Professor Mottram spent much of his life teaching both English Literature and American Studies, lecturing in numerous places throughout the United States and the world, and holding the position of Professor of English and American Literature at King’s from 1982 to 1990. He was also a poet, critic and editor and played a pioneering role in teaching American culture in the UK.
A significant portion of his extensive collection is devoted to American novels and poetry, and, in particular, poetry from the Beat scene.
The collection
Mottram’s principal scholarly interests in English and American literature lay in the varieties of modernist and avant-garde literature. His involvement both in the past and present of literature is apparent in his library collection.
Although the principal bias of the collection lies in items which were first published in his own lifetime, there are a number of significant items which date from the 19th and early 20th centuries. These include a rare edition of Walt Whitman’s Complete poems & prose from the 1880s, with his facsimile signature and first editions of works by TS Eliot, Ezra Pound and Virginia Woolf. There is also a set of first or very early editions of works by Ford Madox Ford and Joseph Conrad, some with their original dust jackets.
The Beats and the avant-garde
The bulk of the collection reflects Mottram’s interest in avant-garde poetry, particularly that of the Beat poets and of the British Poetry Revival of the 1960s and 1970s, and the longstanding professional connections and personal friendships which he forged. His collection includes signed copies of items by Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and William S Burroughs, and other lesser-known poets of the Beat generation who are considered to be part of that group.
Beyond the Beats
There are also items by American poets who were outside the Beats, including several signed copies by John Ashbery, William Jay Smith (who was the first Native American to become Poet Laureate of the United States), and by the African American writer David Henderson. Other items by members of the Black Arts movement (such as Ishmael Reed and Amiri Baraka) are also included.
The holdings of British poetry include items which are inscribed by figures who were significant both in the British Poetry Revival and in the countercultural scene, such as the visual artist and performance poet Michael Horowitz and the artist, sculptor, actor, jazz trumpeter, anarchist and cultural commentator Jeff Nuttall. There are also a number of artists’ books, including those by the concrete poets Bob Cobbing, Jackson Mac Low and Henri Chopin.
A distinguishing characteristic of many of the items of British and American poetry in the Mottram collection is that many were produced in pamphlet form or in small magazines (such as the Black Mountain review or the Poetry review) in small print runs by small presses, which were often managed on a shoestring by the poets themselves. Because these items were produced in limited editions, they instantly became ‘rare books.’
The collection not only provides insights into the poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s, knit together by personal connections, but also into the world of small press publishing. As many of the items in the Mottram collection demonstrate, these publishers were often motivated by a desire to produce books as works of art. This continues a tradition of high aesthetic standards established by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press, some of whose books are held in the Foyle Special Collection Library.
The collection also includes items, a number of them rare and ephemeral, on countercultural themes. There are also items which represent Mottram’s interests in other forms. There are signed books by the avant-garde American composer and musicologist John Cage, by the eminent British cartoonist Ralph Steadman, and by and about the American experimental architect, designer, inventor and writer Buckminster Fuller. The collection includes substantial holdings of prose and drama, including signed copies of works by Iain Sinclair and Howard Barker.
We welcome enquiries about the Mottram collection, which has been catalogued, and is available for consultation.
The personal papers of Eric Mottram are available in King's College London Archives
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