The Kenneth Williams Letters - Hardcover

4.2

122 ratings by Goodreads

9780002550246: The Kenneth Williams Letters

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002550245 ISBN 13: 9780002550246

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1994

This is a collection of letters to (and occasionally from) all manner of names from Lawrence Olivier to Maggie Smith and Richard Burton, Barbara Windsor, Joe Orton and Benazir Bhutto. Kenneth Williams meticulously kept carbon copies of all his letters (some 12 boxes of correspondence survive) - usually very long ones, faultlessly typed. They expand and ratify events and attitudes only briefly sketched by the diaries. There are also Williams selections from the extensive files at the BBC, where he turns on the outrageous "camp" familiar from his public performances.

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Review:

‘Endlessly absorbing... all the letters can be read and reread with such pleasure... scintillating’
A. N. Wilson, Times Literary Supplement

‘His superb instinct for comedy is revealed time and again’
Jonathan Coe, Spectator

‘Fascinating... the camp fire crackles merrily’
George Melly, Sunday Times

‘A big dipper, full of acid drops and high rises, and it doesn’t matter where you start or finish - that’s the joy of it... rarely have I read a collection of letters of such broad scope in terms of their content and the diversity of their recipients’
Barry Cryer, Mail on Sunday

From the Back Cover:

Following the bestselling publication of 'The Kenneth Williams Diaries', the devastating self – portrait of one of our most loved and complex performers is completed with this marvellous selection of his letters.

This is a wonderful treasure trove of correspondence with all manner of people, including Alec Guiness, Maggie Smith, Joe Orton, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and the Stoker’s Mess of HMS Leverton. Letters called forth the performer in Kenneth Williams in a way that his diaries never did: many of those collected here are virtual comic monologues, and in general they suggest much more strongly than the diaries the likeable and constructive side of a man who remains, nevertheless, as outrageous and ‘difficult’ as ever. Above all the letters round out, in varied voices and many moods, the picture of Kenneth William’s unique and troubled personality which emerges from the diaries.

“Endlessly absorbing...all the letters can be read and reread with such pleasure...scintillating”
A.N. WILSON, 'Times Literary Supplement'

“His superb instinct for comedy is revealed time and again.”
JONATHAN COE, 'Spectator'

“Fascinating...the camp fire crackles merrily”
GEORGE MELLY, 'Sunday Times'

“A big dipper, full of acid drops and high rises, and it doesn’t matter where you start of finish – that’s the joy of it...rarely have I read a collection of letters of such broad scope in terms of their content and the diversity of their recipients.”
BARRY CRYER, 'Mail on Sunday'

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