THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Dorking,

8th July, 1948.

Dear Frank,
As you know, I have always avoided newspaper publicity but a case has arisen in which I almost think it will be necessary.
I have, as I think I have told you, nearly a completed an opera on “Pilgrim’s Progress”. Now with this “Daily Telegraph” pageant coming off and various people getting commissions to write operas I feel it quite possible that someone would choose this subject, but perhaps if they already knew that I had got one in hand they might choose another one.
Do you think it would be a good plan to do a little discreet publicising, the sort of thing like a paragraph in a paper “Vaughan Williams is completing an opera on “Pilgrim’s Progress”, or something of the sort.
I hate it all, but I do not want my opera to be put in a corner because I have kept too quiet about it.¹
Yours sincerely

R Vaughan Williams

(R. Vaughan Williams).

Alan Frank, Esq.,
Oxford University Press,
38a Soho Square,
W.1.

1. OUP agreed; see VWL4105