Correspondence in the form of postcards and letters from Tony Harrison to Harry Thomas, beginning when Thomas was an academic at Boston University. Thomas invited Harrison to give a lecture at the Boston University in the mid-1980s to a course he was covering on The Art of Translation. Following Harrison's lecture, which was on translating The Misanthrope for the National Theatre, Thomas was keen to promote Harrison's work in the United States. He introduced Harrison to Jonathan Galassi at the publishing firm Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and encouraged the publication of The Common Chorus and Lysistrata in the Boston magazine Agni.
Harrison's correspondence with Thomas from March 1986 until September 2003 offers an insight into his working life particularly from the mid- to late-eighties. Sent from Newcastle, Brussels, Delphi, and the United States, these postcards and letters detail periods of continual travel for productions and research interspersed by other projects, including Harrison's work with the National Theatre. The correspondence includes comments on 'The Trackers of Oxyrynchus' from its inception to first performance in Delphi, and subsequent tours, as well as the press-furore that accompanied the publication and broadcasting of V.
Associated correspondence from Harry Thomas to Tony Harrison can also be found in the University of Leeds Special Collections, Classmark: BC MS 20c Harrison / 05 / HTH