FREELANCE
Fergusson talks about David Archer, a figure of 1930s literary myth. The conventional story of Archer has him as a very rich, rather foolish figure of whom poets took advantage. He was, the memoirs say, the son of a landed general of incalculable affluence, who frittered his patrimony. A different v...
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| Published in: | TLS, the Times Literary Supplement the Times Literary Supplement, 2012-04 (5691), p.16 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Fergusson talks about David Archer, a figure of 1930s literary myth. The conventional story of Archer has him as a very rich, rather foolish figure of whom poets took advantage. He was, the memoirs say, the son of a landed general of incalculable affluence, who frittered his patrimony. A different version emerges from the only sustained account of the Parton Street Bookshop, given by one who shared the attic bedroom with Dylan Thomas. Ben Weinreb, later a celebrated architectural bookseller, began his bookselling career in 1935 at L1 a week on Archer's payroll. Archer was not rich, Weinreb reports. He had inherited "a little money which was just enough to live on, build some bookshelves and buy an opening stock"; his later venture in the 1950s was funded by another lucky legacy. All that Archer had, however, he gave to books and poetry: in that, he was a heroic catalyst. |
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| ISSN: | 0307-661X 2517-7729 |