Marjorie-Ann Watt’s letter to Torner
Marjorie-Ann Watt’s letter to Torner
Typed and handwritten letter from Marjorie-Ann Watts to Carles Torner, London, 28 May 2019, f. 1. In this letter Marjorie-Ann Watts, granddaughter of PEN International’s founder Catharine Amy Dawson Scott, contests claims made in a copy of PEN International’s Charter given to her by Carles Torner, executive director of PEN International (2014-20). Watts played an active role in the creation of PEN International’s Archive, and here expresses dismay at sidelined and “not only verging on patriarchial, but untrue” descriptions of her grandmother under a paragraph titled Galsworthy’s Inspiration in a PEN International brochure. As Watts notes, PEN was aided and presented by the “modest” and “reserved” John Galsworthy, who became the organisation’s first president, but was inspired and started by Catharine Amy Dawson Scott, an “outward going, optimistic, unconventional and undisciplined woman” – one whose legacy should be correctly preserved as the originator of PEN International, whose 100th year and ongoing future we are celebrating today.
Marjorie-Ann Watt’s letter to Torner
Carta de Marjorie-Ann Watt a Torner
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