Sydney Goodsir Smith Correspondence
This page offers a guide to highlights of the correspondence in Edinburgh University Library's Sydney Goodsir Smith Papers (Coll-497).
Further correspondence is listed in Sydney Goodsir Smith Materials in Other EUL Collections, including letters from Smith to Helen Cruickshank, Maurice Lindsay, Norman MacCaig, Hugh MacDiarmid, and Tom Scott.
Correspondence with Scottish Writers
The Sydney Goodsir Smith Papers contain letters from the following major Scottish writers:
George Bruce
- Letter, 7 August 1967 (Gen 1771)
Norman MacCaig
- Letter, 1 February 1949, with poem 'The Great Auk and the Hippogriff' (E68/17)
Hugh MacDiarmid
- Letter, 24 February 1959, about a radio broadcast on Robert Burns (AAF)
- 2 letters about Carotid Cornucopius, 2 May 1963 and 18 October 1964 (Gen 1769)
Other Correspondence
The Papers also include:
- Correspondence relating to Sydney Goodsir Smith's co-editorship of Robert Burns's The Merry Muses of Caledonia, including letters from Smith, James Barke, J. DeLancey Ferguson, G. (Gershon) Legman, W. N. H. Harding, C. Pearl, and R. W. (Robert William) Chapman (Gen 1773)
- Letters from producer Finlay J. MacDonald regarding the 1966 BBC television broadcast of Smith's Kynd Kittock's Land (Gen 1760)
- Letters from Smith to Stella Cartwright, with MS poems 'Seal Sang’ and ‘Christmas Carol 1966’ addressed to Cartwright (E96.12)
- A copy of a letter from Smith to Maurice Lindsay, 3 April 1947, providing extensive autobiographical notes for Smith's Selected Poems published by the Saltire Society in 1947 (E.2005.27)
Further Details
For a fuller listing of correspondence, see the Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue and the manual Index to Manuscripts held in the Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library.