The Letters of Brendan Behan

270 Pages·1991·11.358 MB·English

by  Brendan Behan, E. H. Mikhail

T
Also by E. H. Mikhail
THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SETTING OF THE 1890s
JOHN GALSWORTHY THE DRAMATIST
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
SEAN O'CASEY: A Bibliography of Criticism
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MODERN IRISH DRAMA 1899-1970
DISSERTATIONS ON ANGLO-IRISH DRAMA
THE STING AND THE TWINKLE: Conversations with Sean
O'Casey (co-editor with John O'Riordari)
]. M. SYNGE: A Bibliography of Criticism
CONTEMPORARY BRITISH DRAMA 1950-1976
J. M. SYNGE: Interviews and Recollections (editor)
W. B. YEATS: Interviews and Recollections (two volumes) (editor)
ENGLISH DRAMA 1900-1950
LADY GREGORY: Interviews and Recollections (editor)
OSCAR WILDE: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism
OSCAR WILDE: Interviews and Recollections (two volumes) (editor)
A RESEARCH GUIDE TO MODERN IRISH DRAMATISTS
THE ART OF BRENDAN BEHAN
BRENDAN BEHAN: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism
AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MODERN ANGLO-
IRISH DRAMA
LADY GREGORY: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism
BRENDAN BEHAN: Interviews and Recollections (two volumes)
(editor)
SEAN O'CASEY AND HIS CRITICS
THE ABBEY THEATRE: Interviews and Recollections (editor)
JAMES JOYCE: Interviews and Recollections (editor)
SHERIDAN: Interviews and Recollections (editor)
The Letters of
Brendan Behan
Edited y
E.H. Mi ail
McGill—Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • Buffalo
Brendan Behan's letters © Mrs Beatrice Behan 1992
Selection and editorial matter © E. H. Mikhail 1992
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
First published in Canada by
McGill-Queen's University Press
ISBN 0-7735-0888-0
Legal deposit first quarter 1992
Bibliotheque national du Quebec
First published in Britain in 1992 by
Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd
Printed in Hong Kong
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Behan, Brendan
The letters of Brendan Behan
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7735-0888-0
I. Behan, Brendan—Correspondence. 2. Authors,
Irish-20th century—Correspondence. I. Mikhail,
E. H. (Edward Halim), 1926- II. Title.
PR6003.E417Z48 1992 822'.914 C91-090349-2
Contents
List of Plates vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction ix
Biographical Chronology xiii
THE LETTERS
1 1932-1939: Youth 3
2 1942-1948: In and Out of Prison 11
3 1951-1956: Freelance Journalist 39
4 1957: A Busy Year for Correspondence 85
5 1958: International Travel — Spain, Sweden 141
6 1959: Berlin, Paris; First Breakdown 167
7 1960: Dublin, London, New York; Second Breakdown 173
8 1961: 11000 miles across USA, Canada and Mexico
9 1962: New York, Dublin, London, France 211
10 1963: The Last Two Letters 227
Appendix A: Index of Recipients 233
Appendix B: Select Bibliography of Behan's Works 235
Subject Index 236
v
List of Plates
1. Brendan Behan in Sean O'Sullivan's studio, St Stephen's Green,
Dublin
2. Brendan Behan, working in Dublin
3. Brendan Behan, with the original cast of The Quare Fellow
4. Brendan Behan, 1958, in Sweden at the invitation of Dr Olof
Lagerlof
5. In Tijuana, Mexico: Brendan Behan, friend Peter Arthurs and
Beatrice Behan
6. Brendan Behan, working in New York
7. Brendan Behan in New York
8. Brendan Behan at the Algonquin Hotel, New York
vi
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to all my benefactors who have given rne much help and
kindness in the preparation of this work. My first thanks are due to Mrs
Beatrice Behan, the widow of Brendan Behan and owner of the
copyright in his letters. Mrs Behan has throughout generously helped
me with encouragement, information and forbearance. Mrs Rae Jeffs
(now Mrs Peter A. Sebley) had the foresight to save Brendan's
correspondence in Hutchinson's files and she willingly made it available
to me. Mr Seamus de Burca, Brendan's cousin, provided much-needed
personal reminiscences and family histories. Mr Rory Furlong, Brendan's
stepbrother, volunteered contacts that have led to the discovery of some
correspondence. Mr Ulick O'Connor, Brendan's biographer, graciously
gave me the benefit of his experience and answered my many queries.
Mr Nick Hern combed through the files of Eyre Methuen. Mr Cathal
Goulding has always been more than willing to assist me. Both Mr Iain
Hamilton and Sir Robert Lusty have kindly given me permission to
quote from their correspondence with Brendan. All these helpers have
laboured far beyond the call of friendship, duty or scholarship; and I am
profoundly in their debt.
The book benefited greatly from the translations of Gaelic texts into
English by Dr Richard Wall and Mr Micheal 6 hAodha; from the
comments and suggestions made by Mr John Ryan, Dr Richard Wall and
Dr Brian Tyson; from the preparation of the final typescript by Miss Bea
Ramtej; and from the patience and encouragement of my wife Isabelle.
Thanks are also due to the University of Lethbridge for granting me a
sabbatical leave to complete this work; and to the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada for awarding me a Research
Grant as well as a Leave Fellowship without which this volume could
not have come into existence.
It is also a pleasant duty to record my appreciation to the staff of the
University of Lethbridge Library; the Fales Library of New York
University; the Morris Library of Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale; the National Library of Ireland; the Royal Irish Academy;
the British Library, London; and the Newspaper Library, Colindale.
Some editorial material has been derived from previously published
works, particularly the books by Mr Ulick O'Connor, Mrs Rae Jeffs, Mrs
Beatrice Behan, and Mr Seamus de Burca.
vii
viii Acknowledgements
My gratitude is also due to the following for support, encouragement,
assistance, information, editorial material, or notification of the
whereabouts of certain letters: Dr Les Allen; Professor William A.
Armstrong; Mr Tony Aspler; the Honourable David Astor; Mr
G. H. M. B. Baird; Mr Francis Balle of the Institut Francais de Presse et
des Sciences d'Information; Mr Brian Behan; Mrs Kathleen Behan; Mr
Bob Bradshaw; Professor Bernard Benstock; Dr Cheryl Calver; Mrs Aline
Chapman; Mr Philip Connolly; Ms Hilary Cummings of the Morris
Library at Southern Illinois University; Mr Kenneth W. Duckett; Ms
Ellen S. Dunlap of the Humanities Research Center at the University of
Texas; Mr Thomas Doran; Professor Ruth Dudley Edwards; Mr John
Feeney; Dr Monk Gibbon; Miss Ann Louise Gilligan; Mrs Imelda
Gilligan; Ms Katherine F. Gould of the Library of Congress; Dr
Theodore Greider; Ms Gillian Greenwood, Assistant Editor of Books and
Bookmen; Miss Rosemary Howard; Miss Joanne Hurst of the New
Statesman; Mr Valentin Iremonger; Mr Sean Kavanagh; Mr Fred Keefe of
the New Yorker; Mr Benedict Kiely; Professor David Krause; Dr Olof
Lagerlof; Mr Tony Lennon; Fr Uegene McCarthy; Mr Riobard Mac
Gorain; Mr Desmond MacNamara; Miss Deirdre McQuillan; Mr
Eamonn Martin; Mr Claude Marks; Mr Paul Myers, Curator of the
Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library; Ms
Kathleen R. Nathan of Hutchinson Publishing Group Limited; Miss Ide
niThuama of the Royal Irish Academy; Mrs David O'Connell; Mr Sean
O'Faolain; Mr Micheal 6 hAodha; Miss Mary O'Neill; Mr and Mrs John
O'Riordan; Mr Corey Phelps; Professor Mark Roberts; Mr Bernard
Rogan; Mr John Ryan; Miss Celia Salkeld; Mr Jim Savage; Mr Lee
Savage; the late Alan Simpson; Ms Carolyn Swift; Mr Herbert Tarr; Mr
Mickey Traynor; Mr Sindbad Vail; Dr Richard Wall; Mr Joe Walsh, and
Mr John Gillard Watson.
Although the task of locating, collecting, and editing this
correspondence has been mine, all those mentioned in these
acknowledgements have been the guiding genius behind this book. If
the names of any helpers have been inadvertently omitted, I beg their
forgiveness and should like to thank them collectively.
E. H. MIKHAIL
Introduction
Brendan Behan - unlike W. B. Yeats, Sean O'Casey, and Bernard Shaw -
was not a diligent letter-writer. Almost everyone connected with him
testified to this fact. According to his widow, Beatrice, he was 'not much
given to letter writing'.1 His cousin, Seamus de Burca, quoted him as
saying: 'Whoever writes my biography will get no help from my letters.
I never write any.'2 Rae Jeffs, the editor of his tape-recorded works,
noticed that 'he was now using the telephone instead, possibly because
he found it a less troublesome, if more expensive, way of
communicating'.3 This was confirmed by Micheal O hAodha, the
drama director, who wrote that 'Behan's letters are fairly scarce as he
usually 'phoned';4 by Riobard MacGorain, of the Irish language
organisation, Gael-Linn, who said that Brendan 'wasn't normally a
letter-writer. The phone was his prime medium of communication in
dealing with individuals';5 and by Sindbad Vail, the former editor of the
Paris periodical Points, who asked 'I wonder how many he wrote and
how many are available?' Brendan himself seemed to agree when he
wrote to his halfbrother, Rory: 'One of the reasons I never write letters
is that I can get more than a dollar a word for writing.'
This claim of not being among the most prolific of letter-writers had
also been made by Oscar Wilde. 'I never answer or write letters', as
Coulson Kernan quoted him as saying.8 Both Oscar Wilde and Brendan
Behan, however, turned out not to be bad correspondents after all,
considering their meteoric careers and their deaths at a relatively early
age. Wilde, for example, corresponded with some eleven different
periodicals; Behan with seventeen. This compares very favourably with
Yeats, who corresponded with nineteen periodicals, although he lived
much longer than either Wilde and Behan. As in the case of Wilde, the
search for Behan's letters has been hampered by their dispersal; they
have been widely scattered and keep turning up in unexpected places.
Moreover, some correspondents have not preserved their letters.
Yet those letters that have been saved and included in this collection
are certainly worth the trouble of uncovering. Those who have never
had the chance to meet Brendan will not recapture the art of his talking
from his writings; the nearest approach to this is perhaps by way of his
letters, particularly those written without thought of publication. Since
Brendan put into spoken spontaneous drama a thousand times more
ix