John Johnson (Authors’ Agents) Ltd - further discoveries

Andrea Hricikova makes further discoveries in the archive of John Johnson (Authors’ Agents) Limited.

The archive of John Johnson (Authors’ Agents) was donated to London Metropolitan Archives at the end of 2019. I started working on the collection in my first week at London Metropolitan Archives as a Collections intern at the end of February 2020, only three weeks before the world was turned upside down by the pandemic. Through the turbulent time of the past year, it has been a real pleasure to be working on this archive and something that I always looked forward to when I was able to return to work on site, increasingly aware of its variety and diverse potential for research. I soon realised how important it was to create a basic list for this collection as a minimum, since it was not possible for it to be fully catalogued immediately.

The process of cataloguing this collection was accompanied by genuine discoveries and uplifting moments. The most significant revelation was realising the variety of material included and the diversity of individuals the agency represented. Looking through the files, I expected to find majority to be of male authors, but I was pleased to see that the agency represented a woman of colour. Known as Botswana’s most influential author, Bessie Head was born in South Africa as the result of an (at the time illegal) extramarital union between a white Scottish woman, Bessie Amelia Emery, and an unidentified black male. The turbulence of the time into which Head was born, as well as Head’s bi-racial identity, were a stimulus for her writing. Head sadly passed away before she had a chance to finish her autobiography. However, after her death in 1986 at the age of 49, A Woman Alone was published, compiled from Head’s notes and jottings. The card shown below was sent to the agency by a representative of Bessie Head in 1992 as it was working on Head’s autobiographical story. The personal touch of flowers from the sender’s garden show the gratitude this individual felt towards the agency for its work in connection with the late author.

Another important author represented by John Johnson Ltd was Laurence Michael Dillon, also known as Lobzang Jivaka. Born as Laura Maud Dillon, Michael was the first person to undergo phalloplasty and the first white male to become a Tibetan monk. In the late fifties he fled to Tibet due to unwanted press attention questioning his gender identity. It was there he pursued ordination and took the name Lobzang Jivaka. Under his Buddhist name, Dillon sent manuscripts to the agency. Probably his most important work, an autobiography, was saved by the agency from Michael’s brother Sir Robert Dillon, eighth Baronet of Lismullen in Ireland, who wanted to destroy the unpublished manuscript. Written in 1962, Out of the Ordinary was published in 2017. I was pleased to find the manuscript in the archive, in its original form, full of scribbles and notes together with some letters from Michael. It is satisfying to know that after its perilous history, this treasure will now be always protected and cared for properly by LMA.

Aside from supporting conventional authors, I was pleased to find papers of individuals who were not only known for their writing, but played a crucial part in our history. A good example of this was the agency’s representation of Sir Hugh Casson. Most well-known for his watercolours and as a notable architect (he was director of architecture of the Festival of Britain amongst other things), Casson was also an outstanding writer, talents which are manifested in his published books such as Hugh Casson’s Cambridge, Hugh Casson’s Oxford, and Hugh Casson’s London. Cataloguing the author’s files, I was pleased to find them to be full of individual character, often including jottings and drawings such as in the example below Nanny Says. Akin to his illustrations, these files are a statement of Casson’s passion for the intricacies of his surroundings and his affectionate perception of the world. They are a great addition to the archive, illuminating how this collection could further engage and interest a broader range of researchers from a variety of backgrounds.

Other heartening moments included discovering fan mail from school children, who seemed to have been instructed by their teachers to send letters to the agency when reading literature at school. Letters addressed to Leon Garfield or Donald Payne (pen name, James Vance Marshall) such as the example shown below, are common amongst authors’ papers, especially those of children’s authors. These letters display affection and narrate the impact these authors had on individuals, how they managed to inspire the generations, and showcase how the agency was able to support such an outcome. On occasion, sadly some of these letters were written after the author had passed away and so the agency had the heart-breaking role of informing the individual of the sad news. Reading through the authors files’, it was fascinating to see the variety of interactions the agency facilitated, and the critical role it held in the authors’ lives.

Finally, saving one of the best bits as the last treasure, I was fortunate to find a file full of photographs titled Authors’ Portraits. Negatives and photographs of various authors are a great addition to already a rich archive collection. I was pleased to come across photographs of Dick Francis including signed photographs, since his files were not part of the donated archives but were instead given to a private collection. Photographs which would usually be part of an author’s promotional material and portraits to include on book covers, were all now in safe hands of LMA. Other photographs included that below of James Hamilton-Paterson, British poet and a novelist. Discovering and cataloguing these photographs adds to the diversity of material in the collection and is it satisfying to know that they will now be placed into a temperature regulated storage area and cared for in years to come.

Overall, listing this collection has been filled with many uplifting moments despite the challenges faced by the pandemic. Discovering the potential for research this collection holds, and its diversity of material has been the highlight. This archive not only presents information about individual authors but uncovers the way in which the agency facilitated opportunities for their clients. It displays how in essence the boundaries between the professional and personal relations with clients became borderless as the agency worked diligently with their clients over many years. It has been a real pleasure to have been able to work on this collection throughout the year as my first listing project. It is satisfying to know that from hap-hazard ordered boxes, as shown in the left-hand image below, the collection is now arranged and packaged in archival boxes and will be protected for future generations (right-hand image).