University of London

The University of London enters the novel’s account of literary scholarship as the institution directing James Blackadder’s edition of Randolph Henry Ash’s Complete Works. Its importance is less that it settles the contested papers than that it stands within a wider institutional landscape where editorial authority, family inheritance, physical custody, and copyright do not coincide.

Editorial and Scholarly Role

Mortimer Cropper’s account of his great-grandmother’s letter places Blackadder at the University of London, with overall editorial direction of the Complete Works. The edition is proceeding slowly, and Cropper notes that an excerpt from the letter has already appeared in the footnotes to Ash’s spiritualist poem Mummy Possest. This detail makes the university a site of ongoing scholarly mediation: Ash’s writings and related documents reach readers through editorial selection, annotation, and interpretation.

Cropper also disputes Blackadder’s identification of his ancestress with the fictional Mrs Eckleburg in the poem. He says he has set out the differences in a published article, turning an editorial disagreement into a question of how biographical evidence should be connected to literary representation. The university’s association with the edition therefore signals both the authority and the contestability of scholarly interpretation.

Manuscripts, Ownership, and Copyright

The later dispute over the Ash–LaMotte correspondence clarifies that scholarly interest does not erase distinctions among the papers’ legal claims. Euan MacIntyre explains that the physical letters belong to their recipient, whereas copyright remains with the sender. In this case, Christabel LaMotte requested the return of her letters, and Randolph Ash complied; Maud Bailey and Roland Michell have seen the correspondence and confirm that history. Euan cites LaMotte’s witnessed will, which left her manuscripts to Maia Thomasine Bailey, Maud’s great-great-great-grandmother.

Euan further distinguishes inheritance from the transfer of manuscripts themselves. Maud’s father would, in his account, be the true heir, but he had already given Maud the manuscripts that came to the family through the bequest; she deposited them at the Women’s Resource Centre in Lincoln. The correspondence remains unpublished, so its copyright belongs to the heirs of the original writers. Euan adds that Mortimer Cropper has secured Hildebrand Ash’s promise of both letters and copyright, underscoring how control of the material objects and rights in their words can fall to different parties.

The dispute becomes concrete when Euan tells Maud that he can prove she owns the manuscripts of both sides of the letters, then in the possession of Sir George Bailey. His claim is specifically about the physical manuscripts, not an automatic transfer of copyright. The distinction gives the University of London’s editorial role a broader context: producing an edition depends not only on scholarly judgment but also on who may lawfully possess, reproduce, and publish the texts.

Institutional Significance

The novel places the University of London beside family collections, specialist research centres, and commercial offers for historical papers. Blackadder’s edition represents one route by which Ash’s work becomes public, while the competing claims over the correspondence show that access to an archive is governed by divided rights and inherited obligations. The institution’s significance lies in this tension: editorial authority can organize and interpret a literary legacy, but it cannot by itself resolve who owns the documents or controls their publication.