The Fowl and The Pussycat: Love Letters of Michael Field (1876-1909) (review)

Scholars will be thankful for Sharon Bickle's outstanding edition of Michael Field's letters for years to come. Any scholar who has gone through Bradley and Cooper's manuscript materials (letters, diaries and drafts of works) at the Bodleian, British Library, and other institutions knows the enormity of the task lying ahead for any one wishing to edit their unpublished manuscripts. Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper might have published as one author, mostly as Michael Field, but the sheer volume of work in those archives shows the real multiplicity of their authorial self. Some of their letters, especially those at the Bodleian, have been misattributed to different recipients within their close family circle, making the task of classification very difficult indeed. This task is further complicated by their playful and ambiguous use of nicknames and pseudonyms. One of Edith Cooper's nicknames was "Puss" or "Pussy" (and variations such as "Pussie," "Persian Puss," "Pretty Persian," "P.P.," or simply "P"). But they also called Cooper's sister, Amy, "Puss" or "Pussie." Bickle's knowledge of the women's lives, their family relations and their intimate (sometimes even quirky) language has allowed her to construct a volume that unveils for the first time the evolution of the women's relationship. But, in the process, this edition also superbly unfolds the women's collaborative development under a new single authorial self. Without a doubt, this edition is a must read for anyone interested in Michael Field.

Though the edition is comprehensive and includes letters dating from 1876 to 1909, it is important to note that most of the correspondence transcribed here is from the early 1880s. Of the 168 letters that form this volume, there are 23 letters from 1880, 35 letters from 1882, and 52 letters from 1885. There are 11 letters from 1886 and 11 also from 1897. As to the rest of the edition, sometimes there is just one letter per year (1876, 1877, 1889, and 1909 for example), sometimes two or three (for years 1881, 1893 or 1899). There are no letters for the years 1878, 1879, 1884, 1890-91, 1894-96, 1900-02, 1904-08, nor, as the title makes evident, for the latter years of the women's lives (they both died in 1914). This edition therefore illustrates the women's relationship, their life and work at a crucial moment in their career as poets and dramatists: when they were becoming the single male author Michael Field (they published their first work under this pseudonym in 1884). Some of these missing letters one hopes may appear in the future, assuming they exist. But, if we compare with the masses of letters the women wrote to other correspondents, what becomes apparent is that from 1888, as Bickle remarks, the women's diaries, Works and Days (1884-1914), became their most important means of communication with each other. For this reason, the edition is less enlightening about their relationship both professionally and emotionally after 1886, once they were consolidated as "Michael Field." For example, Cooper's love and passionate desire for the art critic Bernard Berenson, a passion that would consume her, and which nearly broke Michael Field's partnership, is left to a footnote in the volume. It is also perhaps important to note that most of the letters are from Bradley to Cooper (94 letters are by Bradley, 38 by Cooper; the rest are explanatory envelopes written by Bradley or Cooper which the women used to organize the collection). The volume therefore shows that their correspondence was dominated by Bradley's output. Bickle gives no explanation and of course one can only speculate. Perhaps the reason might be, as Cooper once explained to Bernard Berenson, that she was not very fond of letter writing. "A letter isn't one of my forms of expressions," she wrote.

A handwritten manuscript is not just a document transmitting history but a...