Report on (author) George Warren Arms (title)

By (consultant)

In which of the following categories does the paper belong?

1. A brilliant contribution

2. A workmanlike investigation

3. A useful record

4. An interesting comparison

What does it contribute to knowledge? The beginnings of an analysis of the relations existing between Tennyson and Browning.

Is it dependable in data?

Yes

Is it sound in method? Yes, though the author knows that his case cannot be demonstrated.

Is it clear in presentation?

Yes

Do you recommend acceptance for the PMLA? No, though I say it reluctantly.

Is danger of anticipation serious? None whatever.

Suggestions for improvement: Though the author is a man of good sense and right feeling, and what he says may be true, his case cannot be demonstrated. It remains a conviction with him. I can only say that his thesis is possible, and that he understands well Browning's methods of thinking and writing. The author's scholarly methods are sound, though he occasionally puts too much in footnotes, but he needs a better - or more convincing thesis.

May we transmit to the author anonymously the substance of this report?

The Modern Language Association of America

ORGANIZED 1883

INCORPORATED 1900

PERCY W. LONG, SECRETARY

100 WASHINGTON SQUARE EAST
NEW YORK, N. Y.

April 18, 1941

Professor George Arms
1407 Winchester St.
Fredericksburg, Va.

Dear Professor Arms:

Professor Cargill has brought me your MS of *The Social Howells*, saying that you would wish to submit it for our Revolving Fund Series, to which alone we admit doctoral dissertations - and under author subsidy. If you confirm this, I shall promptly seek a printer's estimate and reports by suitable specialists for the Committee.

In that format the book would run to perhaps 230 pages and be listed at $2.50. I cannot anticipate any considerable sale since to me it seems to fall in a no man's land between popular and scholarly interest. As you probably know from contact with MacMillans, commercial overhead and advertising and distribution charges leave only a small net even when the cost of manufacture is provided for by subsidy. We do somewhat better in that we curtail these charges, and somewhat worse in that we get fewer copies ordered. I think we might sell a hundred copies and recover about $175.00 net.

This is a gloomy picture, but our policy is not to misled by suggesting illusory hopes. Without the printer's estimate I cannot foretell what subsidy we might be obliged to require. Roughly I should say between five and six hundred dollars. Against this you would have whatever prestige our imprimatur bears, since the Committee even under these conditions accepts only MSS which it rates as a credit to the Association's name.

PERCY W. LONG
Secretary

PWL:HZ

P.S. The enclosed list shows our range of books.

Copy to Professor Cargill.

1407 Winchester Street
Fredericksburg, Virginia

October 21, 1942

Professor Percy Waldron Long, Secretary
Modern Language Association of America
100 Washington Square East, New York City

Dear Professor Long:

Your advice on the appropriateness of my applying for a grant
through the Committee on Research Activities would be very
greatly appreciated. The application would be for assistance
in publishing "A Bibliography of William Dean Howells," of
which I am the co-author.

An immediate difficulty is the fact that my collaborator,
William M. Gibson, is not a member of the Association. He
has, however, indicated his will to be branch office
of the entire cost. Dr. Gibson, who was at Williams College
during the academic year 1941-42, is now in the U. S. Army
somewhere outside of this country.

Last September the University of Chicago Press read and
accepted our manuscript, stipulating however a complete
subsidy on our part. Chicago estimated the cost of com-
position, printing, and binding for 500 copies would be
$1,108,500 with the addition of two 10% charges (altera-
tions and handling) the total cost would come to about
$1,350.00. We have of course no agreement with Chicago.

The scope of the bibliography is indicated on the enclosed
sheet. It may be said in passing that it was compiled
primarily as a scholar's guide, rather than as merely a
book of "points" for collectors.

Although it appears to me likely that with the many demands
upon research funds a Howells bibliography will not seem
to merit consideration, nevertheless I should like very
much to have your opinion. Perhaps also some possible source
of aid outside the Association might occur to you, which
you would be willing to suggest.

October 25, 1945

Professor Percy W. Long, Editor
Modern Language Association
100 Washington Square East
New York 3, N. Y.

Dear Professor Long:

The enclosed manuscript, "The Revision of *My Lost Youth*," is submitted for your consideration (as a possible note in the "Comment and Criticism" section of *PMLA*.)