Thanks to Pooh, Some Writers Won’t Starve : Charity: For 300 years, the Royal Literary Fund has aided authors in distress, fueled by A. A. Milne’s royalties.

Within the august British Library, just across from the Magna Charta and a display of Beatle lyrics handwritten by the lads themselves, is an exhibition enforcing the notion that great art is borne from personal pain and suffering.

Neatly encased under glass are the letters of great authors begging for money from the Royal Literary Fund, a 300-year-old private organization that aids writers in distress. An embarrassed D. H. Lawrence applied for help in 1918. James Joyce reveals some of his most accessible writing in a depressing missive sent from Zurich in 1915. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was granted an award in 1796--two years before the publication of his classic “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Charles Dickens wrote a letter in 1852 on behalf of a needy friend. Forty-four years later, the widow of Dickens’ oldest son applied for assistance.

The fund was created in 1790 by the Rev. David Williams, who was moved to action when a distinguished and elderly translator of Plato named Floyer Sydenham died in a debtors’ prison. Since then, the organization has given money to thousands of needy writers and continues to do so.

Still privately funded today, the Literary Fund depends mostly on donations and bequeathed royalties. A. A. Milne left the fund a quarter of the income from his Winnie the Pooh books.

Awards have been given to writers who never found monetary success from their work, others who were struck by a momentary setback and also those whose creative juices had ceased to flow. Needy families of writers also are eligible for funds.

Grants have never been restricted by nationality, sex, religion or politics. No anti-obscenity oath has ever been required. Applicants are, however, assessed on the basis of literary merit in addition to financial need.

The British Library, which recently acquired the fund’s archives, has mounted the exhibit to coincide with the group’s 200th anniversary. To avoid revealing delicate matters involving contemporary writers, no applications or letters written after 1918 have been included.

The number of letters selected for the exhibit, which is on display through Saturday, is minuscule compared to the thousands filed in the British Library archives. But they still provide a fascinating, often terribly sad, look into the creatively wealthy, but materially impoverished, lives of some of the world’s best-known writers.

D.H. Lawrence’s literary agent, James B. Pinker, applied for the author in June, 1918, typing neatly, “His work is not of the character that makes a popular appeal, and as it is not possible for a man of his artistic temperament to adapt his work to the general taste he has for some time past been dangerously close to penury, in spite of the fact that his habits are of the most frugal.”

Lawrence himself wrote, “It is with considerable chagrin that I fill in forms of application for help. . . . PS: I am medically rejected from military service.”

Included in the display is a typed letter from James Joyce in Zurich to his friend, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, in which he describes his desperate circumstances.

Noting that he is with his wife and two children aged 10 and eight, Joyce wrote, “For the last six months I have had great difficulty in living. In order to leave Trieste I had to raise money on my furniture . . . I have of course no means of support though I am looking for lessons every day . . . I suppose I shall receive nothing in the way of royalties.”

It was Yeats who wrote to the Literary Fund on Joyce’s behalf. “I think that his book of short stories, ‘Dubliners,’ has the promise of a great novelist of a new kind,” he wrote. Yeats added that he had read “certain chapters of a new novel, a disguised autobiography, which means that he is the most remarkable new talent in Ireland today.”

Joyce was awarded 75 and sent a thank-you note to the fund.

In May, 1796, a man named James Martin wrote to the Literary Fund on behalf of Coleridge. “Mr. Coleridge, a man of genius and learning, is in extreme difficulties proceeding from a sick family, his wife being ready to lie-in, and his mother-in-law, whom he has supported, on her deathbed.” Martin’s letter continues, “He is a man of undoubted talent though his works have been unproductive . . . he is at present quite unprovided for being of no profession. . . . PS: Mr. Coleridge is author of a volume of poems, lately published, and of some prose writings.”

After receiving an award of 10 guineas, Coleridge wrote to the fund, “You will I trust believe that I feel what I ought to feel for this relief liberally and delicately afforded me.”

Charles Dickens never applied for himself, but did write, in a letter dated Dec. 1, 1852, on behalf of a needy children’s book author named, ironically enough, Maria Goodluck.

But the Dickens name surfaced again later. In 1896, the writer Henry James wrote a letter on behalf of Elizabeth Dickens, widow of Charles Dickens’ oldest son, who was also named Charles. James wrote that she was “wholly unprovided for by the death of her husband” and noted the “eloquent association of the illustrious name she bears.” Mrs. Dickens was given 200.

Perhaps the saddest letter comes from a writer known for her cheery children’s stories. Mrs. H. Bland, who wrote children’s books under her maiden name Edith Nesbit, has remained popular with British schoolchildren for decades. She pleaded for help from the fund in August, 1914.

“Dear Mr. Tweedles,” she wrote, “in answer to your question let me confess that I am 56. I have worked hard for 37 years. Soon after my marriage in 1880 my husband had smallpox, and his business partner sold up the business and went off with the proceeds.

“Mr. Bland was horribly marked by smallpox and could not get any employment. During this time I painted birthday cards, fans, etc. and we kept things going. As soon as I could get a few shilling together I got a little maid to help in the housework and help look after the babies and I resumed my writing which I had given up on my marriage.”

Things improved for a while, she wrote. Her husband began writing as well. But soon he began going blind and then died. “The shock of his death overcame me completely and now my brain will not do the poetry, romance and fairy tales by which I have earned most of my livelihood.

“I think I may be able to do a little journalism in time and perhaps in time my brain will work properly again.”