On 19 January 2026, we opened a parcel in the library containing a new acquisition I had purchased from a Kentish antiquarian bookdealer for our collections, a copy of Edward Sackville-West’s The Ruin. Its front flyleaf bears in ink the signature of the novelist, dated 19 January 1926. What might the revisions made for the published book, from and within the complete manuscript draft of The Ruin now held by the Harry Ransom Center in Texas, as well as Sackville-West’s own notebooks and diaries held in The British Library, tell us about the novelist and his relationships?

Photograph of Winchester College Scholars in fancy dress, 1920
—E. O. Siepmann (back, left) as William of Wykeham, and J. W. McDougall (back, right)
Winchester College Archives, Winchester, G/255/3
 

© Courtesy of the Warden and Scholars of Winchester College