Eudora Welty Writes a Quirky Letter Applying for a Job at The New Yorker (1933)

in Letters, Literature | June 3rd, 2014

eudora welty

“Eudo­ra Wel­ty is one of the rea­sons that you thank God you know how to read,” writes an online review­er of her auto­bi­og­ra­phy One Writer’s Begin­nings. It’s a sen­ti­ment with which I could not agree more. Whether in mem­oir, short sto­ry, or nov­el, Wel­ty—win­ner of near­ly every lit­er­ary prize save the Nobel—speaks with the most high­ly indi­vid­ual of voic­es. (Wel­ty once told a Paris Review inter­view­er that she doesn’t read any­one for “kin­dred­ness.”) Her prose, so attuned to its own rhythms, so con­fi­dent­ly ven­tur­ing into new realms of thought, seems to sur­prise even her. Indeed, teach­ers of writ­ing could hard­ly do bet­ter than assign Wel­ty to illus­trate the elu­sive con­cept of “voice”—it’s a writer­ly qual­i­ty she mas­tered ear­ly, or per­haps always pos­sessed.

Take the 1933 let­ter below in which she intro­duces her­self, a young post­grad­u­ate of 23, to The New York­er in hopes of secur­ing a posi­tion doing… well, what­ev­er. She pro­pos­es “drum[ming] up opin­ions” on books and film, but only at the rate of “a lit­tle para­graph each morning—a lit­tle para­graph each night” (though she would “work like a slave” if asked). She also offers to replace car­toon­ist (and author of “The Secret Life of Wal­ter Mit­ty”) James Thurber “in case he goes off the deep end.” The let­ter brims with win­some self-con­fi­dence and breezy opti­mism, as well as the unself­con­scious self-aware­ness she makes look so easy: “That shows you how my mind works,” she writes, “quick, and away from the point.” The mag­a­zine staff, points out Shane Par­rish of Far­nam Street, “ignored her plea […] miss­ing the obvi­ous tal­ent,” though of course they would begin pub­lish­ing her sto­ries just a few years lat­er.

Read the let­ter in full below and mar­vel at how any­one could reject such a delight­ful­ly enthu­si­as­tic can­di­date (she would do just fine as a junior “pub­lic­i­ty agent” for the WPA).

March 15, 1933

Gen­tle­men,

I sup­pose you’d be more inter­est­ed in even a sleight‑o’-hand trick than you’d be in an appli­ca­tion for a posi­tion with your mag­a­zine, but as usu­al you can’t have the thing you want most.

I am 23 years old, six weeks on the loose in N.Y. How­ev­er, I was a New York­er for a whole year in 1930–31 while attend­ing adver­tis­ing class­es in Columbi­a’s School of Busi­ness. Actu­al­ly I am a south­ern­er, from Mis­sis­sip­pi, the nation’s most back­ward state. Ram­i­fi­ca­tions include Wal­ter H. Page, who, unluck­i­ly for me, is no longer con­nect­ed with Dou­ble­day-Page, which is no longer Dou­ble­day-Page, even. I have a B.A. (’29) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, where I majored in Eng­lish with­out a care in the world. For the last eigh­teen months I was lan­guish­ing in my own office in a radio sta­tion in Jack­son, Miss., writ­ing con­ti­nu­ities, dra­mas, mule feed adver­tise­ments, san­ta claus talks, and life insur­ance playlets; now I have giv­en that up.

As to what I might do for you — I have seen an unto­ward amount of pic­ture gal­leries and 15¢ movies late­ly, and could review them with my old pros­per­ous detach­ment, I think; in fact, I recent­ly coined a gen­er­al word for Matis­se’s pic­tures after see­ing his lat­est at the Marie Har­ri­man: con­cu­bineap­ple. That shows you how my mind works — quick, and away from the point. I read sim­ply vora­cious­ly, and can drum up an opin­ion after­wards.

Since I have bought an India print, and a large num­ber of phono­graph records from a Mr. Nuss­baum who picks them up, and a Cezanne Bathers one inch long (that shows you I read e. e. cum­mings I hope), I am anx­ious to have an apart­ment, not to men­tion a small portable phono­graph. How I would like to work for you! A lit­tle para­graph each morn­ing — a lit­tle para­graph each night, if you can’t hire me from day­light to dark, although I would work like a slave. I can also draw like Mr. Thurber, in case he goes off the deep end. I have stud­ied flower paint­ing.

There is no telling where I may apply, if you turn me down; I real­ize this will not phase you, but con­sid­er my oth­er alter­na­tive: the U of N.C. offers for $12.00 to let me dance in Vachel Lind­say’s Con­go. I con­go on. I rest my case, repeat­ing that I am a hard work­er.

Tru­ly yours,

Eudo­ra Wel­ty

Welty’s let­ter appears along­side dozens more remark­able mis­sives in the beau­ti­ful new book, Let­ters of Note: An Eclec­tic Col­lec­tion of Cor­re­spon­dence Deserv­ing of a Wider Audi­ence.

via Far­nam Street/Brain Pick­ings

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ralph Wal­do Emer­son Writes a Job Rec­om­men­da­tion for Walt Whit­man (1863)

Read Rejec­tion Let­ters Sent to Three Famous Artists: Sylvia Plath, Kurt Von­negut & Andy Warhol

Gertrude Stein Gets a Snarky Rejec­tion Let­ter from Pub­lish­er (1912)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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John Cheever Reads “The Swimmer,” His Famous Short Story, in Its Entirety (1977)

in Audio Books, Literature | June 3rd, 2014

The Sto­ries of John Cheev­er, a col­lec­tion of 61 sto­ries chron­i­cling the lives of “the great­est gen­er­a­tion,” was first pub­lished in 1978 with much fan­fare. The crit­ics liked it. The weighty, 700-page book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fic­tion in 1979. The peo­ple liked it too. The Sto­ries of John Cheev­er, Michiko Kaku­tani wrote in Cheev­er’s 1982 obit, was “one of the few col­lec­tions of short fic­tion ever to make The New York Times best-sell­er list.”

The col­lec­tion fea­tures some of Cheev­er’s best-known sto­ries: “The Enor­mous Radio,” “Good­bye, My Broth­er,” “The Five-Forty-Eight,” and “The Coun­try Hus­band.” And also per­haps his most famous short piece of fic­tion, “The Swim­mer.”

First pub­lished in The New York­er in July, 1964, “The Swim­mer” was orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived as a nov­el and ran over some 150 pages, before the author pared it down to a taut eleven pages. Those eleven pages appar­ent­ly take some 25 min­utes to read. Above, you can hear Cheev­er read­ing “The Swim­mer,” in its entire­ty, at New York’s 92nd St. Y. The audio was record­ed on Decem­ber 19, 1977, and it’s oth­er­wise housed in our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

Bonus: you can also hear author Anne Enright read “The Swim­mer” over at The New York­er. This ver­sion was record­ed in 2011.

via The Paris Review

Relat­ed Con­tent:

92nd Street Y Launch­es a New Online Archive with 1,000 Record­ings of Lit­er­ary Read­ings, Musi­cal Per­for­mances & More

The New Yorker’s Fic­tion Pod­cast: Where Great Writ­ers Read Sto­ries by Great Writ­ers

Famous Authors Read Oth­er Famous Authors

Stephen Fry Reads Oscar Wilde’s Children’s Sto­ry “The Hap­py Prince”

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James Joyce’s Dirty Love Letters Read Aloud by Martin Starr, Paget Brewster & Other TV Comedy Actors (NSFW)

in Comedy, History, Letters, Literature | June 2nd, 2014

(Be warned, these videos are Not Safe for Work. And unless you can deal with strong lan­guage, you should skip watch­ing these clips.)

Last year we fea­tured James Joyce’s “dirty let­ters” to his wife, orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in 1909 but not dis­cov­ered in all their cere­bral­ly erot­ic glo­ry until this cen­tu­ry. For Valen­tine’s Day, the sketch com­e­dy video site Fun­ny or Die cap­i­tal­ized on the avail­abil­i­ty of these high­ly detailed, fan­ta­sy-sat­u­rat­ed Joycean mash notes by hav­ing them read dra­mat­i­cal­ly. For this task the pro­duc­ers round­ed up five well-known actors, such as Mar­tin Starr from such comed­ical­ly respect­ed tele­vi­sion shows as Freaks and Geeks and Par­ty Down. You can watch his read­ing above. “I would like you to wear draw­ers with three or four frills, one over the oth­er at the knees and up the thighs, and great crim­son bows in them, so that when I bend down over you to open them and” — but you don’t just want to read it. You want to hear such a mas­ter­piece per­formed.

Off rais­ing the chil­dren in Tri­este, Joyce’s wife Nora wrote replies of a pre­sum­ably sim­i­lar ardor-sat­u­rat­ed nature. Alas, these remain undis­cov­ered, but that unfor­tu­nate fact does­n’t stop actress­es as well as actors from pro­vid­ing oral ren­di­tions of their own. Just above, we have Paget Brew­ster from Friends and Crim­i­nal Minds read­ing aloud anoth­er of Joyce’s love let­ters, one which moves with sur­pris­ing swift­ness from evok­ing “the spir­it of eter­nal beau­ty” to evok­ing “a hog rid­ing a sow.” This series of read­ings also includes con­tri­bu­tions from The Mid­dle­man’s Natal­ie Morales, The Kids in the Hall’s Dave Foley, and Sat­ur­day Night Live’s Michaela Watkins. They all reveal that, with his tex­tu­al cre­ativ­i­ty as well as his close acquain­tance with those places where the roman­tic meets the repul­sive, James Joyce would have made quite a sex­ter today. You can have that idea for free, lit­er­ate sketch com­e­dy video pro­duc­ers of the inter­net.

PS Apolo­gies for the lengthy ads that pre­cede the videos. They come from Fun­ny or Die and we have no con­trol over them.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Joyce’s “Dirty Let­ters” to His Wife (1909)

James Joyce Plays the Gui­tar, 1915

On Blooms­day, Hear James Joyce Read From his Epic Ulysses, 1924

James Joyce, With His Eye­sight Fail­ing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

James Joyce’s Ulysses: Down­load the Free Audio Book

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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19th Century Caricatures of Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, H.M. Stanley & Other Famous Victorians (1873)

in Art, History, Literature | May 30th, 2014

Stu­dents and lovers of Vic­to­ri­ana, we have a treat for you. The 1873 book above, Car­toon Por­traits and Bio­graph­i­cal Sketch­es of Men of the Day, offers car­i­ca­tures of forty-nine promi­nent men, and one woman, of the 19th cen­tu­ry, some of them less-than-famous now and some still ver­i­ta­ble giants of their respec­tive fields.

DarwinPortrait

Accom­pa­nied by live­ly biogra­phies, the por­traits were all drawn by illus­tra­tor Fred­er­ick Wad­dy, who is per­haps best known for the draw­ing on page six of a white-beard­ed Charles Dar­win (above) enti­tled “Nat­ur­al Selection”—often repro­duced in col­or and found hang­ing on the office walls of biol­o­gy teach­ers. Dar­win appears sec­ond in Car­toon Por­traits, pre­ced­ed only by Sir Edward Bul­w­er-Lyt­ton of “It was a dark and stormy night” fame.

TwainPortrait

In addi­tion to professor’s offices, you may also encounter some of Waddy’s work at the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery in Lon­don. In his time, Wad­dy was one of the fore­most car­i­ca­tur­ists of the day—an impor­tant posi­tion in peri­od­i­cal pub­lish­ing before the advent of cheap­ly mass-repro­ducible pho­tog­ra­phy. All of the por­traits orig­i­nal­ly appeared in a mag­a­zine called Once a Week, found­ed in a split between Charles Dick­ens and his pub­lish­er Brad­bury and Evans, who start­ed the jour­nal with edi­tor Samuel Lucas in 1859 to com­pete with Dick­ens’ All the Year Round. Once a Week ran until 1880, pub­lish­ing pieces on his­to­ry and cur­rent affairs and occa­sion­al poems by Ten­nyson, Swin­burne, Dante Ros­set­ti and oth­ers. Its pop­u­lar­i­ty was buoyed by Waddy’s draw­ings and the detailed illus­tra­tions of sev­er­al oth­er graph­ic artists. Above, see Mark Twain rid­ing his cel­e­brat­ed jump­ing frog, and just below, poet and crit­ic Matthew Arnold does a high-wire act between two trapezes labelled “Poet­ry” and “Phi­los­o­phy.” Twain’s por­trait is titled “Amer­i­can Humour”— and he is the only Amer­i­can in the series—and Arnold’s is called “Sweet­ness and Light.”

MatthewArnold

Though the book’s title promis­es only “Men of the Day,” it does include one woman, Dr. Eliz­a­beth Gar­rett Ander­son (below, sim­ply titled “M.D.”), the first Eng­lish­woman to offi­cial­ly work as a physi­cian. Her bio­graph­i­cal sketch begins with a long and some­what tor­tu­ous his­tor­i­cal defense for female doc­tors, stat­ing that “social prej­u­dices are almost as hard to erad­i­cate as those of reli­gion. It was not till quite late­ly that the feel­ing against woman’s rights as regard edu­ca­tion was suc­cess­ful­ly com­bat­ed.” Once a Week was a pro­gres­sive-lean­ing mag­a­zine, its edi­tor a not­ed abo­li­tion­ist, and it reg­u­lar­ly pub­lished the work of women writ­ers like Har­ri­et Mar­tineau, Isabel­la Blag­den, and Mary Eliz­a­beth Brad­don, though one won­ders why they didn’t war­rant car­i­ca­tures as well.

DrGarretAnderson

Below, see Wad­dy’s por­trait of cen­tral African explor­er Hen­ry Mor­ton Stan­ley, stand­ing twice the height of the native African next to him. It’s a fit­ting image of colo­nial ego, though the scene may be drawn after a pho­to of Stan­ley with his adopt­ed son Kalu­lu. The title refers to his search for—and famous excla­ma­tion upon discovering—Scottish mis­sion­ary David Liv­ing­stone. All in all, Car­toon Por­traits gives us a fas­ci­nat­ing look at Vic­to­ri­an visu­al media and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of the most pop­u­lar lit­er­ary, sci­en­tif­ic, and polit­i­cal fig­ures in Eng­land dur­ing the mid­dle of the cen­tu­ry. While the names of Wad­dy and his fel­low com­ic artists are hard­ly remem­bered now, the authors of The Smil­ing Muse: Vic­to­ri­ana in the Com­ic Press assert that in their day, “they were the ones who had their fin­gers on the pulse of what we now call the ‘pop­u­lar cul­ture’ of the time.” See The Pub­lic Domain Review for more high­lights from the book.

H.M.Stanley

via The Pub­lic Domain Review

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The British Library Puts Online 1,200 Lit­er­ary Trea­sures From Great Roman­tic & Vic­to­ri­an Writ­ers

Explor­er David Livingstone’s Diary (Writ­ten in Berry Juice) Now Dig­i­tized with New Imag­ing Tech­nol­o­gy

Mark Twain Writes a Rap­tur­ous Let­ter to Walt Whit­man on the Poet’s 70th Birth­day (1889)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Watch William S. Burroughs’ Ah Pook is Here as an Animated Film, with Music By John Cale

in Animation, Literature | May 29th, 2014

The work of William S. Bur­roughs can be by turns hilar­i­ous, opaque and pro­fane – filled with images of drugs, insects and oth­er odd­i­ties. Though it might be fas­ci­nat­ing, if dif­fi­cult, on the page, his work real­ly comes alive when read aloud, prefer­ably in Burroughs’s sig­na­ture dead­pan drawl. And if it’s accom­pa­nied by some trip­py visu­als, then, all the bet­ter.

The above video is exact­ly that. In 1994, ani­ma­tor Peter Hunt made this appro­pri­ate­ly grotesque stop motion ani­mat­ed film, Ah Pook is Here, with audio tak­en from Burroughs’s 1990 album Dead City Radio. (You can read along to the video below.) John Cale pro­vides the music. The win­ner of 10 inter­na­tion­al film awards, the short film has been archived in the Goethe Insti­tut.

Ah Pook is Here start­ed in 1970 as a col­lab­o­ra­tion with artist Mal­colm McNeil. Orig­i­nal­ly it was slat­ed to be a mag­a­zine com­ic strip but when the pub­li­ca­tion fold­ed, Bur­roughs and McNeil decid­ed to turn it into a book. Ah Pook is Here and Oth­er Texts was final­ly pub­lished in 1979, though with­out McNeil’s illus­tra­tions. You can see them here.

When I become Death, Death is the seed from which I grow…

Itza­ma, spir­it of ear­ly mist and show­ers.
Ixtaub, god­dess of ropes and snares.
Ixchel, the spi­der web, catch­er of morn­ing dew.
Zooheekock, vir­gin fire patroness of infants.
Adz­iz, the mas­ter of cold.
Kock­upock­et, who works in fire.
Ixtah­doom, she who spits out pre­cious stones.
Ixchun­chan, the dan­ger­ous one.
Ah Pook, the destroy­er.

Hiroshi­ma, 1945, August 6, six­teen min­utes past 8 AM.

Who real­ly gave that order?

Answer: Con­trol.

Answer: The Ugly Amer­i­can.

Answer: The instru­ment of Con­trol.

Ques­tion: If Control’s con­trol is absolute, why does Con­trol need to con­trol?

Answer: Con­trol… needs time.

Ques­tion: Is Con­trol con­trolled by its need to con­trol?

Answer: Yes.

Why does Con­trol need humans, as you call them?

Answer: Wait… wait! Time, a land­ing field. Death needs time like a junkie needs junk.

And what does Death need time for?

Answer: The answer is sooo sim­ple. Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook’s sake.

Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook’s sweet sake, you stu­pid vul­gar greedy ugly Amer­i­can death-suck­er.

Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook’s sweet sake, you stu­pid vul­gar greedy ugly Amer­i­can death-suck­er… Like this.

We have a new type of rule now. Not one man rule, or rule of aris­toc­ra­cy, or plu­toc­ra­cy, but of small groups ele­vat­ed to posi­tions of absolute pow­er by ran­dom pres­sures and sub­ject to polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic fac­tors that leave lit­tle room for deci­sion. They are rep­re­sen­ta­tives of abstract forces who’ve reached pow­er through sur­ren­der of self. The iron-willed dic­ta­tor is a thing of the past. There will be no more Stal­ins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most inse­cure of all worlds are rulers by acci­dent inept, fright­ened pilots at the con­trols of a vast machine they can­not under­stand, call­ing in experts to tell them which but­tons to push.

You can find Ah Pook is Here in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Junky’s Christ­mas: William S. Burrough’s Clay­ma­tion Christ­mas Film

William S. Bur­roughs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, 1981

William S. Bur­roughs Reads Naked Lunch, His Con­tro­ver­sial 1959 Nov­el

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

 

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Ernest Hemingway’s “Love Letter” to His “Dearest Kraut,” Marlene Dietrich (1955)

in History, Letters, Literature | May 28th, 2014

Hemingway-to-Marlene-Diet-001

Click to enlarge

We think today of Ernest Hem­ing­way as that most styl­is­ti­cal­ly dis­ci­plined of writ­ers, but it seems that, out­side his pub­lished work and espe­cial­ly in his per­son­al cor­re­spon­dence, he could cut pret­ty loose. One par­tic­u­lar­ly vivid exam­ple has returned to pub­lic atten­tion recent­ly by appear­ing for sale on a site called auctionmystuff.com: a let­ter from Hem­ing­way to leg­endary singer-actress Mar­lene Diet­rich, dat­ed August 28, 1955. “In the inti­mate, ram­bling and reveal­ing let­ter,” writes the Wall Street Jour­nal’s Jonathan Welsh, “Hem­ing­way pro­fess­es his love for Diet­rich a num­ber of times, though the two are said to have nev­er con­sum­mat­ed the rela­tion­ship.” He also, Welsh notes, “talks about stag­ing one of her per­for­mances, in which he imag­ines her ‘drunk and naked.’ ” The full let­ter, which spares no detail of this elab­o­rate fan­ta­sy, runs as fol­lows:

Dear­est Kraut :

Thanks very much for the good long let­ter with the gen on what you found wrong. I don’t know any­thing about the the­ater but I don’t think it would occur to me, even, to have you intro­duced even to me with strains of La Vie En Rose. Poor peo­ples.

If I were stag­ing it would prob­a­bly have some­thing nov­el like hav­ing you shot onto the stage, drunk, from a self-pro­pelled min­nen­wer­fer which would advance in from the street rolling over the cus­tomers. We would be play­ing “Land of Hope and Glo­ry.” As you land­ed on the stage drunk and naked I would advance from the rear, or from your rear wear­ing evening clothes and would hur­ried­ly strip off my evening clothes to cov­er you reveal­ing the physique of Burt Lan­cast­er Strong­fort and announce that we were sor­ry that we did not know the lady was loaded. All this time the Thir­ty ton S/P/ Mor­tar would be bull­doz­ing the cus­tomers as we break into the Abor­tion Scene from “Lakme.” This is a scene which is real­ly Spine Tin­gling and I have just the spine for it. I play it with a Giant Rub­ber Whale called Cap­tain Ahab and all the time we are work­ing on you with pul­mo­tors and raversed (sic) clean­ers which blow my evening clothes off you. You are foam­ing at the mouth of course to show that we are real­ly act­ing and we bot­tle the foam and sell it to any sur­viv­ing cus­tomers. You are referred to in the con­tract as The Artist and I am just Cap­tain Ahab. For­tu­nate­ly I am crazed and I keep shout­ing “Fire One. Fire Two. Fire Three.” And don’t think we do not fire them. It is then that the Germ of the Mutiny is born in your disheveled brain.

But why should a great Artist-Cap­tain like me invent so many for so few for only air-mail love on Sun­day morn­ing when I should be in church. Only for fun, I guess. Gen­tle­men, crank up your hears­es.

Mar­lene, dar­ling, I write sto­ries but I have no grace for fuck­ing them up for oth­er medi­ums. It was hard enough for me to learn to write to be read by the human eye. I do not know how, nor do I care to know how to write to be read by par­rots, mon­keys, apes, baboons, nor actors.

I love you very much and I nev­er want­ed to get mixed in any busi­ness with you as I wrote you when this thing first was brought up. Nei­ther of us has enough whore blood for that. Not but what I num­ber many splen­did whores amongst my best friends and cer­tain­ly nev­er, I hope, could be accused of anti-whor­eism. Not only that but I was cir­cum­cised as a very ear­ly age.

Hope you have it good in Cal­i­for­nia and Las Vegas. What I hear from the boys is that many peo­ple in La Vegas (sic) or three or four any­way of the mains are over-extend­ed. This is very straight­gen but every­body knows it if I know it although I have not told any­one what I’ve heard and don’t tell you. But watch all mon­ey ends. Some peo­ple would as soon have the pub­lic­i­ty of mak­ing you look bad as of your expect­ed and legit­i­mate suc­cess. But that is the way every­thing is every­where and no crit­i­cism of Neva­da or any­one there. Cut this para­graph out of this let­ter and burn it if you want to keep the rest of the let­ter in case you thought any of it fun­ny. I rely on you as a Kraut offi­cer and gen­tle­men do this.

New Para­graph. I love you very much and wish you luck. Wish me some too. Book is on page 592. This week Thurs­day we start pho­tog­ra­phy on fish­ing. Am in charge of fish­ing etc. and it is going to be dif­fi­cult enough. With a bad back a lit­tle worse. The Artist is not here nat­u­ral­ly. I only wrote the book but must do the work as well and have no stand-in. Up at 0450 knock off at I930. This goes on for I5 days.

I think you could say you and I have earned what­ev­er dough the peo­ple let us keep.

So what. So Mer­dre. I love you as always.

Papa

“To him she was ‘my lit­tle Kraut,’ or ‘daugh­ter,’ to her he was sim­ply ‘Papa’ — and it was love at first sight when they met aboard a French ocean lin­er in 1934,” writes The Guardian’s Kate Con­nol­ly of the two icons’ unusu­al rela­tion­ship. “Hem­ing­way and Diet­rich start­ed writ­ing to each oth­er when he was 50 and she was 47, remain­ing in close con­tact until the writer’s sui­cide in 1961. But they nev­er con­sum­mat­ed their love, because of what Hem­ing­way referred to as ‘unsyn­chro­nised pas­sion.’ ” A fan of both Hem­ing­way and Diet­rich could pre­sum­ably desire noth­ing more than one of the orig­i­nal pieces of their cor­re­spon­dence, but this par­tic­u­lar let­ter, with a start­ing price of $35,000, drew not a sin­gle bid — per­haps a sale, like the phys­i­cal expres­sion of the Old Man and the Sea author and “Lili Mar­leen” singer’s love, fat­ed nev­er to hap­pen.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­lene Dietrich’s Tem­per­me­n­tal Screen Test for The Blue Angel (and the Com­plete 1930 Film)

Ernest Hem­ing­way to F. Scott Fitzger­ald: “Kiss My Ass”

Ernest Hemingway’s Delu­sion­al Adven­tures in Box­ing: “My Writ­ing is Noth­ing, My Box­ing is Every­thing.”

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham­burg­er Recipe

Clive Owen & Nicole Kid­man Star in HBO’s Hem­ing­way & Gell­horn: Two Writ­ers, A Mar­riage and a Civ­il War

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Lewis Carroll’s Photographs of Alice Liddell, the Inspiration for Alice in Wonderland

in Literature, Photography | May 27th, 2014

One of the great poly­maths of the 19th cen­tu­ry, Lewis Car­roll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodg­son) —math­e­mati­cian, logi­cian, author, poet, Angli­can cleric—took to the new medi­um of pho­tog­ra­phy with the same alacrity he applied to all of his pur­suits. Though he may be described as a hob­by­ist in the sense that he nev­er pur­sued the art pro­fes­sion­al­ly, he nonethe­less “became a mas­ter of the medi­um, boast­ing a port­fo­lio of rough­ly 3,000 images and his very own stu­dio.”

So says a recent arti­cle by Gan­non Bur­gett on Carroll’s “24-year career as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er,” dur­ing which he made a num­ber of por­traits, includ­ing one of then-poet lau­re­ate of Eng­land Alfred, Lord Ten­nyson. His sub­jects also includ­ed “land­scapes, dolls, dogs, stat­ues, paint­ings, trees and even skele­tons.”

Hallam_Tennyson_child

Car­roll excelled at a devel­op­ing method called the wet col­lo­di­on process, which replaced the daguerreo­type as the pri­ma­ry means of pho­to­graph­ic image-mak­ing. This process seems to have been some­thing like paint­ing in oils, requir­ing a great deal of dex­ter­i­ty and chem­i­cal know-how, and sim­i­lar­ly sub­ject to decay when done improp­er­ly. Car­roll par­tic­u­lar­ly val­ued this method for its dif­fi­cul­ty (he described it in detail in some lines added to a poem called “Hiawatha’s Pho­tograph­ing”)—so much so that once a dry devel­op­ing process came into being, he aban­doned the medi­um alto­geth­er, com­plain­ing that it became so easy any­one could do it. Carroll’s obses­sive focus on process mir­rored an obses­sion with his favorite pho­to­graph­ic sub­jects, young chil­dren, includ­ing Tennyson’s son Hal­lam (above). Most famous­ly, Car­roll obses­sive­ly pho­tographed the young Alice Lid­dell (top and below as “The Queen of May”), daugh­ter of fam­i­ly friend Hen­ry George Lid­dell and inspi­ra­tion for Carroll’s most famous fic­tion­al char­ac­ter.

Liddell,_Alice_P._-_'The_Queen_of_May'_(Lewis_Carroll,_05_or_06.1860)

Many of Carroll’s pho­tographs of Alice and oth­er chil­dren can seem down­right pruri­ent to our eyes. As Carroll’s biog­ra­ph­er Jen­ny Woolf writes in a 2010 essay for the Smith­son­ian, “of the approx­i­mate­ly 3,000 pho­tographs Dodg­son made in his life, just over half are of children—30 of whom are depict­ed nude or semi-nude.”

Some of his portraits—even those in which the mod­el is clothed—might shock 2010 sen­si­bil­i­ties, but by Vic­to­ri­an stan­dards they were… well, rather con­ven­tion­al. Pho­tographs of nude chil­dren some­times appeared on post­cards or birth­day cards, and nude portraits—skillfully done—were praised as art stud­ies […]. Vic­to­ri­ans saw child­hood as a state of grace; even nude pho­tographs of chil­dren were con­sid­ered pic­tures of inno­cence itself.

Woolf admits that Carroll’s inter­est, as schol­ars have spec­u­lat­ed for decades, may have been less than inno­cent, prompt­ing Vladimir Nabokov to pro­pose “a pathet­ic affin­i­ty” between Car­roll and the nar­ra­tor of Loli­ta. The evi­dence for Carroll’s pos­si­ble pedophil­ia is high­ly sug­ges­tive but hard­ly con­clu­sive. Bur­gett sum­ma­rizes the claims as only spec­u­la­tive at best: “The entire con­tro­ver­sy is an almost cen­tu­ry-long debate, and one that doesn’t seem to be mak­ing any major progress in either direc­tion.” In a Slate review of Woolf’s Lewis Car­roll biog­ra­phy, Seth Lerer also acknowl­edges the con­tro­ver­sy, but reads the pho­tographs of Alice, her sis­ters, and friends as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of larg­er trends, as “bril­liant tes­ti­monies to the taste, the sen­ti­ment, and per­haps the sex­u­al­i­ty of mid-Vic­to­ri­an Eng­land.”

Lorina_and_Alice_Liddell.Chinamen

A great part of this Vic­to­ri­an sen­si­bil­i­ty con­sists of the “recog­ni­tion that all life involves role-play­ing,” hence the recur­ring pho­tos of the girls in dress-up—as fig­ures from myth and lit­er­a­ture and exot­ic Ori­en­tal­ist char­ac­ters, such as the pho­to above of Alice and her sis­ter Lori­na as “Chi­na­men.” “These are the tableaux of Vic­to­ri­an melo­dra­ma,” writes Lerer, “images on stage-sets of the imag­i­na­tion.” We see anoth­er of Carroll’s favorite pho­to­graph­ic sub­jects, Alexan­dra “Xie” Kitchin, daugh­ter of a col­league, also giv­en the Ori­en­tal­ist treat­ment below, posed as an off-duty tea mer­chant.

Carroll’s care­ful­ly staged child pho­tographs are very much like those of oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers of the peri­od like Mary Cow­den Clarke and Julia Mar­garet Cameron, who also pho­tographed Alice Lid­dell, even into her adult­hood. Cameron’s pho­tographs also includ­ed child nudes, to a sim­i­lar effect as Carroll’s—the depic­tion of a “state of grace” in which chil­dren appear as nymphs, “gyp­sies” or oth­er such types sup­pos­ed­ly belong­ing to Edenic worlds untouched by adult cares. Giv­en the con­text Woolf, Lerer and oth­ers pro­vide, it’s rea­son­able to view Carroll’s child pho­tog­ra­phy as con­sis­tent with the tastes of the day. (Though no one sug­gests this as an ali­bi for Car­rol­l’s pos­si­bly trou­bling pro­cliv­i­ties.)

As it stands, the pho­tographs of Alice and oth­er chil­dren open a fas­ci­nat­ing, if some­times dis­com­fit­ing, win­dow on an age that viewed child­hood very dif­fer­ent­ly than our own. They also give us a view of Carroll’s strange inner world, one not unlike the unset­tling fan­ta­sy realm of 20th cen­tu­ry folk artist Hen­ry Darg­er. Unlike Darg­er, Carroll’s work brought him wide­spread fame in his life­time, but like that reclu­sive fig­ure, the author of Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land and Through the Look­ing Glass was a shy, intro­spec­tive man whose imag­i­na­tive land­scape pos­sessed a log­ic all its own, charged with mag­ic, threat, and long­ing for lost child­hood inno­cence.

See a gal­leries of Carroll’s pho­tographs of Alice and oth­er chil­dren here and here, and see this site for more gen­er­al info on Carroll’s pho­tog­ra­phy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See The Orig­i­nal Alice In Won­der­land Man­u­script, Hand­writ­ten & Illus­trat­ed By Lewis Car­roll (1864)

See Sal­vador Dali’s Illus­tra­tions for the 1969 Edi­tion of Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land

Free Audio: Alice In Won­der­land Read by Cory Doc­torow

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Writes a Job Recommendation for Walt Whitman (1863)

in History, Literature | May 26th, 2014

EmersonLetter1

While we often rec­om­mend Let­ters of Note for the hits of his­to­ry’s most illu­mi­nat­ing pieces of inci­den­tal cor­re­spon­dence, do con­sid­er also mak­ing a reg­u­lar vis­its to Slate’s his­to­ry blog The Vault. There you’ll find such writ­ten arti­facts as the one pic­tured in part above, astute­ly writ­ten up by occa­sion­al Open Cul­ture con­trib­u­tor Rebec­ca Onion: “In 1863, as he con­sid­ered seek­ing a gov­ern­ment clerk­ship, Walt Whit­man asked his friend and advo­cate Ralph Wal­do Emer­son for a let­ter of rec­om­men­da­tion. Emer­son, for decades a respect­ed name in Amer­i­can let­ters, knew the sec­re­taries of state and trea­sury per­son­al­ly, and Whit­man hoped that a note from him would help the younger poet secure steady employ­ment in Wash­ing­ton.” This note runs, in a tran­script from the Walt Whit­man archive, as fol­lows:

Con­cord Mass­a­chu­setts
10 Jan­u­ary 2, 1863

Dear Sir,

Mr Walt Whit­man, of New York, writes me that he is seek­ing employ­ment in the pub­lic ser­vice in Wash­ing­ton, & per­haps some appli­ca­tion on his part has already been made to your­self. Will you per­mit me to say that he is known to me as a man of strong orig­i­nal genius, com­bin­ing, with marked eccen­tric­i­ties, great pow­ers & valu­able traits of char­ac­ter: a self-rely­ing large-heart­ed man, much beloved by his friends; entire­ly patri­ot­ic & benev­o­lent in his the­o­ry, tastes, & prac­tice. If his writ­ings are in cer­tain points open to crit­i­cism, they show extra­or­di­nary pow­er, & are more deeply Amer­i­can, demo­c­ra­t­ic, & in the inter­est of polit­i­cal lib­er­ty, than those of any oth­er poet.

A man of his tal­ents & dis­po­si­tions will quick­ly make him­self use­ful, and, if the gov­ern­ment has work that he can do, I think it may eas­i­ly find that it has called to its side more valu­able aid than it bar­gained for.

With entire respect,

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

R. W. Emer­son.

Hon Salmon P. Chase, | Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury.

Any of us, I feel cer­tain, would love hav­ing such an elo­quent­ly praise-filled let­ter of rec­om­men­da­tion sent on our behalf by a friend, a teacher, a for­mer employ­er, or a pil­lar of Amer­i­can Tran­scen­den­tal­ism. But even with that, the author of Leaves of Grass did­n’t find the road to a day gig par­tic­u­lar­ly smooth — in large part, of course, because of hav­ing writ­ten Leaves of Grass. Whit­man, whose “rep­u­ta­tion pre­ced­ed him in job inter­views, report­ed that Salmon Chase, the sec­re­tary of the trea­sury and addressee of this let­ter, was vehe­ment­ly against the idea of employ­ing the author of Leaves, a book that cel­e­brat­ed open sex­u­al­i­ty in a way that Chase found dis­taste­ful.” He would even get fired from anoth­er job specif­i­cal­ly “because of objec­tions to his poet­ry.” Well, they can’t say Emer­son did­n’t warn them about Whit­man’s “marked eccen­tric­i­ties” — such as his ten­den­cy to write some of the most endur­ing verse in Amer­i­can his­to­ry.

via The Vault

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mark Twain Writes a Rap­tur­ous Let­ter to Walt Whit­man on the Poet’s 70th Birth­day (1889)

Hear Walt Whit­man (Maybe) Read­ing the First Four Lines of His Poem, “Amer­i­ca” (1890)

Find works by Whit­man and Emer­son in our twin col­lec­tions: 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free and 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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