Letters, 1946 - 1948

The Paul Potts Papers consist of notebooks, letters, manuscripts, typescripts, and some photographs. The two notebooks range from 1946-1947 (approximately 275 pages) and include draft poems and prose, as well as articles and essays in different stages of completion. The notebooks also include sketches and lists of people, as well as a 13-page story about a "colonial" meeting and falling in love on a Hebridean ferry. Other writings contained here include "A Cook's Guide to Modern Poetry", "Basic Socialism", "On Being a Canadian", "All My Worldly Goods", "My Party Card", as well as several on Walt Whitman and one on his friend, George Orwell.

In addition to the notebooks, there is a file of manuscripts and typescripts which include writings on Ezra Pound, Walt Whitman, and additional Potts poems, essays, and book reviews. Items of note include letters from editors and friends, along with a three page letter written by Potts while at Orwell's Barnhill house on Jura, to an unknown recipient.

Three photographs are also included; two are portraits of Potts, while a third is of a small child, possibly George and Eileen Orwell's adopted son, Richard. This photograph is tucked inside the smaller of the two manuscript notebooks (folder 1).

One oversize folder contains a poster advertising Paul Potts' appearance at The Plough in Norwood Green, England, for "Poet's Pub", 22 February, 1939. Potts is described here as "One of the hick poets belonging to the plain people who work the Canadian prairie".