Principal groups of letters from Walter Strachan

This series contains three sequences of original letters written by Strachan to friends, consisting of: a lengthy series to the artist Percy Horton which Strachan retrieved from Horton's family following his death in 1970; a run of letters to Timothy Rogers, who was a good friend during the last seven years of Strachan's life (presented to Geoffrey Strachan as a gift to add to the Walter Strachan Collection); and letters to Peter Whyte, a former pupil of Strachan who became a lecturer in French at Durham University (also presented to Geoffrey Strachan as a gift). There are in-letters from all three of these men included elsewhere in the collection, so the letters here represent the other side of these correspondences. All of them provide invaluable biographical information about Walter Strachan - the early letters to Percy Horton being complemented by the letters to Timothy Rogers which document the final years of Strachan's life. The Horton letters are predictably wide-ranging, touching on the work, projects and interests of both men across four decades. The Whyte letters provide a useful insight into Strachan's editorship of the Twentieth Century Texts series for Methuen Educational Ltd, including the selection of texts for inclusion, potential editors, and attempts to interest language teachers and examination boards in less 'mainstream' twentieth-century French fiction. The Rogers letters shed light on Strachan's plans for and progress with writing his memoirs, which he hoped to have published. Although this did not happen during his lifetime, the material he left on his death was ultimately edited by his son Geoffrey and published in 2005, in Only connect...poets, painters, sculptors: friendships and shared passions 1924-1994.

Arrangement is alphabetical by surname of correspondent.