3612 Central Ave.,
Nashville, Tenn.,

Oct. 26, 1936.

Dear Red and Cleanth:

Your wire received; I hasten to answer.
The tentative program for English XI (Contemporary Lit.) is as
follows: "Must Our Poets Be Minor?" by F. Cudworth Flint of
Dartmouth; "The Relation between Scholarship and Creative Arts;"
"The Trend in Modern Fiction," by Ellen Glasgow; and
a paper on some aspect of modern fiction by James Southall
Wilson.

Flint is definite; Ellen Glasgow has not
yet definitely accepted; and Wilson, though he is committed to
giving a paper, has been so very uncommunicative that I am afraid
he is getting ready to back out. I made bold to prepare the
way with you in case either Glasgow or Wilson should fail us.
I should know by Wednesday or Thursday about this, and if there
should be a place open I think there is little doubt that
John Frederick, the chairman, will O. K.; my extending an official
invitation to you at once, by telegraph. In that event, be
assured that anything you two want to propose will be received
with delight. The only condition is that it must bear on
contemporary literature and must be not much over 20 minutes in
length. We have no central theme for the section program. The
general purpose has been to get up an interesting program that
would appeal especially to the man-of-letters-professor and
give our section strength for long-time plans that look toward
redeeming the MLA, in our dept. at least, from dullness and
pedantry.

Of course, if all the places on the program
(there are but three) are duly filled after all, then I shall have
worried you all for nothing. But it relieves my mind tremendously
to know that you are disposed to come forward to the rescue of
a distressed friend.

A collaboration would be fine if you should
want to do that.

Expect to hear from me probably Thursday.

DONALD DAVIDSON
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

November 29, 1936.

Dear Red:

Since you were so good as to ask to see it,
here is my paper. I have revised it since I read
it before the Southern Historical Ass'n, taking out
the marks of a program paper and pointing it up a
little here and there: I fear that it is dreadfully
laborious and lengthy. But I have been unable to
reduce it from its formidable length. Possibly it
could be whittled at a little-- the quotation from
Taylor and a few other passages could be cut; but
in general, to my weary and troubled eye, it seems
to need expansion rather than contraction.

If you should want to publish it, I should
be happy. I'd rather see it appear in the Southern
Review than anywhere else, if it can be published
at all.

In case you don't want it, will you let
me have it back at your earliest convenience, as
I'll want to try it, in that case, somewhere else.

The Southern Historical meeting was
perfectly ferocious, though I had hoped it wouldn't
be. Couch's paper, which followed mine, was
irritating in the extreme. In the most petty way
conceivable, he picked out minute contradictions in
various agrarian doctrines as they have appeared
at various stages, and then capped all with
some rather nasty implications as to the integrity,
honesty, and sincerity of agrarians in general, and
of Ransom, Tate, and Lytle in particular. Taking
a quotation from Ransom's *God Without Thunder* out of
its context, he demonstrated that "knowledge is
sin." And, in the light of the agrarian argument
that benefits come from the soil, he proved, by
a wonderful chain of syllogisms that, since the
negro hand works the soil, he receives more benefit
than his planter boss, who is removed from the soil
by the distance of a horse's legs; and therefore
the negro laborer is proved to be, by *xx* "agrarian"
reasoning, a being superior to the planter who, as
an upholder of white supremacy, has crankily
insisted on the negro's inferiority. I leave you
to ruminate upon this jewel of logic.

Wade was down for discussion of Couch's
paper. He came to the meeting greatly agitated,

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DONALD DAIDSON.

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Vanderbilt U.
Nashville,

April 4, 1937.

Dear Red and Cleanth:

I have been meaning to write you
about several things-- first of all to shout some praises
of the Spring number of the S. R., which, despite my
labored and windy article, shows the distinction and balance
that we look for in a good quarterly. I was glad to see
the Southern, the political-and-topical, the creative, and
the critical all given their place. The Kendrick article
was naturally most interesting to me, for reasons that you
will readily divine. Those folks out in North Carolina are
slowly but surely arriving at a definition of issues that will
not please some of the more ardent shockers of the late
progressive generation.

Have you, or haven't you, received a
review copy of my poor little anthology, British Poetry of
the 1890's? I asked the publishers to send it along to
you, but I greatly fear that they are letting me down? I am
going to send some personal copies as soon as I can get
organized.

I hope you won't mind my asking you to
check up on my check (cheque?). John Ransom told me he had
received his, but there is nothing in the
mails for me except a copy of the S. R.

Best regards to both of you,

July 23, 1937

Mr. Donald Davidson
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tenn.

Dear Mr. Davidson:

A letter from Red the other day said that you might
write us a letter about the Stalin-Trotsky business, pointing
out the moral which the boys on either side are certainly
not going to find. I wonder if you would rather wait and
see proofs of the reply that Sidney Hook is going to write
to Schuman's article for the next issue; but I also wonder
whether it wouldn't be better strategy to write the letter
simply on the basis of what we have published already, so
that it will look entirely unsolicited.

I certainly wish that we could have had the article on
Dollard instead of THE AMERICAN REVIEW; it certainly was
fine. That must be one of the most incredible books that
has ever been written.

For the last four years I have been supposed to write a
M. A. thesis under Mr. Ransom's direction, but I have been
unable to get around to it. There have been several subjects
approved and some starts made, but I have not gotten anywhere.
The last subject that he accepted was Marxian criticism, and
since I had to get up a long report on the subject for a class
I took last year I have actually made some progress in it.
Would it be too much of an imposition to ask you to look
at the pages I have written along with some notes on what
I am trying to do, so that I could write the thesis under
your direction. Or is it too late for me to get the degree
there without more residence? I don't suppose that there is
any time limit, however. If this is agreeable to you, please
let me know.

Very sincerely yours,

Bread Loaf School of
English

Bread Loaf, Vermont,
August 1, 1937.

Dear Mr. Erskine:

Your good letter was forwarded and reached me at my summer address. I do recall that Red said something about the Stalin-Trotsky business, but I have no recollection of promising to write any letters on the subject. It is not a subject on which I feel like writing letters to the Southern Review, except to reproach you for paying any attention to the affair. It makes me fear that you are slipping: that presently you will be completely controlled from New York and will not be interested in the debate which absorbs my whole attention: namely, the debate, just north of Hudson Bay, between Gloo and Igloo, as to whether the meat of the white man is better before or after freezing.

Perhaps Red was thinking of an article I promised for the fall number. He read a large part of the introductory section of *their* book of essays on sectionalism and regionalism (which now occupies a good part of my time), and asked for a part of it. Do you know what the deadline is? He didn't say.

I'd be very glad to take up the matter of the thesis after I return to Nashville, if you won't mind waiting for another month. Right now, I am extremely busy with the close of the summer term here and with some final efforts to get my book finished. I'll be in Nashville by mid-September, if not before, and would then be greatly pleased to see your notes and know what you have in mind. I feel that I had better be a little non-committal, too, until I find out what the department situation is. We are torn up by Ransom's and Stewart's departure, and I don't know what is going to be plumped down on me in the way of departmental duties. I do not know the rules about residence; Dr. Curry could tell you that.

Thank you for your kind remarks about the Dollard article. It's a real pleasure to hear from you. I hope, when I write again, I can be more coherent. I am all in a jumble now. With best regards,

an
are.

Nov. 17 , 1937.

Dear Red:

Your letter came just as I was about to mail
the enclosed. I'll be delighted to handle Caldwell's
picture book for you. Send it right along, and
be sure to indicate length of discussion, and the time
due. I have never had a fair chance to chew at
Caldwell and I welcome the opportunity.

I'll be much pleased, too, to have your
anthology. I congratulate you on it, I know it is
good stuff.

Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tenn.,
April 15, 1938.

Dear Red and Cleanth:

Houghton Mifflin Company, for some
reason, are after me to make a careful check of copyrights
on the poems of mine, previously printed, that I am using
in the new volume of poems. Will you therefore inform
me on the following points: (1) Have you, to a certainty,
the copyright on "Replica of the Parthenon" and "The
Horde"; and (2) will you give me your formal permission
to reprint? An assignment of the copyright would be
desirable, too, if you are willing to do that. You may
not want to go to the trouble of drawing up the formal
legal paper. Would you sign it and certify it if I
provide you with the paper?

I'll greatly appreciate permission
and trouble, and I'd like, if you will be so good, to
have a prompt answer, for these folks are camping right
on my trail. I never saw such concern about copyrights
before. They must suddenly have decided that these
things must have some value attached; or else have got
a precisian in the copyright department. My contract
this time, too, had a new feature-- an option on the
"next" book-- which is the first time I have had to
sign one containing that clause.

I am looking forward to the Spring Review. My copy hasn't come yet, but I see *The Issue* is out: Avery Handly was flourishing a copy today, when he came inxx to see me. He is getting ready to paint a large picture of the Twelve Agrarians sitting around a table and is making preliminary sketches. He complains about not having even a photograph of Red. Avery is getting to be a real master in painting. He has presented me with a portrait of Lee that is simply startling. I want you to see it if you ever get back here for a visit. Won't that be some time soon?

And please, Red, answer my
plaintive inquiry about Caldwell, etc., in my last letter.
I hope all goes well with you, sirs.

April 20, 1938

Dear Don:

We do hold a registered copyright on the poems which
have appeared in THE SOUTHERN REVIEW. This is in the name
of Louisiana State University, with the notation of their
publication by the Louisiana State University Press. If you
are filling out the papers, this would be the form for that
to take. I have talked to the Director of the Press, and
he, of course, will be glad to sign the papers.

I am delighted at the news of your *Collected Poems*. There
has been a real need for that for a long time now.

You ask about the Caldwell article. We can use it in
the Summer issue if we get it by the middle of May. That, I
believe, is the only specific question you ask concerning it.
I am looking forward with the greatest interest to seeing it.
By the way, I thought Couch's review in *The Virginia Quarterly*
quite good. Certainly, he is changing his approach to things.
I am not surprised to hear of his overtures.

And speaking of Couch, he did a beautiful job of book
making on *Leviathan*. I have been reading it and want to say
what a fine book it is--not because of Couch but because of
what a fine book it is. It ought to have a really substantial
influence. And the scale of the writing and the handling of
ideas is very impressive. THE SOUTHERN REVIEW copy is now
floating around some members of the faculty here. At present,
Dean Frey, whom I talked about to you some time back, is
reading it. (By the way, I may have mentioned to you earlier
that Prescott Webb is reviewing it for THE SOUTHERN REVIEW,

May 2, 1938.

Dear Red:

I enclose some forms that I have drawn up for making
the assignment of copyright on my two poems. In order that
you may check me on legal proprieties, I send also my
working model-- an assignment made by The American Mercury some
years ago, one which I never registered. I did not know
in exactly what language to put items here and there, and so
left various parts blank. Will you great legal and literary
scholars kindly check the thing up and make proper emendations
if required? I don't know whether all the notary public
folderol at the bottom is necessary or not, but at any rate
we do want, it seems, a notary public's seal, and any other
seals you have got hanging around the place. I have made
carbon copies, so that you can keep one for purposes of
contemplation, illumination (I have just been
reading a thesis on mysticism).

Let me explain the two dollars. Apparently I don't
really pay you these two dollars; but the assignor charges
the assignee the cost of registration at Washington, which
is two dollars per item. No use in my handing you two dollars
which you promptly hand over to Washington; but you return
me the properly executed papers, and I (or my insistent
publishers) will send in the two dollars, having had
opportunity meanwhile to scrutinize your assignment, etc.,
etc. Or so I interpret the screed from Knopf; I never paid
Knopf any two dollars, in fact never knew the assignment was
coming through until, presto, it appeared, whereupon I had
to ask somebody what the thing was, anyhow. But if I had
wanted to get the assignment registered, I would have had to
send Washington the two dollars.

I put this down not merely to inform you, if you
need information, but to keep matters straight in my own
head. I hope I'm getting it right.

When you return the papers to me, will you return
the Knopf papers, too.

Very much obliged, hope I am not causing too much
trouble.

Letter from Linscott today agrees to my wish to
retain The Tall Men practically intact; we will omit one
section, "Resurrection," and omit a few passages in other
parts, but leave the main poem standing essentially as it is.

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

November 13, 1938.

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

Gentlemen:

I am compiling illustrative material for a
textbook of composition and rhetoric, for college freshmen,
to be published in 1939 by Charles Scribner's Sons.
May I have your kind permission to reprint in this
textbook the following selections which were published
in *The Southern Review*?

Caroline Gordon's " A Nebraskan Pioneer"--
a review of Sandoz's *Old Jules*, Spring, 1936.

Herbert Agar's"Culture vs. Colonialism in
America", July, 1935.

I shall greatly appreciate your consideration
and kindness.

August 9, 1939

Dear Don:

Your article on Woodward has just come in and is excellent. In fact, I don't believe I have ever seen you better, and it is exactly what we wanted. Albert and I have just finished reading it and feel lyrical about it.

I am thoroughly ashamed that I have let so much time elapse since your kind letter arrived asking if THE SOUTHERN REVIEW was going to be hurt and expressing your interest and sympathy. My only excuse -- and it is a feeble one -- is that I have been so busy with proof for one book and revision of another, and THE SOUTHERN REVIEW, and summer school teaching, and countless committee meetings that I have had no time to tell my friends what was going on. I owe full accounts to you and Allen and Owsley. John was through here a short time back, and Red and I did get to tell him about it.

I take it that the newspapers, even distant ones, have carried a full account of what has occurred. We were afraid that the federal investigation might be a white-wash enterprise. Yesterday, former Governor Leche received a federal indictment and it seems now that the federal government is going to make a complete and thorough investigation. Several other big figures in the state machine have also been indicted. Smith himself, has been indicted forty-one times and the end is not yet. Immediately after Smith's resignation and disappearance, a completely unsatisfactory person was named president, but fortunately for us, he did not accept and the Dean of the Law School here, Hebert, was appointed acting president.

Some two or three weeks ago, nineteen of us wrote a letter to the alumni secretary (who had made a strong speech demanding a clean-up) a letter in which we listed certain things which that clean-up should secure. It was not the strongest letter in the

October 23, 1939

Dear Don:

I have enjoyed your long, frank letter. Naturally I was happy to have your very generous comments on my book. They are very welcome to me coming from you, and I hope that the book deserves them.

I am very happy that you have asked me frankly about THE SOUTHERN REVIEW'S policy toward new writers, for it would be a shame for misapprehensions to occur on a point where I am sure we are in actuality, in the closest of agreement. Our attitude toward the publication of new writers has been consistently the same. Red and I turned down for the first number a story by a Nobel Prize winner, because we felt that to accept an unworthy story -- it as poor-- merely to have a name, would be the very worst way to start out. I don't think that we have consciously varied from that policy one iota. We have made mistakes it is true, though some of our worst mistakes were in taking stories from young writers --stories which we later decided were inferior. To indicate, in the first volume we had at least seven stories by writers who were just beginning to publish their work -- in some cases the very first story and in others, the second or third. I don't believe that over two or three of the fiction writers in this volume had any reputation in fiction. Caroline Gordon and Katharine Anne Porter were the only two with really established reputations. In the second volume, we had a story by Abbe, one by Moreau (an L. S. U. freshman), stories by Field and Godchaux of New Orleans, their second stories, a story by Pasinetti, his first, one by Shelby -- one of his first -- one by Manson Radford, and two by Thomas Thompson, a young Texas writer. In the third volume, we had a story by Jack Boone, a young Tenn. writer, one by Brown, an L. S. U. student, stories by Cahn and de Cerjat, both young writers, another story by Moreau, and a story by Seide a complete unknown, along with another story by Thompson and three stories by Eudora Welty, a Miss. girl just starting out. In the fourth volume Watkins, Seide, and Beems, were all young and unestablished. There were other stories by Red and Eudora Welty and Hopkins, a La. unknown. In the current volume the only stories published so far are by Pasinetti, Welty, and Mary King, a young Texas girl. Actually, we have run very few established writers and of the young writers which we have run I imagine that a good 75% have been from the South and Southwest.

I have put this down in some detail because I think that the point is an important one, and because I think that our record so clearly demonstrates our willingness to give an opportunity to young writers and to help them get established. Perhaps more important than this, is that we have actually gone through hundreds of manuscripts in trying to make sure that young and unknown writers do get a hearing here. And some of the writers whom we have turned down three and four times would make a very interesting and significant list were I free to give their names.

As for Mildred Haun's stories, we gave them very careful consideration and I am willing to agree that we may have made a mistake and missed a fine opportunity in her case, though I believe that I should take the same position which I took earlier -- namely that her work was interesting but that none of the stories which we saw were quite competent enough to go as a story. Certainly we should be happy to take any one of her stories in the future that seemed successful and we are certainly interested in her work. I know that this isn't the question which you are raising. You are concerned with the even larger issues of our policy in general, and here let me say in the most emphatic way that I can, that we should be very disappointed if you won't let us have a chance at any young writer in whom you are in any way interested. There are very few people whose recommendation would carry more weight with Red and me than your own and we hope that you will feel free to suggest submissions at any time. You can be sure

sure that they will be given the most careful attention, whatever the decision turns
out to be, and I think that you and Red and I have sufficient in common that we
can be sure that writers who appeal to you will also appeal very much to us.

I hope that this will settle the question in your mind, for I should be extremely
sorry if I felt that there was any shadow of a doubt in your mind as to our feelings
for your judgment, and our very warm interest in developing the young writers of this
country and particularly of the South.

Please give our best regards to Teresa and may we hope that both of your attend
the M. L. A. meeting in New Orleans. Please consider this a very warm invitation to
spend some time in Baton Rouge with us during that week. It would be delightful to have
some more good talk with you.

Sincerely,

January 30, 1941

Dear Don:

Have you seen Cash's "The Mind of the South" which Knopf is apparently going to make a big play of? I have been dipping into it and it has a great deal of good stuff, but Cash certainly needs to be straightened out on a number of points. At any rate, I want you to see the book at once if you have not seen it and we should like to get in first claim on you to review it for us. In a way it's a shame to keep you busy with demands like this. But it's very definitely the kind of book which calls for the special knowledge which you have. At any rate, I'm sending it to you right away. Look through it and if you are interested, let us know whether you'll do a review for us. We'd like to get it printed as quickly as possible--in the summer number if we can have it then.

Things are still in a mess here as you may have heard. The Board has still to elect a permanent president, and until he is elected, there is going to be little more than rumor and counter rumor around here, alarms and excursions. We are doing what we can but without too much confidence. It's all very exciting but pretty hard on the nerves, for I fear that we will get something very bad unless we get something very good. As soon as I hear anything definite I shall write you a long letter with news.

Red got away last week for Iowa and we are already missing him sorely. Give our regards to the Owsleys and to your wife.