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Dorothy Bonarjee papers
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Correspondence

Fourteen letters and telegrams, 1929-1984, addressed to Dorothy Bonarjee, 1929-1943 (10), and to Sheela Bonarjee, 1975-1984 (4).
They comprise letters to Dorothy from Urbain Gohier, 15 May 1929 (ff. 1-2), her mother Janet Bonarjee, December 1940-July 1942 (ff. 3-10), her brother Neil, 17 February 1943 (f. 11, telegram informing her of their mother's death), and Mario Meunier, 21 September 1943 (f. 12, concerning her French translation of Sri Aurobindo's Heraclitus); and letters to Sheela from Dorothy's college friend Linda [Davies], Ruthin, April 1975 (ff. 13-14, concerning Dorothy, and enclosing a copy of her poem 'Clarach'; see also Bonarjee 2, f. 2), and [Claire] Aruna [Surtel], Marseille, 20 October [n.d.] (ff. 15-16) and 4 November 1984 (f. 17, telegram concerning the death of Pierre [?Surtel]).

Bonarjee, Janet Anna, -1942

Dorothy Bonarjee papers

  • GB 0210 BONARJEE
  • Fonds
  • [c. 1896]-2022

Papers of, and relating to, Dorothy Bonarjee, [c. 1896]-2022, including poetry, letters, photographs, family documents and printed material.

Bonarjee, D. N.

Official documents and other papers

Copies of official documents and other papers relating to the Bonarjee family, 1921-2009, comprising a typescript copy, [?mid-20 cent], of the sale deed (dated 1874) of Rampore Grant No. 18, the property purchased by Dorothy Bonarjee's grandfather; declarations, 1921, by DNB's parents, relating to her forthcoming marriage to Paul Surtel; a typescript copy, [mid-20 cent], of the will (dated 17 February 1942) of DNB's mother, Janet Anna Bonarji [sic]; certified copies of the marriage certificate (dated 1921) of DNB and Paul Surtel, 1943, 1958, 1960, 1968, 1978, of the marriage certificate (dated 1946) of Alexandre Milein Mileff and Claire Arouna [sic] Surtel, 1956, and of the divorce certificate of DNB and Paul Surtel, 1958, 1960; certificate of French nationality of DNB, 19 April 1979; and the newspaper death notice for Claire Aruna Surtel, 2009.

Photographs

Some thirty-nine photographs, [c. 1896]-2013, including a portrait of Dorothy as an infant with her mother, [c. 1896], an UCW Aberystwyth group photo, a portrait of 'Dorf (Dorothy) Bonarjee, Holborn', [1910s], nine photographs taken at various times at Jaubergue, [20 cent, last ¼]; and copies, printed in 2013, supplied by Claire Aruna's half-brother Quentin Surtel, of twenty-four family photos, mostly [1920s]-[1930s], including Dorothy and her children Denis and Claire Aruna.
Also included are two wine bottle labels for 'Egrappé de Jaubergue'.

Poetry

Copies of some thirty-four poems by Dorothy Bonarjee, mostly holograph, [1914]-[1970s], consisting of further drafts or copies of fifteen poems present in her black notebook (Bonarjee 1) (ff. 1-17) and nineteen additional poems not recorded elsewhere (ff. 1 verso, 5 verso, 18-36), together with a few other fragments (ff. 1 verso, 37 recto-verso).
A note concerning the end of her engagement to a Welsh boy whose parents said 'She is very beautiful and intelligent but she is Indian', thought to be associated with her poem 'Renunciation', is on f. 8 verso. The copies of 'Menelaus' Lamenting' and 'Renunciation', [1970s] (ff. 16-17), are in the hand of Bonarjee's college friend Linda Davies, while 'Clarach' (f. 2) is a typescript copy, [?1975], [by Sheela Bonarjee] of a transcript sent to her by Davies (see Bonarjee 3, f. 14 verso); all three are transcribed from the printed versions. Ten of the poems were published in The Dragon (1913-1917) and The Welsh Outlook (1914-1919) (ff. 1-2, 5-8, 10, 12-13, 16-18), while twenty-three appear in The Hindu Bard (2023) (ff. 1-4, 6-11, 13-15, 17-19, 25-26, 29-35). Also included are a copy of William Cory's poem 'Heraclitus' in Bonarjee's hand (f. 38) and a typescript of 'Le Hibou et la Poussiquette', a French translation of Edward Lear's 'The Owl and the Pussycat' (f. 39).

Davies, Linda, 1896-1984

Poetry: black notebook

A notebook containing copies of forty-one poems by Dorothy Bonarjee, [1913]-[20 cent., second ¼], numbered by her 1-11, 13-41 (a final poem, 'The Lights', is possibly No. 42; No. 12 is a blank page).
The poems are mostly manuscript, typescript and printed copies pasted into the volume; the remaining few are written directly into the volume (Nos 24, 30, 37, [42]). Thirteen of the poems (Nos 1, 4-7, 9-10, 18, 21, 24, 35, 38-39) were published in The Dragon (1913-1917) and The Welsh Outlook (1914-1919), while thirty-one (Nos 1-4, 6-10, 14-[16], 19-24, 26-29, 31-32, 36-[42]) appear in The Hindu Bard (2023). There are miscellaneous memoranda in French and English inside the covers.

Printed material

Photocopies, printouts and a single original cutting, 1916, [20 cent., last ¼]-2022, of Dorothy Bonarjee's published poems from The Dragon (1913-1917) and The Welsh Outlook (1919) (ff. 1-24); together with copies of three publications, namely The Indus: The Indian Students' Union and Hostel, 2.5 (November 1922), including an article by Harihar Das on 'The Poetry of Dorothy Noel Bonarjee' (on pp. 50-53) containing lines from two poems not recorded elsewhere (12 pp.), and a modern photocopy of the entire issue (13 ff.); The Trial of the Landowners, Being a Criticism of Colonel J. C. Faunthorpe's Report on the Eka Movement in Oudh. By an Indian Barrister [Debendra Nath Bonarjee] (Lucknow, [1922]) (16 pp.); and D[ebendra] N[ath] Bonarjee, Should a Government Honour its Bond? The Story of a Case Arising out of the U. P. Government's New Tenancy Legislation (Allahabad, [1938]) (8 pp.).

Bonarjee, D. N. (Debendra Nath), -1941

Research papers

Papers, 2010-2020, relating to Dorothy Bonarjee accumulated by Sheela Bonarjee and Andrew Whitehead, including miscellaneous notes, printouts of Andrew Whitehead's blogs on Bonarjee, etc., 2010-2017; items, 2019, relating to the UCL Laws Graduation Dinner on 4 July 2019, attended by Sheela Bonarjee and Andrew Whitehead, and to the related Inspirational Women Exhibition featuring Bonarjee; and a typescript collection entitled 'Dorothy Bonarjee - poems in full', dated September 2020, assembled and edited by Andrew Whitehead, containing some sixty-five of her poems (a few stray poems are omitted, see Bonarjee 2, ff. 5 verso, 21, 30 verso).

Whitehead, Andrew (Journalist)