JAMES K. FEIBLEMAN

1547 CANAL BANK BUILDING
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

Dec. 19, 1938

Mr. Cleanth Brooks, Jr., Editor,
Southern Review,
University of Louisiana,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Dear Mr. Brooks:

I enclose herewith an essay entitled "In Praise of the Comedian", which is part of a forthcoming work of mine on comedy. I do hope you will find it available for publication in the *Southern Review*.

Mr. George Marion O'Donnell was through here recently and spoke of you and Mr. Warren. If you ever get to New Orleans I should like to have the pleasure of meeting you.

JKF:K
encl.

JAMES K. FEIBLEMAN

January 24, 1940

Mr. Cleanth Brooks, Jr.,
The Southern Review,
University,
Louisiana.

Dear Mr. Brooks:

In your letter of December 22nd you
asked whether there was not some book around which the
material of my essay "The Definition of Science" could be
shaped as a review. I believe I have found this book.
The English historian Arnold J. Toynbee has published six
volumes of a projected nine or ten volume work. Volumes
four to six have just appeared, and his theories, or at
least the outlines of them, are more or less complete in
the six volumes. I should like very much to do for you an
extended review in the shape of an article presenting
Toynbee's views and criticizing them.

I am prompted to want to do this by
the fact that Toynbee is without doubt one of the most
important figures who has ever appeared in the field of
historical writing. His work contains sufficient philo-
sophical content, I believe, to require consideration by
a philosopher. I hope you will allow me to do this article
for The Southern Review. Will you please let me know?

JKF:k

March 30, 1940

Mr. James Feibleman
1547 Canal Bank Bldg.
New Orleans, Louisiana

Dear Mr. Feibleman:

I am hurrying your manuscript to you by airmail because it may be possible to get it into the Spring number which is going to press almost immediately. You will note that I have made suggestions and even inserted changes in the manuscript. I know that you will receive this in the spirit that they are intended. Were there more time I could avoid marking up the manuscript at all; for what I am trying to get at is a set of suggested changes to you, and not my own literal phrasing as they stand. For example, I am submitting a possible opening paragraph, but not as literally given - rather to suggest that you might do something somewhat like the sample. So with the other suggested changes throughout the manuscript. Please feel perfectly free to revise, substitute, or reject.

You will notice that a number of changes simply attempt to make it clear to the reader where your criticism begins and the exposition of Toynbee leaves off. Another body of suggestions are suggested references to Spengler or other historians which I believe would be interesting to our special audience. Very few of the changes actually have to do with style, for the essay is so well written and I have so little opinion of myself as a prose stylist that I hope that I am not foolish enough to make more than very tentative suggestions here.

March 30, 1940

I am rushing this off to you in great haste, because if space permits we hope to get it in the forthcoming number. If you can return the manuscript to us by special delivery, we should much appreciate it. On the other hand, if this is impossible, please let us know and will have plenty of leisure to make any changes necessary before the Fall number in which it otherwise will appear.

P. S.

Our compositor can handle changes made in pen and ink on the manuscript. Don't hesitate to interlineat.