The British Library has acquired four unpublished letters written by Sir Terence Rattigan towards the end of his life, when, despite the extreme pain of his terminal illness, he felt driven to finish his last play.
A junior curator saw them in an antiquarian bookshop and bought them for £22 – a snip, given their worth, as a link to one of the 20th century's most celebrated and popular playwrights.
The letters reveal that, though suffering, Rattigan maintained his professionalism and passion for the theatre.
Leukaemia took its toll on his body, but the show had to go on for the English dramatist who penned classics such as The Browning Version and The Deep Blue Sea.
It was in those letters that this master explorer of British insecurities about sex and class fine-tuned his 1970s courtroom drama, Cause Célèbre, revived at the Old Vic last week to rave reviews.
The play was based on the true story of Alma Rattenbury, who was tried in 1935 with her teenage lover for murdering her husband.
Rattigan was writing from his Bermuda home to Robin Midgley, director of the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester, who planned to stage it.
There are moving passages, such as his reference to days when he was drained of energy. "I am stuffed with dope", he wrote of his medication. "This is the first day of many that I've been able to hold a pen ... I've been officially told I can only get worse."
But he was more concerned about discussing Cause Célèbre, even reworking it once rehearsals had started. The letters reveal the care he took over every detail. There is jocular frustration with a woman who typed his manuscript (a "literary wrecker"), willingness to shorten scenes ("some compensating cuts in the two lawyers' scenes") and disparaging views on audiences ("In fussing about the play ... I sometimes wonder whether I have ... been explicit enough – remembering the stupidity of audiences."
Rattigan attended the play's premiere in July 1977, but died five months later in November that year.
Kathryn Johnson, the British Library's curator of theatrical manuscripts, expressed excitement at the £22 purchase – it made a change not to have to struggle to raise money.
Michael Darlow, Rattigan's biographer, said: "Rattigan's archive is very patchy. The more one can fill in the gaps with such letters the better our understanding of him."
The letters, which the library will display from Monday, also reveal his concern about the critics. He need not have worried. Though he had been out of favour since the 1950s, his stature as a master dramatist has been restored in this, his centenary year.
As well as a film season at the BFI Southbank throughout April, Terence Davies is directing Deep Blue Sea, and critics have celebrated the latest production of Cause Célèbre. The Guardian wrote: "Rattigan's final play stands the test of time."
