hulse; correspondence and cuttings relating to Padel’s ‘Independent on Sunday’ column ‘The Sunday Poem’, including letters and cards from Les Murray, Clive Wilmer, C. K. Williams, Pauline Stainer, Ian Duhig, Andrew Motion, Pascale Petit, Susan Wicks, Anne Stevenson, Kathleen Jamie and Kate Clanchy; letters on the Poetry Society’s sale of 21 Earls Court Square from George Szirtes and Sebastian Barker; correspondence relating to the Zoological Society of London; and postcards, including one from Thomas Adès.
Miscellaneous items: includes a notebook of ‘Poems sent out’; a notebook relating to India and tigers; a notebook with entries on classical subjects; a file on poetry teaching; cuttings and photocopies of press coverage of Padel; and ‘Sighting the Tiger’ (printed musical score with words by Padel).
Dates
- Creation: 1950s-2010s
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. The collection contains personal correspondence. The provisions of the Data Protection Act (1998) apply to access. Users of the collection are required to complete a Researcher Undertaking Concerning Access under the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to Archives Which Would Otherwise Be Closed. 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).
Biographical / Historical
Ruth Sophia Padel (b. 1946) is a poet, novelist, academic, editor and non-fiction author. She was educated at North London Collegiate School and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she studied Classics (B.A. in Literae humaniores, 1969, and D.Phil. 1976). She was a lecturer at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and at Birkbeck College, University of London, and was Professor of Poetry at King's College London.
Extent
43 archive box(es) : Paper
Language of Materials
English
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Cambridge University Library Repository
Cambridge University Library
West Road
Cambridge CB3 9DR United Kingdom
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all other enquiries: mss@lib.cam.ac.uk