Jennifer Surridge
Jennifer Surridge, one of the daughters of Robertson Davies is best known for publishing a posthumous collection of her father's diaries.[1]
Her father had been recognized, around the world, as a literary giant.[1][2][3] Surridge had occasionally worked for her father, as a research assistant. In addition to his eleven novels, many plays, and other publised works, her father had been a prolific diarist - maintaining separate diaries for different purposes. Davies always wrote in longhand. After his 1995 death Surridge set herself the task of transcribing her father's diaries. It took her fifteen years.
Surridge then worked with Ramsay Derry, Davies favourite editor, in compliling a selection of his private writings, entitled "A Celtic Terperment".[1]
Davies first University studies had been at Queen's University.[2] He later donated his papers to Queen's, including his collection of 6,000 books. Surridge helped Queen's archivists to understand her father idiosyncratice library organization.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "A Celtic Temperment". Winter in The Hills magazine 32 (4): p. 3. 2016. https://issuu.com/inthehills/docs/inthehills_win16_issuu. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Labiba Haque (2010-06-29). "Canadian classics come to Queen’s: Famed author Robertson Davies’ collection set to be displayed in library". Queen's University Journal. https://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2010-06-29/news/canadian-classics-come-queens/. Retrieved 2021-01-05. "Teatero said that the list contained over 6,000 items and was compiled by Jennifer Surridge, Davies’ middle daughter. “While we knew that Davies’ copies would be very special in their own right, I was surprised and delighted to see that many of the items on the list were not already represented in the Library’s collections,” Teatero said, adding that the collection was funded by the Chancellor Richardson Memorial Fund."
- ↑ Martin Chilton (2015-12-02). "Robertson Davies: Canada's greatest novelist?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2020-01-29. https://web.archive.org/web/20200129200314/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/robertson-davies-tribute-to-great-novelist/. Retrieved 2021-01-05. "In A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist (edited by Jennifer Surridge and Ramsay Derry), which covers the years 1959-1963, it says that in 1963, when he is offered a regular newspaper column to write, he looks over old cuttings and writes: 'Old newspaper stuff is good. If only I thought I had true worth as a novelist. I know I am a good journalist. Should I do what I do well, or continue with what I want to do well?'"
