915 Clark Place
Berkeley, Calif.

May 22, 1935

Dear Red:

Here is the paper once more. I was happy to see what I
could do with Elizabeth Roberts, and I needed the additional space
you allowed me. I tried to clarify my opinions of Basso and Fleming:
the whole point about them is that they write a rotten sort of com-
mercial fiction -- this despite their not obviously commercial aims.
As for Anderson, I simply cannot find any great merit in any of his
books, and the last is terrible. No one can even ignore his silly
affectations. If you do not like what I say about him, throw that
section out. I've tried to include enough material so that you will
have enough ~~maximal~~ margin to cut the thing pretty far if you want
to.

I'm sorry that I could not get this piece back to you sooner than
I have; but it caught me at a very bad time.

I am also enclosing copies of the only poems that I have in shape
now. They are as good as any of my shorter poems, I think. But if
you don't like them turn them down.

915 Clark Place
El Cerrito, California

September 25, 1935

Dear Red:

I am certainly glad that you called my attention to
the paragraph on page 12 in my review. It is a piece of careless
and bad writing. I have tried to make the essential distinction
clear in the redraft of the paragraph which I enclose. As you know,
I had to work more rapidly than I like to work; so if you see other
slips, you should use the blue pencil without stint.

This may come to you too late. The local politicians have decided to make this a fifth class town instead of a sixth, with a post office of their own. And now they hold up our mail a few days to teach us to have our mail addressed to EL Cerrito.

Would you be interested in a translation of Valéry's *Le Cimetière Marin*? Barbara Gibbs has made a pretty good translation, preserving the original stanza but blurring the poetry a little. I think that, if you wanted to publish it, we could get her to rework it and to use any specific suggestions that Winters or you or I or anyone else can contribute. Clayton Stafford has also worked out an excellent translation of Valéry's essay (2500 words) on this poem. These two pieces might make an excellent feature in some number of the Review. Stafford has also been working on an essay -- a rather short but penetrating introduction to Valéry.

As ever,

Howard

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915 Clark Place
El Cerrito, Calif.

November 24, 1935

Robert Penn Warren, Editor
The Southern Review
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Dear Red:

Here is the note on Van Doren.

As you will see, I was interested in practically the
same poems that you and Brooks picked. "Proem," I think, would
give some neatness to the group. I do not mention "Old Landscape"
in the note, but I like it as a poem. I do refer in the note at
one place or another to all the other poems in the group; so if
you drop any of them you should be careful to cut the reference
to it.

I like "The Funeral," but I feel that to cut the last stanzas
would leave the ending up in the air (we do not know what the
"sudden twisted thought" is); and *that* without the cut, the last
stanzas say to much. Therefore I did not include it.

The note is as good a job as I could do in the time I have
had; I *think* certainly hope that Brooks and you will find it satis-
factory. You should feel free to edit it if you like. For my
part, I've enjoyed doing it; Van Doren, for me, got better and
better as I studied him.

Dear Red,

I'm terribly sorry to get this to you late, but I've been caught in a maze of circumstances, besides two days of bad health, I only hope that in comparison with your own review in the Winter issue, this one won't look too bad, for you did as nice a piece of work there as I have ever seen.

Can we expect to see you and Cinina out here this summer?

I hope so.

With very best wishes,

915 Clark Place
Berkeley, California

July 16, 1936

Dear Mr. Brooks:

Since Red is not in Baton Rouge now,
I'd like to refer a question about the enclosed poems to
you.

As you doubtless know, I have been trying for some
time to get together a group-length manuscript of poems
to submit to The Southern Review for regular publication,
and I have sent to Red what poems I have had available.
Consequently I don't want to transfer either the poems
which you have already seen or the new ones over to the
contest unless it is entirely agreeable to you. In other
words, I want you to be free to put these poems in the
contest or to dispose of them in any way that you see
fit.

Cleanth Brooks, Jr., Editor
The Southern Review
Baton Rouge
Louisiana

July 16, 1936

The Editors of *The Southern Review*
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Dear Sirs:

I wish formally to enter the enclosed

five poems --

Ode to the Sea
If Accident Should Strike Me Down
Salvage
Patria
The Passing Generation: An Idyl

-- in the poetry contest conducted by *The Southern Review*.

December 20, 1936

Albert R. Erskine, Jr., Business Manager
The Southern Review
Baton Rouge
Louisiana

Dear Mr. Erskine:

If the Southern Review makes off-prints, I
should like to order about two dozen off-prints of my group of
poems (Ode to the Sea and three other poems) in the current is-
sue.

Please enter my subscription for two years beginning with
Vol. 2, No. 1, Summer 1936.

And also please send me a copy of Vol. 1, No. 2, Autumn 1935,
if copies of this issue are still available.

I shall expect a bill from you for these items.

May 7, 1937

Dear Red:

I am grateful to you for the telegram and the letter, and for more than that. The appointment at Harvard comes pretty largely from the publishing I have done in The Southern Review. Of course, I have a good friend who is a good friend of Robert Hillyer; but everything happened very suddenly just after Hill- yer had been reading some things that I sent him; and I realize clearly that most of those things would never have been done except under the stimulus of The Southern Review in general and your lively editing in particular. The job itself is an Instructorship in English A, light in the teaching load but fairly heavy in conferences with students, and subject to yearly renewals.

Needless to say, I should take great satisfaction in doing almost anything for the S.R.; and nothing could be more attractive to me than the piece on contemporary short stories. So I accept with pleasure. I have hesitated a little because I must finish up my dissertation this summer; only less than half of it remains incomplete and unapproved, and I plan to have it done by the end of July. Consequently I think you can depend on me to have the piece ready for the Fall issue.

We have talked constantly about the possibility of going through the South on our way East. But since I must take the final examination after the Fall session opens here, I'm afraid we shall have time only for a very direct trip. We'd like to see you and Cinina; if we can do it at all, it would not be before the middle of September.

I hope that your fiction is going well for you and (if my guesses as to your program are correct) that you will have a grand summer devoted strictly to your writing.

As yet Dorothy has heard nothing from Houghton Mifflin; if they want to know more about her they will write to you. She thanks you.

The evening before last Pierre Pasinetti and we spent the evening with the Fitzells. It was fine: Lincoln is in extraordinarily good shape, and Pierre is an excellent person and brilliant.

May 29, 1937

Dear Red:

Dorothy is taking time out for a spree, a visit with her family; I, alas, have to stay here and work on a thesis. She was overjoyed by your telegram, for she values in a personal way your interest in her. You can't imagine how fortunate we feel we are: financially we had nothing but the little end of the horn ahead of us and it looked very little indeed, especially since we are involved in this business of moving. And I take no little satisfaction in the thought that it is Houghton Mifflin with whom she will be publishing. I think too that her book will be pretty fine.

Red, John Conley is in one of those predicaments. He finds himself in the gap that always seems to occur here between being away on a creative writing scholarship and coming back either to a teaching job or a regular scholarship. Do you know of any openings in any Southern college? Or where there might possibly be one before fall? He would consider, and would be suitable for, I think, anything from a part-time assistantship on which he could live to an instructorship. I mention this to you because all of his interests point him towards the South, and because, on the other hand, his peculiar abilities would probably be more appreciated in the South than they are here, for instance. Incidentally, he has undergone some sort of spiritual revolution and has become a more forceful person. Don't bother about this matter unless you think there is a chance for him at Louisiana or elsewhere.

Our plans are still as vague as they were when I wrote you last. I have begun my study of the short story; but the dissertation still looks formidable. As much as we'd like to see you and Cinina even for a moment, I'm afraid we will have to take a bee-line for Boston.

Yours as ever,

Howard

July 12, 1937

Mr. Albert R. Erskine, Jr.
The Southern Review
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Dear Mr. Erskine:

A week ago I discovered that I was going
to be pressed for the time to do the short story chronicle
immediately; I asked Red whether I could have it delayed
until the Winter issue. He said that it could be postponed
and that he would notify you so that you could plan space
accordingly. I hope he has done so -- and that the change
will not be an inconvenience to you. My notion is that I
can do a pretty good piece with a little more time.

I already have a copy of *Flowering Judas and Other Stories*; so you should go to no trouble on that score. I thought, however, that there was to be a new Porter collection coming out early this fall. If so, I should like to use it too; for her contribution to short story literature seems to me far more considerable than that of any of the others.

Oct. 15, 1937

Mr. Howard Baker
Dept. of English
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Howard:

This is a much belated note, and now will be terribly inadequate.
But I do want to say again how much we enjoyed seeing you all this
summer, and that we hope to see you down here before long.

I have brought the matter of your book to the attention of Marcus
Wilkerson, the editor of the University Press here, and he seems to be
definitely interested. He has asked me to request that you send a
copy of the manuscript to him--that is, unless you have made some other
arrangements. There will be no need of sending a letter to cover it,
because I have explained the matter to him. But it might be just as
well at this time to get Farnham or Tatlock to write to Wilkerson
about it. I am optimistic about the outcome of the matter, but nothing
in this world is certain.

I am enclosing a copy of a recent piece. It is so recent, in fact,
that I haven't had any chance to do any revision on it. Therefore, if
any suggestions occur to you, please let me have them.

By the way, I had a letter from Paul Brooks the other day. He is
loud in singing praise of Dorothy.

Let us hear from you soon. Our best to you both.

As ever,

P. S. Will you be finished with the essay on the short story by
November 15? And did you get the collection of stories by LaFarge?

59 Frost Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts

October 23, 1937

Mr. Robert Penn Warren
The Southern Review
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Dear Red:

There are many things that I have wanted to say to
you; I hope that I can get to at least a few of them now. We
feel that we had an especially pleasant summer last summer and
you and Cinina are a part of that feeling; it's strange in view
of my real origins in California, but every time I visualize
most strongly the Californian scene, I see those hills that
stretch off north of your house at Clear Lake, and it makes me
very happy.

I can, I am sure, and shall finish the piece on the short
stories by November 15; it seems as if it ought to be about 7500
words long. I still plan to take a fairly long view of the short
story (that is, within the limits of the American story since the
war), but I have given up the hope of gathering together anything
like a complete list of especially excellent and neglected stories
-- I am scarcely equal to that task; -- and I shall stick fairly
close to the books to be reviewed. But this program will be good,
I think, because, besides K.A.Porter, I now have at hand in
proofs the excellent stories which you collected for H.M.&Co. So
I do have now enough positive material with which to work.

The volume of Sara Haardt came to me here; I have also LaFarge,
Flowering Judas and the other things sent me. I do not have
O'Brien's nor the Pulitzer collection, but I shall get hold of
them, though they are not especially interesting to me.

I am grateful to you for telling Mr. Wilkerson about my book.
As soon as I can make some minor changes in it, I shall send it
to him, and shall have Farnham write him about it. The opinion
of the committee in the final examination was that I should try
for publication right away: I had been a little dubious.

One of those awful jobs has fallen on my neck: I am one of
three judges for the Shelley Memorial Award, which gives $500 to
a poet, on the standards of "genius and need" -- these are the
only standards, not reputation or publications or age. The other
judges are Elias Lieberman and Mrs. Roberta Swartz Chalmers,
Kenyon College, Gabier, Ohio. Would not you and/or some of your
friends be willing to make a nomination or so? You
see, I think that any selection will have to be a compromise se-
lection, and some God-awful poet is bound to get the prize if
there are not a number of good poets in the running. Your nomi-
nations would be more effective, I think, if you were to send
them, along with some examples of work, to Mrs. Chalmers rather than
to me. I feel that Fitzell ought to be considered; the chances
for Jarrell should be excellent.

As you can imagine I was moved very much by Matthiessen's
review. My feelings are complex; I don't know about my own work;
I feel that Matthiessen was fair and thorough with Winters, but
that there is much more to be said for Winters: I wish that
Winters' gestures could be taken less seriously. I know too that
my social feelings gave me a possibly unfair advantage.

<u>Love's Voice</u> is a grand poem. I am greatly impressed with
the seriousness and magnitude of the theme and enthusiastic about
the clarity and beauty of the treatment. I am only doubtful (if
you are considering revision) about some small details, mainly
about the elaboration of the lust imagery in the first four lines
of stanza two, in st. five, and in st. nine; in the last, for in-
stance, after the fine "battened lust" and before the very good
"glutten trance," the "meat-filled maw" seems to be a distracting
utility phrase. Otherwise I am all admiration; the long similes
in the beginning ( the lucky mariner, ets.) and the last stanzas
are superb, I think.

I have Allen's new book. It is certainly a beautiful achievement, a definite monument in the poetry of our times.

Henry Smith, formerly of the S.W. Review, sends regards to you.
He seems to be good in the important ways. We like Spencer and
Matthiessen as people; Brooks is a very serious young man and
likable. This is, in fact, a pleasant place to come to as a whole.

I hope that everything goes well with you and Cinina.

yours as ever

Howard

Oct. 27, 1937

Mr. Howard Baker
59 Frost St.
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Howard:

Thank you very much for your warming letter, and thanks for the
news that the review will come along in the middle of November. You
may take the amount of space you indicate. Naturally, you couldn't do
more than you have outlined for yourself--but that was more than
enough--and as to the quality, there is, of course, no question. Even
though Katherine Anne's new book will not appear this fall, you might
be able to treat some of the stories which have appeared in magazine
form as well as those which have appeared in book form. This is not
necessarily a bid to a reference to "Old Mortality," but it is certainly
close to her best level, if it isn't her best piece, and it is certainly
the most ambitious thing she has undertaken. I am sending you one more
book, which should be there in a few days.

About the Shelley Award, I think your suggestions excellent.
Fitzell and Jarrell ought to have strong chances at it. As a matter of
fact, Jarrell is acting as Ransom's assistant at Kenyon College now,
and so probably knows Mrs. Chalmers, who is the wife of the new presi-
dent, I believe. I shall write Ransom immediately and suggest that he
work on the Jarrell thing, and I shall write Mrs. Chalmers about both
Jarrell and Fitzell.

It's good that the book is available, and I am optimistic that the
press here will be interested. I know that Farnham's opinion and the
opinion of the committee will carry great weight.

By the way, I have been trying to remember to write you and ask
permission to reprint "Ode to the Sea" in the poetry book which Brooks
and I are getting out for Holt. I tried to remember to ask you this

59 Frost Street
Cambridge, Mass.

January 24, 1938

Dear Red:

Your letter of the twelfth has left me aburst with
energy. For one thing, I am sending my Elizabethan study to
Mr. Wilkerson today. Since questions about the manuscript may
come to your attention, I should like to tell you why I failed
to get the thing sent off, as I promised, last fall. I was
afraid, and still am, that the book lacks a conclusion: it
leads right up to Shakespeare, looks ahead now and then at
Shakespeare, and then stops. It took me quite a while to de-
cide that the only solution to the problem would be another
volume on Shakespeare, and this would take some years to do.
So the present piece will have to stand pretty much as it is,
although I am spending these days tinkering with my ms.-copy
in an effort to attain at least some stylistic conclusiveness.

I rejoice at the thought that your university may under-
take a series of contemporary poets. Such publication would
be exactly to my taste, for I draw back a little from the
flightiness of such presses as Laughlin's New Directions, and
am not altogether pleased with the haphazard policies of the
established publishers. You may count on me to submit (and
with no delays) *maxxwickingxy* my poems most willingly if the
plans work out. I am working at some verse: your interest is
the best of stimuli; and whenever I have something to show, I
shall send it on to you.

The idea of doing the review of the year's fiction con-
tinues to please me; so, if you are quite convinced that you
want me to do it, send the novels along. But think twice: my
piece on the short stories left me gloomy, though I don't see
how I could have improved it; in any event, I'd welcome your
criticism of my ways of treating fiction.

It must be terribly difficult to be attempting to finish
your novel before the school year is over. I don't see what
difference it would make if you were to take the summer to it:
H.M. & Co were mainly worried lest your book and Dorothy's should
get done at the same time, that is, for publication next fall;
but hers is done now (and it's a marvelous story, I think), and
so, since there is no problem of interference of one fellowship
novel with another, why shouldn't yours come out at mid-winter?

Things go well with us here. I shall have a lighter pro-
gram next year and shall help to give an advanced course in late

March 23, 1938

Dear Red:

Last fall correspondence between you and me appeared
to get snagged somewhere: so I'm going to repeat some of the
things I said in a letter of a month or two ago, just in case
the letter missed you somehow. If you should want to use my
*Ode to the Sea* in an anthology, I should be very pleased to have
you do so; during the last few weeks however I have been giving
that poem a sort of spring house-cleaning, and I should like to
offer you the revised version. The idea of a good contemporary
anthology, by the way, is very interesting to me: I need such a
collection for teaching. I hope too that the project of publish-
ing collections of verse at L.S.U. has prospered: I want to submit
a manuscript, if your very good plans work out for you. If you
can't think of anything better to do about the long review of the
novels, I am ready to undertake that job. These are not urgent
matters; I merely mention them to avoid all possibility of mis-
understanding.

I am mailing you a short story called THE MAN WITH A BOOK by
Eleanor Clark, whose work, it seemed to me when I was doing the
piece on the short story, has rather extraordinary interest.
In this story I think that the amazing economy, the symbolism,
the ironic fabulous quality, and the avoidance of pat solutions
push short-story form in a direction which is worth a good deal
of study. I like the story; but I want to say to you personally,
Red, that in sending it to you I am not motivated by political
considerations.

We spent a fine evening with Allen a few weeks ago. It is
a pity that no matter where you live this country seems to remain
too vast, and it is something of an occasion to see an old friend.
Are you planning to go to California this summer? I hope so; for
we are.

They sold Dorothy's book to Golancz in England; this, we feel,
is promising. We are hoping that your novel is going easily for
you and is pleasing you.

Our best regards to Cinina and to you.

Mr. Robert Penn Warren
The Southern Review
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

April 7, 1938

Dear Howard:

I hope that this hasty note will pick up the loose ends:

1. We do want to use "Ode to the Sea," but since the book is to appear May 1, there seems to be no chance to substitute the revised version. We might be able to make a change in the page proof, which is due here any day, but that is not a certainty. If you will send us the revised copy immediately, we will do our best. (We'll send you a copy of the book as soon as it is off the press. It is not a collection of contemporary poetry. We will let it speak for itself to you. I hope its voice will be loud enough for you to hear.)

2. The project for publishing verse at L. S. U. has prospered. Your manuscript has been expected for some time now.

3. A batch of novels is on the way to you. Certainly we shan't want the fiction chronicle earlier than the Winter issue. Would that be possible for you? Meanwhile, certain books are being reviewed individually, but those are not to be necessarily eliminated from your treatment. For instance, Delmore Schwartz has a Hemingway piece in our Spring issue and will have a Dos Passos in our Fall issue. But please feel free to say anything about books which have already been treated in this fashion. It might give an added interest for you to review reviewers.

4. As I understand it, the press is planning to bring out your thesis. I suppose the information I have on this point is good short of a contract. I'll write you soon about the story by Eleanor Clark.

Box 465
Whittier, California

July 22, 1938

Gleanth Brooks, Jr., Editor
The Southern Review
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Dear Mr. Brooks:

Since I hear that Red Warren is away, I'm ad-
dressing you about a matter which he and I have discussed.

It is the review of recent novels which I am supposed to be
doing. I am distressed. There are about sixty volumes in my
hands now and, I imagine, about as many more to come before the
date next fall at which you planned to use my piece. The present
batch seems to me to be pretty weak as a whole; even the best
writers -- H.G.Wells, Caroline Gordon, Ralph Bates -- are repre-
sented by inconsiderable books. Most of the other volumes seem
to be publishers' trial balloons which didn't get off the ground
and which will be forgotten by the time that the review is to ap-
pear. I had hoped to get some solidity into the review by trying
to cover the important novels of the year as well as those which
you are sending. But I am finding that such a program will be a
physical impossibility.

Can you think up a solution to the problem? My trouble is
mainly a lack of time (Harvard has slapped a much heavier pro-
gram on me than I anticipated when I undertook the assignment)
you could find someone with more time?

I hate to leave you in a lurch. I'll do the piece if it
seems really necessary to you; but I'd much rather return the
novels that I've already received.

Personally I think that mill-run novels are scarcely worth
reviewing in a quarterly journal. Could you not simply ignore
most of them?

Another reason why I hate writing this letter is that I think
The Southern Review is a really grand publication, and I'd do any
thing short of breaking my neck for it.

January 14, 1939

Dear Red:

I've read nearly all of the novels I have on hand and have blocked out in my mind what ought to be a passably interesting piece on them. Now I think that I ought to take into account any later novels of the authors whom I shall treat: G.B. Stern's Ugly Dachshund, for instance, ought to stand along with what I am saying about the preceding novel (I am actually saying very little about Stern, of course). Consequently I think that you probably ought to send me the novels that have accumulated; then from them I shall pick out and use those that can be disposed of in the present piece. The others I shall work up for you next summer; or, if the yearly review does not work out either from your or from my point of view, I'll return them to you right away.

This procedure might help a little in regard to the timeliness of the present piece.

There are two titles that I'd like to add: *The Liberals*, by J.H.Preston (*John Day* & Co); and *Man's Hope*, by Malraux (*Random House*).

It's the most pleasant thing I know just now -- the likelihood that LSU will publish my poems. But don't let them start setting them up until I can put another manuscript together; my latest changes are not extensive, but they ought to be in the manuscript rather than in the proofs.

I wish you could show up here often the way you did that day; for it was fine to see you.

Our warm regards to you and Cinina,

Howard

Robert Penn Warren
The Southern Review
Baton Rouge
Louisiana

April 14, 1939

Dear Red:

I just haven't been able to write you the congratulations
that you deserve for *Night Rider* and for the Guggenheim. So now I
must combine compliments with business.

But the novel is awfully good. On every page there are plenty of
marks of a superior ability with prose fiction; and as a whole the
book is clearly exceptional. What I like best as writing, is the
Willie Proudfit episode. The prose is simply wonderful there; it is
everything that one can desire and is much more than one usually gets
in the work of our best novelists. I suppose that there can be some
doubt about the proportions and the cohesiveness of this episode
in relation to the rest of the book. But this doesn't really trouble
me. I have, however, a shade of doubt about the way that you put a
constrictive psychology on Percy Munn: he is utterly hemmed in from
the beginning, he is a cat's-paw. Now I wonder whether, if you had
opened things up a little more for him -- if for instance you had let
him sense a little that there would come the laws which now make such
organizations as his effective -- whether, then, he would not have
seen his predicament in somewhat richer moral terms, and thus the
Proudfit moral symbolism would have tied in a little closer.

I mention this because I am thinking of your next novel. And according to the papers the Guggenheim will enable you to take off next year to write another book.

Probably the best general characteristic of your fiction is the
way that you handle realistic action. The night riding is magnificent.
If I were you I think I'd try in another book to let action and dialogue stand with as little explanation as possible, to avoid analyses
of thoughts and feeling, flashbacks, and the like. Then it seems to
me your powerful straight writing would stand out, and against it there
would be the symbolic episodes. That would make a simply great combination of forces. But no matter what you do, I have lots of expectations.

Here is the principal matter of business about which I need your
help. Mr. Wilkerson has just written me that the LSU series of poetry
is about to get under way and that they'd like to include my poems.
And ten days ago William Sloane of Henry Holt Co. wrote me nearly to
the same effect. This latter semi-offer comes about through no effort
of mine but through the initiative of Robert Frost, who has an awfully
generous view of my work. You can see what my problem is. I want to
do everything that I can to support your excellent program. If my
holding back my manuscript would be a discouragement to the LSU project, I'd not hold it back. But on the other hand if the absence of
my book would not make a difference in the series, then I'd rather
like to talk things over with Holt's. I am planning to concentrate
on poetry for the next few years, and I have a feeling that Holt's
facilities for distributing poetry might be somewhat advantageous.

55 Frost Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts

November 21, 1939

Dear Mr. Erskine:

Red wrote me about the Hardy number last spring, and I replied that I should like very much to do an essay on Hardy, especially the poetry. I still feel the same way, and I've even got a little work done on it.

There is one problem. I had hoped to do the long review of the novels in December and early January, and to get it to you, as I did last year, in time for your Spring issue. Now it is pretty clear to me that I won't be able to deliver both manuscripts in January. Suppose that I follow your program, as I should like to do, for the Hardy piece -- when, then, would you want the piece on the novels?

I wish that I could have got the novels out of the way. But that has been impossible, in view of my program here this Fall, and in view of a play of my wife's, in which I have been deeply involved myself.

Tell Cleanth Brooks that his new book is making an important difference in the exercise of criticism around here. One store has sold ten copies of it already. In my mind it is one of the most valuable of recent books.

Albert R. Erskine, Jr.
The Southern Review
University, Louisiana

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<table><thead><tr><th colspan="2">SYMBOLS</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>DL</td><td>= Day Letter</td></tr><tr><td>NL</td><td>= Night Letter</td></tr><tr><td>LC</td><td>= Deferred Cable</td></tr><tr><td>NLT</td><td>= Cable Night Letter</td></tr><tr><td>Ship Radiogram</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

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ALBERT R ERSKIN JR. THE SOUTHERN REVIEW LOUISIANA
STATE UNIV

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55 Frost Street

Cambridge, Mass.

September 5, 1940

Dear Red:

Erskine wrote me that you were in western New England this summer, and we had some hopes that you might come by this way. It begins to look as if seeing you again is a pleasure that will have to wait a while. I am sorry.

The inclosed has been my chief pre-occupation during the last three or four months, and in working on it I naturally had the Southern Review in mind. That is to say, I can't visualize any other journal's being interested in an effort to write good poetry somewhat at length.

What is the state of your verse drama? In constructing this thing of mine, I had the Elizabethan mask somewhat in mind as a basis for the form, but of course, when I was aiming it at a reader and not at a presentation before an audience, I found that the mask form was not of much use to me. As for the practice of legitimate drama, we've had a sorry time. Dorothy made three or four good plays out of her novel, but though there were contracts in effect, still when it came to a showdown the producer could never see how the piece in any of its versions would make any money. So there was no play.

At least that's the way it looks now. All summer we thought we'd have to go to New York to work on it for production; now Dorothy's collaborator is trying his luck with it in Hollywood.

I don't quite have the heart to write about the subject of the day. People around here are pretty eager to have us go to war, it seems. I hope we don't.

Sometime I'll try to write you a letter and tell you some pleasant things, how we have a baby, a girl, six months old the day before yesterday, and how she does things that make us feel practically joyous most of the time.

But for the present, my warm regards to you and to Cinina.

R.F.D. 2, Box 822
Lindsay, California

September 13, 1941

Dear Editors:

This review of novels is late, I know. Various difficulties, I'm sorry to say, got in the way of it.

But I have hoped that by organizing this material as far as possible into a general essay on fiction, the matter of timeliness would not be too important. A general essay makes an unconventional review; I am trusting that the piece will be more interesting this way.

I am going to return two volumes to you -- Saroyan's and Stuart's -- which I think would go better with the short stories.

In a few days I'm going to write Red a long overdue letter.

Meanwhile, with best regards,

The Editors of The Southern Review