Jerry Bentley

Bibliographer

Beth amused by the funny DLitt hat, 1985.

In fact, she lived with him for longer, 1952–2011, more than half a century, a lifetime’s work.  William Blake took us repeatedly round the world and lived with us in far places.

In 1967–68 we lived with our two small daughters in the Cité des Asphodèles in El Biar, a suburb of Algiers.  I was the first Fulbright lecturer to Algeria, or indeed to the Maghreb, not long after the end of the savage Algerian war of independence.  It was also a few months after the Six-Day War in Israel, and Algeria, like most Muslim nations, had broken off diplomatic relations with the non-Muslim world.  The US embassy, like that of England and Italy and most of the rest of the world, had officially become part of the Swiss embassy.  Beth and I were left as perhaps the chief official representatives of the people of the United States in Algeria.

While we were in El Biar, I learned that a new, very minor Blake manuscript had just been discovered and was for sale.  I was reluctant to buy the “Riddle Manuscript” without seeing it, and besides it was illegal to send money out of Algeria.

I therefore took advantage of an invitation to give a lecture in Boston to fly to New York.  (I also needed to get traveler’s cheques, for it was illegal to mail money to Algeria.)  I saw the “Riddle Manuscript,” bought it for $100, gave the lecture, got traveler’s cheques, and flew back to Algiers.

There I found two dramas.  In the first place, there was no customs officer at the airport, so I couldn’t declare my imported money.  I had to go back the next day, sidle past security, return with other arriving passengers to customs, and declare the money in due form.

When I got home I discovered that an English neighbor in the Cité des Asphodèles had fled with her two children from her husband, or at least her partner, who was threatening direness, and they had taken sanctuary with Beth.  At the same time, our wonderful maid Malika had come to Beth in terror that her brothers had seen her with a man in a café and would kill her.  The doors of the flat were double bolted, the terrified English family was in one bedroom, and Malika was in another.  Beth and the girls were playing rummy in the living-room.

These dramas were duly sorted out: the “English” chargé d’affaires provided passports to the English family and spirited them off to the airport, and it turned out that Malika’s brothers hadn’t seen her after all.

Meanwhile the “Riddle Manuscript” was safely ours.