Indianapolis, Indiana

Nov. 4, 1936.

Ben Abramson
The Arcus Bookshop, Inc.
330 South Dearborn
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Mr. Abramson:

Mr. Jones wrote me that the publication of THE VIRGIN AND THE SWINE had been put off until the 7th; otherwise you would have heard from me before. I don't know just how these things are managed: would it be all right for me to autograph copies of the book for you on the 7th, or is that too early? If it is all right please send me a telegram collect, for in that case I'd like very much to get to Chicago in time to go to the opera Friday night; I have a decided weakness for that occupation.

Thanks again for your interest in my book and your confidence in its success.

Indianapolis, Ind.

Jan. 27, 1937.

Ben Abramson
The Argus Bookshop, Inc.
333 South Dearborn
Chicago, Ill.

Dear Ben:

Thanks ever so much for your encouraging letter about THE
VRIGIN AND THE SWINE. I'm so glad nineteen of the twenty
twenty have spoken up for it--I had a letter from Faith Baldwin
last week, and she said it was utterly enchanting, but I've heard
nothing about the regular readers' reactions--those who aren't
craftsmen themselves.

I don't know just when I'll be in Chicago--Mr. Lawler
spoke of wanting me to come up in March, but I can't afford the
trip then unless they've commenced editing my next fall's book,
WITCH'S HOUSE. Could you send copies of THE VIRGIN AND THE
SWINE to me express collect, with the names of the people who
want them? Then I could send them back autographed.

I'm enclosing the check and bill for Mundy's QUEEN CLEOPATRA. I must say I marvel at how quickly you were able to get it; earlier years' experience of waiting for imported phonograph records had made me think it always took about six months to get anything from England.

Was the other Mundy book I wanted out of print? There
seems to be some confusion about the title. I told you it was
RAMDEN--Mundy's original title, I believe, which is given on
the back of QUEEN CLEOPATRA--but on the inside of the book I not-
ice that Hutchinson's still have it listed by the dime-novelish
Bobbs-Merill title, THE DEVIL'S GUARD. So I don't know which
name I should have given you. But I should like very much to
get the book if it is gettable.

Indianapolis, Ind.

Feb.5, 1937.

I was very glad indeed to receive your letter this morning; al-
so to know that you are willing to send the books here for me to auto-
graph. An author friend thought you might not be willing to for fear of
damages in transit--said that in such cases her publishers supplied her
with what she calls 'tip-sheets'. So I wrote Llewellyn Jones about them
yesterday, though I was afraid such an arrangement wouldn't be satisfac-
tory because I couldn't imagine the books looking as well with extra
sheets stuck in them. I'm glad the original plan will work.

I'm delighted to hear that the book is going well. I wish ev-
eryone were as well able to sell as you are. Then GONE WITH THE WIND
would be merely a national marvel again, instead of the national menace
which it seems to be, even to established writers, just now.

I do hope I shall be able to come up in the spring, and be on
hand when you foreclose that mortgage on the Franck concert; that would
be wonderful. But at present I know less about it than I did. When
Mr. Lawler went through Indianapolis Jan. 19th he told me, without any
inquiries on my part, that they would soon get around to editing WITCH'S
HOUSE--about December 1st he had said that its publication next Septem-
ber was definitely settled. But last week-end Mr. Jones sent me a car-
bon copy of a letter written Dec. 29th in which he told me not to hurry
with another project we had in mind because there was always WITCH'S
HOUSE as a 'possible next book' (I had never received the original let-
ter in which one from John Cowper Powys, now alas! evidently forever lost,
had been enclosed). So evidently Llewellyn Jones had not heard, on
Dec. 29th, at least, of the agreement Mr. Lawler and the others had reached.

I will write to Miss Allen and confess that I alone am responsi-
ble for Math's and Gwydion's views on men--women--marriage.' The old monk
who wrote down the original MABINOGI would ddoubletless have regarded them as
the doctrines of Antichrist, so I really should clear his name. The origi-
nal never expressed anybody's views on anything that was not happening to
him or her at the moment, least of all on philosophical questions; all
that was part of my additions.

And I'm very glad to hear that I can still look forward to the
other Talbot Mundy book.

Indianapolis, Indiana.

April 1, 1937.

Dear Ben:

Thank you ever so much for the news in your last week's letter! It will be wonderful if Mr. Rascoe likes the book. You are certainly always a bearer of good tidings!

Just after your letter came Llewellyn Jones wrote saying that a date would soon be set for WITCH'S HOUSE, but though I've asked whether I could come by April 19th, he doesn't know whether he can manage it that soon. I want to be at The Auditorium by then because of the San Carlo Opera Company's visit. Such a divine chance to get opera right there in the building with it, and for me it would be rather like the completion of a cycle too. I had come up to hear that opera the spring I gave Llewellyn Jones my book--I had no thought of finding a Chicago publisher then, the manuscript had only been tossed into my suitcase at the last minute to show to a woman friend whose advice I wanted, Such an intricate piece of destiny's machinery, and a dollar opera company the lever that set all the wheels in motion! To hear it again now, with everything so changed, would round out a sort of ring. I'm tempted to come up for it anyway--see if Mr. Jones can't mail me WITCH'S HOUSE'S manuscript for going over before it's printed, even if it hasn't been script-edited by the 19th.

As soon as I'm sure of the date I'll let you know. I've been worrying over not being able to get the autographing done for you. Again--thank you.

From Evangeline Walton Ensley

2853 North Illinoi Avenue, East

Indianapolis, Indiana

Ben Abramson

The Argus Bookshop, Inc.

333 South Dearborn

Chicago, Ill.

Dear Ben:

I've been waiting for word
from Llewellyn Jones, but it
hasn't arrived yet. At pres-
ent I'm planning to come up to
Chicago next Saturday, and I'd
love to hear some Brahms and
some Schubert(I leave the rest
of the program for you to make

out) with your family gathering
that night. If anything comes
up to prevent my plan I'll let
you know. I do think it is
very nice indeed of you to want
me.

Sincerely yours,

P.S. If next Saturday might
be inconvenient for you, in
any way please let me know -
I'm afraid I've been taking you at
your word about "any time" rather
literally.

P.P.S. I shall be at the Auditorium
Hotel and shall call up as soon
as I arrive

Indianapolis, Indiana.

May 17, 1937.

Dear Ben:

I'm certainly delighted to hear that Simon & Schuster's editor thought the manuscripts looked like hot stuff! That certainly does sound gorgeous. It will be wonderful when I actually know that something is going to be published again, that somebody is legally bound to do it instead of just having the right to! I don't quite understand about the tentative promise to Doubleday's--does that mean both firms read the manuscripts and bid against each other if they want to, or do we grab the first one we can get while the getting is good?

The good news is certainly thrilling. As for Mr. Lawler's annoyance it is not altogether a surprise. He was here April 26th (a dinner engagement made before we went to Chicago, I now think for the purpose of breaking the news of WITCH'S HOUSE'S postponement to me gently). That night, after he'd gone, my grandmother said that though she'd got many a dinner, never before had the guest chewed her up while he was chewing the dinner. Nobody here had to call him a liar to get him started. A good deal of his conversation--other stores' sales, etc.--followed the outlines you described in your letter, with variations. There seemed to be an idea that somebody had said, or somebody thought, that you and I had long been engaged in some kind of conspiracy, and I was kept busy denying that with vigor, but no word was said against you by anyone except Mr. Lawler. I am still bowled over by the change in Mr. Lawler--it was as if he had suddenly turned into another person as E.R. Eddison's characters do.

Thank you very much indeed for stipulating that Simon & Schuster's

Indianapolis, Ind.

Aug. 13, 1937.

Dear Ben:

Thanks very much indeed for the news about my book and Putnam's.
That is astonishing and delightful! Could you tell from the trade jour-
nal whether it is already out or not? I wish you'd order me one copy of
the British edition--I'd love to know what it looks like!

The news is all the more astonishing because I had a letter from Mr Willet in mid-July when he finally sent my April statement (I didn't get it the first time I asked for it--no reply ever came until I asked again by registered mail) and though he was friendly--very different mood from the one he seemed to be in when we went up there--he never mentioned any British publication. He will not pay royalties on more than 400 copies--figures I can't understand since two or three times last winter Mr. L. said that 1000 copies of the book had been sold and you'll remember that Mr. W. himself said "nearly 1000" when we saw him in April.

Since you wrote about the English publication I've been trying to
get hold of my lawyer--find out just what it's safe to say in asking the
them about the difference between the oral and the written statements.
But he seems to be out of town this week. Before you wrote I had been
letting things drift--neither answering Willet's letter nor cashing the
check he sent. I felt too tired, after my sore throat, to argue any more
for a while.

I do hope that Pat Covici will like me and that this British publi-
cation will help THE VIRGIN AND THE SWINE. Miss Kane of the Public
Library said yesterday that British publication would mean a revival of
interest over here--is that very likely to be correct?

With more thanks for the information,

P.S. Indianapolis does well by my book at the Public Library--
recently a neighbor said she'd had to reserve it eight weeks before she
could get it.

Indianapolis, Ind.

Sept 16,1937.

Dear Ben:

Could you please send me the two John Cowper Powys books listed
in your new bulletin--MORWYN and THE PLEASURES OF READING?

My cousin Clifton was here last week, with a great train of fol-
lowers--Clifton never travels unattended(item which causes his hosts a
great deal of housework)--and all of them went into ecstasies over your
magazine. Clifton spoke of wanting to subscribe and my mother thinks
he got your address; but he specializes in losing addresses anyhow.
His own, if you care to get in touch with him, is Professor Clifton Jo-
xeph Furness, 36 Gray St.,Cambridge, Mass.

Have you been to New York yet, or had any word from Covici's?
I'm getting extremely nervous about my financial situation with November
and the end of my income drawing so near. If Covici's, too, refuse them
would you mind my having one of the lighter weight manuscripts--not
WITCH'S HOUSE--back to try to place it in a magazine? I suppose the
money from serial rights would keep me from having to worry for about a
year, and until I do get some sum of money sufficient to give me a sense
of financial security, I apparently can't get myself well enough intun
tune again to do anything new.

Dear Ben:

Thank you very much indeed for sending me the Putnam letter.
It is good to have something which can't possibly be called any-
thing but definite.

I've been having a terrible cold--laryngitis and all the
trimmings--for the last two weeks, so must apologize for the late-
ness of this letter. I've been asked to speak at Ayres' Book
Fair--honor I hardly expected--and only hope I'll have enough
voice not to croak like a frog that day.

I had a letter from John Cowper Powys last week. He says:
"I have been thinking of your Success. The Greatest Bard in Cor-
wen, a real Master Bard, ... is Simply fascinated by THE VIRGIN AND
THE SWINE, he got the full idea of it and it was a Revelation to
him. He is a real Bard, and knows the "Ogam" letters--very
learned,--and He was transported by your book."

Dear Ben:

Suppose you are back from Mexico by now or soon will be.
I hope you had a good vacation. I'm enclosing check for WOLF SO-
LENT AND THE BUFFCOON.

Shall I send the WITCH'S HOUSE manuscript (which I had too
much flu to work on during March) back to you or not? You can do
as you like, but I've wondered if you weren't getting tired of my
apparently hard-to-place manuscripts, and were too kind to say so.
There is an possible alternative now--late in February a New York
agent agreed to take on the revised PRINCE OF THE AIR, and I suppose she
might also take the other two--though she does not yet know of
them. A possibility, that way, of using WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT
for what it was originally written for--the magazines. In any
case I'd like to know--unpleasant as the knowledge may be--by which
and how many publishers WITCH'S HOUSE and WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT
have been turned down.

I hope you will be able to resume your magazine. It was
always so good. I shall bind my copies if I ever get flush e-
nough. Please put my name on the list of those who will sub-
scribe if the magazine returns. I forget what the yearly rate was
--$2.50 or $3.00. Thank you for all the times youssent it to
me for nothing.

Dear Ben:

Just a line to let you know I heard from Putnam's--not good news. They say they"arrived at a _aniagreement_ on price" for sheets with Willet, Clark's, _but that the sheets have not been delivered_, and that although they've written and cabled W.C.'S and had their American house write too they've received no answer.

Don't know what it all means. The part about writing letters without receiving answers sounds delightfully familiar and home-like of course; but I can't understand understanding another firm's having that luck. I saw my lawyer, and he says the plates are certainly safe--the contract would not allow W.C.'s to destroy without giving me a chance at them. (Though is there anything I could do with them if I got them? ) Have written Mr. Willet.

P.S. Has the other John Cowper Powys book come in yet--_THE PLEASURES OF READING_?

Indianapolis, Ind.

June 9, 1938.

Dear Ben:

I am very glad that you had such a fine time in Mexico.
I'm enclosing check for last month's books.

I do value your friendship and faith in my work--goodness knows faith in it is too rare a quality for me not to prize it. My trying an agent now doesn't mean that I have more confidence in her ability to place things than in yours--simply that I want to save myself the trouble of dealing with the publishers afterward. My cousin in the East says all the writers he knows have concluded it's the only way--that the agents can collect more for them (even after subtracting their own commission) than they can ever get from the publishers by themselves. My lawyer doesn't believe in the voluntary good behaviour of many the biggest firms, and my cousin apparently not in that of any except Covici's and Little, Brown's--and I've already been turned down by Covici's. Perhaps they're over-pessimistic, but since THE VIRGIN AND THE SWINE's bad luck first became apparent I've not been in the mood to be optimistic about anything. Though if it hadn't been for hope of getting into the magazines--I need the money they'd represent--I'd never have tried for a New York agent. I'd far rather have sent the carbon copies to London--where I think my style would have been more comprehensible than it seems to be in my own country--and kept on with our arrangement over here.

Thank you for featuring THE V* & S. in your bulletin again--
I judge, from my June statement, that they've begun remaindering

Indianapolis, Ind.

Oct. 31, 1938.

Dear Ben:

I should have written this letter to you a week ago, but I've been ill ever since I came home--my Chicago sore throat was only the beginning. Just had a test that shows my lifelong enemy, the thyroid, is on the warpath again--several years' gains lost in one. A nuisance all around, and I only hope it won't handicap my plans for writing a new book this winter.

Could you please send me (or order for me) the British edition of THE ENJOYMENT OF READING? (I'm returning the Simon & Schuster edition you sent--haven't read it, for fear of injuring the paper cover) Mr. Powys wrote me last spring that the British edition was to include an long essay on St. Paul that Simon & Schuster's were not going to use. I've never been especially interested in St. Paul himself--he talked against women too much--but I should like to get Mr. Powys' view of him.

Wish your daughter had seen the San Carlo's FAUST. Kravitt, the Mefisto, is a marvellous actor. Since he has to sing every night (the S.C. tenors and sopranos get more consideration) he can't do extraordinary things vocally, but he does turn in a great dramatic performance, and one that takes a lot of intellectual thinking out. As fine a piece of interpretative work as Chaliapine's, as I recall to that gentleman's Mefistofetes from my teens.

Dear Ben:

Thank you very much indeed for your Diet Book, and
for the inscription. I won't swear that I shall never
try to apply some of it, in spite of your warning that it
is for men only, but at least I shall not until my glands
have improved.

I'm enclosing money for the first editions--know
I should have got it sent before, but I've been working
hard on new effort to get my second Welsh book under way.
Since women are always supposed to muff male characteri-
zations--according to all the literary precepts I was ev-
er given, at any rate--and I am myself and therefore per-
verse, I'm having lots more trouble with the female charac-
ters than with the male. Perhaps the ladies will be easi-
er to deal with when I get rid of this fall's perpetual
cold.

I hope you are having a good time bookselling,
and that you will come to see us next time you catch the
airplane for Indianapolis.

278

Indianapolis, Ind.

Jan. 12, 1939.

Dear Ben:

I've been enjoying the John Cowper Powys books, though at
times I get insulted by the man who wrote the book about him. If
he didn't like him any better than he sometimes pretends why did
he write a book about him?

Thank you very much indeed for your interest in new MS. --
but, alas! outside of a great shear of notes -- scenes written and
partly written, to be fitted in later -- I haven't got even two chap-
ters done yet. I've finally decided to leave prologue - la largely
self-created bunch of earlier events which would explain later leg-
endary ones not adequately motivated in the original -- in unsatisfac-
tory form until I've got deeper into the thing and am sure of my
treatment, so now I hope to get on faster. First time I've had
to handle sex matters from a repulsive angle; in THE V. & S. my
young idiot of a Gilvaethwy didn't really realize that rape was a
serious business; although mistakes in such matters are unpardon-
able he wasn't innately vicious; if I was open I was also airy.
Seems a pity that one can never construct any two books in exact-
ly the same vein, even though they belong to the same period. Pres-
ent subject matter is supposed to have got influenced by the Norse,
which I suppose makes for grimmer tone. I feel as if too down-
right ugliness breaks through the web of magic, yet I can't afford
to risk emasculating book, so it is pretty delicate business.

Indianapolis, Indiana.

Jan. 23, 1939.

Dear Ben:

Very glad to get your letter, but very sorry that Will-
et, Clark's have taken it into their heads not to sell you my book.
I can't understand it--why keep on selling to you all last year,
and then suddenly make up their minds that they are too offended
to deal with you? I should think they were out of the book if
that seemed humanly possible.

W.C.'s have always let me have book for $1.50 a copy,
and as soon as I find out whether they'll release the British
rights I'll be glad to see if they still will. If they're fe-
fusing you I don't know what will happen to me either. I so
dreaded writing about the British rights that I had never got it
done until your letter came--I got off about four lines to Mr. Will-
et then asking for them. No answer yet, and don't know whether
I shall receive any. He certainly ought to release them--he can't
hope to use them himself, can he, after the Putnam business?

Thank you again for your interest in MS.--last week-I had
it had got **oiled** up and begun to go well, and I could hardly bear
to spare an hour, but by today or tomorrow I'll have reached another
hard spot. With luck I **could** finish the first book by March--don't
know whether I ought to stop then and do the prologue over or
go straight ahead with the second book.

And I do thank you for wanting to sell some more of THE
V.& S.--do hope it can be managed.

--2--

All that sounds too elaborate for me to tackle while I'm so busy
with MS.--I shall have to wait until things aren't so thick.

Am keeping the Houghton-Mifflin Application Blank
you sent me in safe place--hope I shall be able to use it. I cer-
tainly would like to get a chance at that thousand dollars. Would
you like to have one of THE V.& S.'S broadsides--Mr Powys' endorse-
ment and everything, to show your friend the Houghton-Mifflin repre-
sentative?

Indianapolis, Indiana.

Feb. 14, 1939.

Dear Ben:

Have written Willet Clark's to send 100 copies of V.&S. to
me in care of Antiquarian Bookstore; you can send me check when
(or would it be safer to say if?) they arrive.

If I can get selections from new MS. polished up and typed
to Houghton Mifflin's
well enough for sending by end of February, is there much danger of
being turned down before May? I had hoped to get first half
finished in February, whole thing by end of April, but I'd hate for
MS. to have any kind of setback before I got it done.

Indianapolis, Indiana.

March 16, 1939.

Dear Ben:

Had bronchitis and 'flu in February, and lost out on some
weeks' work, but have got Houghton-Mifflin application and all I've
written of new MS. off to you today. I hate not having been able
to get it polished up and weeded, but perhaps it will be as well
off, fresh from the forge, as if I tried to revise it now. This
has been a hellishly unhealthy winter for me--thank Heaven for
spring.

First few pages of Chapter UPON HARLECH are among my
ewe lambs, but the conversation is interminable--will have to be
shortened somehow. Things pick up again from page 6 of next
chapter on.

Please don't tell me what you think of MS., whether you
like it or not; I have three different opinions of it of my own
a day, and those are all I can cope with it until it's finished.

Again,

Thank you very much indeed for offering to sponsor me for the H.-M. contest; and I do hope that you're safely over your 'flu, for I gathered from the last letter that you must be having it too.

Indianapolis, Indiana

March 29, 1939.

Dear Ben:

Very sorry indeed to hear that 'flu is still bothering
you, and has got laryngitis added to it. I know all about laryn-
gitis--thank Heaven I didn't have it again with this year's flu.

Since you have not mentioned Houghton-Mifflin's in last
two letters, does that mean that the man you spoke of would not go
co-voucher for me? If so, and if you have not already read MS.
please just send it back it unread--I've never let anyone see un-
finished work before, but was over-tempted by $1000. chance. And
you can form much more accurate impression of MS. when it's com-
pletely finished.

I've never had self-confidence enough to be a genius,
and I've got an even worse case of creative jitters than usual at
present--three years now since I've finished an MS. and I've got
to get this one done this spring--can't face any other possibility.

My grandfather died last week. Everything worse be-
cause unnecessary--so many conflicting stories from hospital and
doctor that we can't find out what killed him.

Still I've managed to grind out 32 more pages in the
midst of all of it--at this rate of grinding I should become pro-
fessional. "Show must go on" or whatever literature equivalent is.

Thank you very much indeed for offering to sponsor me
for Guggenheim prize--I do appreciate it, and would love to get 1+.

Indianapolis, Ind.

March 31st, 1939.

Dear Ben:

Don't think my last letter meant that I didn't want to enter H.-M. competition if it was still possible. Not even my fantastic terrors in regard to showing off unfinished MSS. would ever keep me from trying for $1000 chance. Don't know exactly what my last letters have said--everything so upset here this last month.

Sorry to have to write this --you must feel you've got
yourself into a lot of trouble get ing so many letters about an off-
er which it was sheer kindness on your part to make in the first
place, and which I do appreciate.

Indianapolis, Indiana

June 2 , 1939.

Dear Ben :

Have autographed and returned Dr. Marvin's book.

Thanks ever so much for the column in THE BIBLIODISIAC'S
BOUQUET--it was the biggest thrill I've had in a long time. (And,
by the way, I would like a few more copies of the B.B., if you have
them to spare. )

Glad to hear you were finally over the 'flu. I had it a-
gain in May--can't seem ever to quite shake it off. No luck with
Houghton-Mifflin's, from whom I heard about two weeks ago. "The ma-
terial was unusual," but they were"afraid anything with such a strong
Welsh flavour would be incomprehensible on this side of the water."
MS. finally finished, but I am too tired to revise it in this heat--
wish I could forget about it for awhile.

Sometime next month I plan to go to the San Francisco World's
Fair and then to relatives in Los Angeles. Will come in and do any
autographing or signing of books needed when I pass through Chicago,
so that you won't be unable to make good the column's promise of in-
scribed copies while I'm gone.

June 27: Have received your letter--thank you very much indeed
for the one from Miss Rogers. Please tell her that I will answer it
soon, and that I certainly am always glad of another fan.

--2--

Please forgive hasty scrawl--my brain is scrawling
if typewriter isn't. I've so much revising and such mountains of
correspondence to catch up on, and Christmas so near.

I do appreciate your interest in my work--hope that some day you will be able to say "I held up for it when--"

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

12 December 1939

Dear Evangeline:

Thank you so much for your letter of 9 December.

A copy of PAGEANT OF VICTORY, by Jeffrey Farnol, has been ordered
sent directly to you from the publishers, and you should receive
it within the next day or two.

I held up doing anything with my agency contract, because I knew
I should be moving after the first of the year, although I was not
certain of my new address. My charge will be 10%. I am establish-
ing magazine connections now and hope to be successful in placing
your work.

Right now is, for me, a double zero hour. First, I am in the very
midst of the Christmas rush; second, early in February, we will
move to 16 North Michigan Avenue.

In the new place, we shall have just a tiny first floor shop serv-
ing, actually, only as a means of ingress to the spacious second
floor showrooms and offices. It will be possible for me to take
care of my correspondence and to prepare bulletins and lists in
the day time, leaving my evenings free for the many things which I
have been unable to do, these last few years, because it has been
necessary for me to spend five evenings a week dictating.

The thought of the new freedom is exciting - one of the first
things I shall do is to re-read THE VIRGIN AND THE SWINE. I want
to experience all over again the thrill which that book gave me
when I read it for the first time.

With every good wish for the coming Holiday Season and for the New
Year to come, believe me, Evangeline,

Very sincerely yours,

Miss Evangeline W. Ensley
2858 North Illinois Street
Indianapolis, Indiana

Dear Ben:

Thanks for your letter. I don't imagine London man will want new MS., even though British publishing has been resumed, for I told him it was pacifistic. I should say that it was, though the folk say vehemently that they would never think of its being any such thing. But there's certainly one favorite scene of mine--conversation making fun of the honor of war, and so on--that I can't imagine going in any country at war.

About your removal sale: does it include copies of Thomas Mann's first two Joseph books--JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS, or YOUNG JOSEPH? And anything of Yeats or Talbot Mundy? I have several books of each of those men, but nothing like all, and I am particularly anxious for some Yeats book that includes THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER. I know.

People who might be interested in your removal sale if you are sending out lists, are Charles Milholland and Lee Wells, both living at 282I North New Jersey St., Indianapolis. I always hesitate about recommending my friends for lists because they're usually all hard up, but I don't know just what the financial status of these two would be just now if they really wanted something.

Jan. 16, 1940.
Indianapolis, Indiana.

22 January 1940

My dear Evangeline:

Thank you very much for your good letter of 16 January. I
am grateful, too, for the names you sent me, and take pleas-
ure in sending them some of our recent lists.

All of our books have been packed, except those on our sale
tables. It is therefore quite impossible for me to quote
anything to you at the present time. We are moving sooner
than I anticipated, and books, shelves, stenographers, desks,
ash trays and ledgers, shall all be firmly intrenched at
16 North Michigan Avenue by the end of this week.

I have made a memorandum of the things in which you are in-
terested, and just as soon as I can possibly do so, will
send you quotations of the things you want. Please be sure
to read our lists during the next two or three months; we
are going to continue to offer things at extremely low
prices, because of our removal. If anything interests
you, please write to me about it.

When will you be in Chicago next? I am impatient to show
you our fine new store.

Miss Evangeline Ensley
2856 North Illinois Street
Indianapolis, Indiana

thr

any more Metropolitan Opera
or not--sounds to me as if
the radio campaign to save
it were going pretty slowly.

P.S. Am enclosing check
for Homer.

Dear Ben:

Your opening sounded
thrilling--I would have
loved to have been there.
Chicago trip not looking
any nearer at present--we
have been in terrible mess
here--spring housecleaning

early because we were getting
some new cabinets and things
built in and put in--every-
thing turning out even more
expensive than we expected,
of course, and expectations
were enough. It may not be
nearly so bad as starting a
new store, but it's been pret-
ty strenuous--sometimes the

dining-room table too heaped
with things to be eaten off of,
sometimes the dinette one, in
similar case, for a few days
both of them out of commission
and all of us solemnly sitting
round the table at meal-time.
Things ought soon to begin to
straighten out now--Heaven knows
I need the San Carlo opera and
a vacation.

Wonder if there will be

Indianapolis, Indiana.

Feb. 16, 1940.

Dear Ben:

Thank you very much indeed for your January letter. Am certainly anxious to see your new store--wish I could get up to Chicago for the San Carlo Opera Co.'s spring season, but don't know yet.

Have just found out about THE MODERN LIBRARY SERIES' complete one-volume Homer, THE ODDYSSEY translated by Andrew Lang. Have you a copy, or could you get me one? I didn't know there was a good prose Homer in English.

No word yet from the London agent.

20 February 1940

My dear Evangeline:

The Modern Library ODYSSEY, translated by Andrew Lang, has been sent forward to you, and by now should have safely arrived. I think you would enjoy the Rouse THE STORY OF ODYSSEUS; this too is in prose, and is a very unusual translation. This is published in paper covers, by Modern Age. The price is 50¢. Shall I send you a copy?

I will indeed be happy to have you visit me here, and I look forward to showing you our new store with great pleasure. When you are here, perhaps the ground that is now brownly bare and smudged with the last traces of snow, across the street in Grant Park, will be newly green. I hope that it will be, for I want all to be at its best for your call.

Our opening was a joyous affair. Guests expressed approval of our new premises, of our cocktails, of each other. About five hundred people came and went during the afternoon, but we were never crowded, for our new store is spacious, amply spacious. There was a pleasant sprinkling of authors and columnists, there were flowers and telegrams, and letters and telephone calls, there was word from Morley that he was inscribing the 100,000th copy of KITTY FOYLE for me, in honor of the occasion, and best of all, there were the scores and scores of friends who came to wish me well. I was exultant and happy, for it made me feel that my new enterprise had a propitious beginning.

One reason that I looked forward to this change was because I felt it would give me more leisure and less work. Such has not been the case. Instead of working four nights a week, I have had to work five and six. Innumerable details have demanded my attention, and attending to them has prevented me from establishing the routine that I had envisioned. However, I am not yet in despair.

Our store on Dearborn Street is still open, and will continue open until the first of April. I suppose that I cannot really expect my

E.W.E. - 2

business to function entirely normally and smoothly as I want it to,
until that store is closed.

Our bulletins and lists have been delayed, although the first one is
ready to be mailed, or has been mailed. I want to issue them more
frequently than I have done in the past. Too, I am starting a new
series of discursive literaty catalogues, entitled THE SOUTH WALL, since
the books that formerly composed the North Wall, are now backed against
our South one. It will be, I think, a good composition, and one of the
most interesting pieces of literature we have produced. The first num-
ber will be issued about the tenth of March. I shall await your opin-
ion of it anxiously.

I hope that all is well with you, and that your days are serene and
happy ones. With all good wishes, dear Evangeline, I am,

Miss Evangeline Walton Ensley
2858 North Illinois Street
Indianapolis, Indiana

vhr

29 March 1940

My dear Evangeline:

For your sweet Easter greeting, my thanks.

It came at a time when I particularly needed something
to remind me that this is the season of rebirth and re-
generation, of reinvigoration and renasence.

Ever since we moved here, I have worked harder than I
did on Dearborn Street. Instead of three or four nights
a week, I have worked five and six. Mr Heaneman and Mr
Dashe are no longer with me. There has been the hiring
of new people, the distribution of work, the reorganization
of routine, the closing of Dearborn Street. I have been
buried up to my ears in work, and wondering if I would
survive it.

At last, things begin to run a little more smoothly. All
is being adjusted. I can look forward to a time, only
a few months from now, when I shall have the leisure that
I visioned myself having when we were here.

Your card lifted up my heart and my spirit, and I am
grateful to you for reminding me that spring is almost
here.

Miss Evangeline Ensley
2658 North Illinois St.
Indianapolis, Indiana

vhr

16 July 1940

My dear Evangeline:

For your letter, and kind order, I am grateful. The book should
reach you in a few days. Thank you too for your kind check. I am
glad there are some who still buy and read books. The inroads that
the war has made into the book business are astonishing and dreadful.

I don't mean they are that because of the effect on my business,
though I naturally can't view that without alarm, but more especially
because of the widespread bewilderment and hopelessness it indicates.
To me, it is more important than ever to read books now; they keep
us sane. But many are unable to do so, even though they admit that
books bring buoyancy and the restoration of momentary forgetfulness.

It is particularly terrifying to think about the war because one
cannot help but feel that deeper destruction than of material things
the crushing blow that war always deals to man's hearts and minds,
and spirits, and especially to the creative spirit. It paralyzes
the artist.

There have been great books written about war, but no great books
written during any war, no great pictures painted, no great edifices
erected, because war is destructive. Everything, including man
himself, dies. That is the pity of it. We have lived through so
many years of war and therefore made so many years of our lives
barren ones.

I hope you will come to Chicago soon, to talk about the old, the
gædrious, peaceful days, when you were the wind in the willows and
I was the witch in the wood.

vhr

Indianapolis, Indiana.

Aug. 12, 1940.

Dear Ben:

Sorry that this is late and will not be a better letter--your last one was certainly beautiful, and deserved a beautiful answer (a teacher friend of mine copied out what you said about war and its effect on creative work), but I doubt if I could think a beautiful thought at present to save my life--it's so hellishly hot. And has been, for Lord knows how long.

For weeks I've been intending to write you for a copy of that new Thomas Mann book, THIS WAR. I should love to know his viewpoint-- see from your ad that he traces the problem back even beyond Bismarck, which must be the root of things indeed. It's always seemed to me that the German state created by Bismarck is like a kind of semi-conscious, purely destructive entity finding its high-priest and mouth-piece first in one man, then in another. With the Kaiser and Hitler simply expressions of the trouble, its organizers, rather than its originators. Very significant, too, and linked, I should think, with the idea in your letter that our Mobilization plan and Gen. de Gaulle's book on tank warfare should have been the models the blitzkriegs were built on. Shows that the great creative stock which once produced Goethe and Wagner is now having to borrow all its actual ideas from other people--can't even invent its own instruments of destruction. That this concentration on war has already paralyzed the native German

15 August 1940

Dear Evangeline!

Thank you for your very pleasant and highly flattering letter.

THIS WAR is being sent to you direct from the publishers.

I look forward to seeing you here, so that we can talk. The new shop allows that. There are fewer casual intrusions than there were on Dearborn Street. The view of the park and the lake is very pleasant, so that even very hot days seem less hot.

The response to the listing of THE VIRGIN AND THE SWINE was very gratifying, and I hope soon to receive letters from people who ordered the book, thanking me for having directed their attention to it.

In fact, I did get one, from Dr H. M. Marvin of New Haven, Connecticut, who, seeing the listing, wrote:

"I am delighted to see your continuing praise of Miss Walton's THE VIRGIN AND THE SWINE. I bought a copy from you more than a year ago, and read it with great delight last year while on my vacation. It seems to me deserving of great success, and I feel sure that one reason for its failure to attract wide attention and praise lies in its title. I carried the book about with me for a time while reading it, but finally had to place a plain jacket about it because I received so much ribald kidding from my friends, who obviously thought it was a lurid, erotic, sensational book that should be kept hidden. The title is fully appropriate, but is perhaps a little unfortunate."

Best regards.

Miss Evangeline W. Ensley
fh

13 September 1940

Dear Evangeline:

For your good letter of 4 September, my thanks.

I shall be eager to know all that happens on your trip
East and hope that you will keep me informed about con-
tacts, agencies, and arrangements. I hope that it is
gratifyingly fruitful journey.

May it be a pleasant one, too, one filled with fun and
with laughter, with sunshine and light, with warm friendly
hours and good conversation. May its aftermath be pleasant
memories and inspiration.

Forget about the war, forget bomb and crumpled buildings,
and shattered lives. It will do you good to forget about
them.

I hope that you will write me about the Fair, and make
me see it in all its glory. No one has been able to do
that, as yet, but I expect your eyes to perceive and your
fingers to record whatever there is in it of worth and
fineness, so that I, vicariously, shall thrill to it too.

Sincerely yours,

Ben Abramson

Miss Evangeline Ensley
2858 North Illinois Street
Indianapolis, Indiana

vhr

--3--

hopes is the more veritable and enduring world of beauty and folk-
sciousness and poetry.

I did no more than lay a basis for contacts. Still
no release from the Englishman, so I couldn't go to a pulp agent
(finally, in October, I did get the expected letter from him, but,
though he said he'd return WITCH'S HOUSE, publishers were still
holding the other two MSS., so presumably that exclusive agree-
ment still holds on anything he hasn't seen); and by the time I
reached New York my friend was at odds with the pulp fantasy edi-
tor she'd hoped to interest in me direct--he'd ordered a story
from her husband and then turned it down flat jush when they were
counting on that money to pay bills with.

They gave me the address of their regular agent, man named
Schwartz who, they say, knows the pulp market inside out and has a
special penchant for fantasy. So I may send him the short stories
later, after the English business is finally wound up. One certain-
ly can't envision English publishers doing anything now. Friends
suggested that WITCH'S HOUSE might possibly make ARGOSY serial--say
A doesn't invariably require action stories, though all I've seen
of its stuff looked far more active than W.H. But I'm still too
tired to decide whether I want to try that.

Will write you again later when I'm more rested and have
more news. Hope that all is well with you.

Godd luck and good wishes,

Sincerely yours,

26 November 1940

My dear Evangeline:

I am very happy to have your fine letter of 16 November. I am glad
you are home again, and that you have written me about your trip and
about the Fair. I haven't seen either Fair, and now, alas, it is
too late to see them. Therefore, I am glad for a glimpse of them
through your eyes.

I wish that we might have sat in the Icelandic Pavillion together,
drinking ale and saying skoal, talking, not about present chaos and
turbulence, but about cabbages and kings, and little rivers in the
sun, and how the earth smells after spring rains, and why the jokes
that we tell today were stale before the pyramids were built, and of
 inconsequential things and beautiful things, things that both of us
love.

Well, you must come here, instead, and we shall talk.

What you say of your manuscripts is, of course, of interest to me.
You are a little mistaken in one thing, when you say, "one certainly
can't envision English publishers doing anything now." That is why
Hitler's plans have gone a little awry. The English are going on
fighting and dying and publishing and making plans for the future,
as though they intended to win the war. It's very difficult and very
costly to lick a nation who feels like that. I have begun to feel that
perhaps it's impossible to do that.

I wish that you could read some of the letters that I receive from Eng-
lish booksellers. When you are here, I will give them to you to read.
Their nonchalance motto is, Bombed out and blasted out and burned out,
but still in business. They are a tremendous people. For books and
letters have come in a steady and unceasing stream from England. We
haven't lost one.

I am not unaware of the fact that no people can stand what the Eng-

--2--

er to speculate with such a limited chance of appeal! I cannot hold
out great hopes of your being able to place it during the war.

16.7.40.

Copy of letter which Mr. Pollinger enclosed with this (he kept
MS. until air-raids got bad):

My Dear Miss Ensley:

I think you will be interested to see the at-
tached copy of my reader's report on THE BROTHERS OF BRANWEN
Despite what he says I propose to offer the story
to two or three of the more likely publishers. It would
indeed be pleasant if I could send you an offer from one
of them.

What DrubSchuylerGrane of Doubleday's wrote:

"The BROTHERS OF BRANWEN interested us considerably.
Many of the stories are beautifully told, and there are
some fine pieces of writing. It shows a remarkable know-
ledge of Welsh folklore. However, as pure story it is some-
times difficult to follow and on the whole we felt its ap-
peal would be to a rather limited group. Therefore, we
must regretfully reject.

"Thank you very much for this opportunity to consider
your work. If in the future you have any other Manuscripts
to offer, would be glad to hear from you about them."

Indianapolis, Indiana.

Jan. 20, 1941.

The Argus Bookshop, Inc.
16 North Michigan Ave.
Chicago, Ill.

Gentlemen:

Is Mr. Ben Abramson at the store, or is he ill again? I
believe that he had to go to the hospital at about this time last
year.

I'd be very much obliged if you would use enclosed card
to let me know. Also, if he should be away on a vacation, instead
of at the hospital, I should like his address.

--2--

Jan. letters had been answered by Feb. 1st, I'd been afraid that you were ill and had asked her to make inquiries for me; she's an old friend whom I first knew in Indianapolis, though she's been in Chicago for some years now, a juvenile writer and head of the Illinois Women's Press Assn. I've since found out that she didn't see you until the 19th, and am very glad that that idea of mine was a mistake.

Perhaps it's another mistake to let that letter of Doubleday's affect my imagination, but it was Feb. 26th when you wrote me that you were going to make immediate search for MS., and I'm getting pretty anxious for news.

Again, if you are still contemplating trip through Indianapolis, please let me know when to expect you. I shall be glad to see you.

--2--

I suppose I put a premium on spontaneity just now because it's get-
ting harder and harder for me to achieve--think I remember reading
somewhere that Ben Ames Williams' style never did recover from his
initial 84 rejections.
I don't want to get labored and mathematical,
and in a way it might be ominous that that British report spoke of
MS's having a "kind of Celtic Twilight grace and mysticism "--I've
always loved Yeats, but I've never thought his work seemed alive.

You said that you heard from both Doubleday's and Mr. McCormick? Was that before or after he'd seen me? If the letters said anything favorable, I'd like to hear it, and if they said anything unfavorable I might as well hear it.

Hope you are better (or rather, getting better).

Indianapolis, Indiana.

May 18, 1942.

Dear Ben:

Thank you very much for relaying Dr. Froelich's compliment to me, also for what you yourself said about mentioning THE V. & S. in another bulletin. I do appreciate the efforts you've always made for my book.

Please let me know by the middle of next month whether or not my manuscript is in any of the places in which you haven't yet looked. I meant to write earlier--had wanted to know something by June 1st--but an accident and a dislocated kneecap intervened. Doctor says that dislocated kneecaps are rare, and I could have done without the distinction very comfortably, but I got it.

Again, please let me know in advance if you pass through Indianapolis on your way East.

--2--

weren't any germs in my autograph. It would be a dirty trick to in-
fect the army, especially just when I'm so grateful to part of it for
buying my book(and to you for giving me the chance to do some autograph-
ing again, it made me feel more alive.)

Must get down to work after New Year's. Read MS. ov-
er a little just after you sent it back, and concluded it would probab-
ly be better to change a few chapters and cut out bits all through be-
fore trying to do anything more with it. It needs condensing and a
bit of lightening, and, alas! these are such poor times in which to get
lightening ideas. Imagine best plan would be to write a First Branch
Of The Mabinogi, and split present MS. (the 2nd and 3rd Branches com-
bined) in two to make a trilogy. To have re-done all Four Branches
would be something, and I should think there'd be a much better chance
of marketing three medium-length mythological MSS. than one very long
one.

Merry Christmas! Hope I can get to Chicago sometime
next year, though at present I can't see just how it's going to be
done. It seems strange to think of old familiar landmarks like The
Auditorium Hotel and its twin theatre--always such a blissful, thrice-
blessed haven from the need of taxicabs--inhospitably closed and sil-
ent, but I do yearn for music and theatres and to see your new store.

Indianapolis, Indiana.

Jan. 24, 1944.

Dear Ben:

Have just received bill for GREAT AGE OF GREEK LITERATURE,
and am enclosing check. I had thought you weren't sending it yet
because of delayed arrival of the books LONDON and PARIS. They
have never come, and I had supposed that they were among those
whose bindings you said were being held up.

If they have been sent, I suppose there was some mistake
as to address--see enclosed envelope which came today. But you
can surely re-locate them at the Post-Office, can't you? The
Argus Bookshop Imprint couldn't have been altogether rubbed off.
Please let me know; I paid for them, you remember, when I ordered
them, because I thought they were items you already had on hand.

Suppose you haven't heard anything about Gilbert Murray's HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE, which you said you were going to look for. Trouble with advertising for a copy of that type is, I imagine, that it never goes on the market unless somebody who owns a copy dies. People who like it well enough to buy it at all keep it.

30 November, 1943

My dear Evangeline:

Thank you for your letter of November 24.

You have been in my mind often; in fact I thought of you last
week when I prepared the copy for our new Christmas catalog
which includes a listing of THE VIRGIN AND THE SWINE. I will
make up a parcel of some copies and send them down for inscription
to you.

I am glad to know that you are ready to write again and I wish I
could say to you 'return to me those earlier manuscripts so that
I can read and annotate them.' Unfortunately, I cannot say this
now. My staff is abridged and unexperienced and I am overwhelmed
with work. I have had to postpone publication of TRADE WINDS as
well as that of some other books which I had undertaken to issue
this winter. One reason is the difficulty of getting bindings
done on time. All the binderies in this area and all over the
country are months behind, and many books sold out and already
reprinted cannot be made available until next year even though
the Christmas demand is great because of this binding shortage.

I have ordered a copy of GREAT AGE OF GREEK LITERATURE from the
publishers to go you to you direct and I have also ordered three
copies of LONDON to be sent to you. Murray's book on Greek
Literature is out of print. But I am advertising and hope to
pick up a good copy for you soon.

If you could visit here, even though I am rushed, I am reasonably
sure that I would have plenty of time to talk with you. How is
your mother? The hope for me to get to Indianapolis is very remote.

You will get our Christmas catalog soon and also another catalog.
I had forgotten that I was committed to a whole column of advertise-
ment in a book supplement here until ten minutes before closing
time. I dictated 1500 words in ten minutes and now I am exhausted.
I hope you will write soon again.

All my best to you, and believe me that I am

Indianapolis, Indiana

Nov. 24, 1943.

Dear Ben:

Ever since last summer--or was it spring?--I've been intending to write you, but somehow just haven't felt capable of putting intelligent words together. For over a year I haven't written a story--still have plenty of ideas, but always get bogged down and tangled up somehow in first chapter. After Christmas I shall simply have to get the better of it; have wasted far too much time already. I need a vacation somewhere, but if I got it I'd probably try so hard to see all the sights that I shouldn't get rested up.

I have, however, read a great deal through the summer, even if I couldn't write--first time I've given the ancient Greeks a thorough going-over since I was old enough to appreciate them--and I wish you'd order me Edith Hamilton's *THE GREAT AGE OF GREEK LITERATURE*. I don't think her analysis of the poets nearly so good as that of Murray (who'd be completely out of print now, I suppose?), but the parallels between ancient Athenian problems and our own, and her chapter of the Greek way of writing are things I'd emphatically like to have on hands instead of eternally trotting back and forth to the Public Library for them. If I study the latter sufficiently, perhaps I can learn the Greek art of masterly understatement and stop arguing with my first chapters. Only hope to Heaven that book too won't be out of print.

I am enclosing check for three copies of Dark's *LONDON* (No. 37 in your new pamphlet--I want a couple for Xmas gifts as well as one for me) and one of his *Paris* (No. 38, and only for me). I am getting so used to ration points that I feel a horrid fear that you'll say you can't sell me three copies of any one book, but I hope that booksellers have not yet been brought to that.

Wish I could walk down Michigan Boulevard again, and come in to that new store I have never seen and say hello.

Indianapolis, Ind.

Sept. 7, 1944.

Dear Ben:

Got 224 pages of MS. off to you this morning. What's
left of me will follow Sept. 18th, probably by that early James
Whitcomb Riley train, and with--I hope--concluding three chapte
ters of MS. I usually number pages only by chapter until a thing
is finished, and I didn't realize that this had grown so lengthy.
I've been working day and night, and ought to continue.

Much of Chapter XII is totally unrevised--materials all on
the production line, so to speak, but not assembled, and I
shouldn't have sent it if it hadn't seemed necessary as a stop-
ping-place.

There are some structural problems throughout. I thought
it better to begin with a chapter containing dialogue and some
action, and then to swing back to the stage-setting and the
Birth-Story--i.e. to present Theseus to the reader as a human
being before making it apparent that he was a Mystery-child
with a destiny. I've seen the device used, but don't know whe-
ther it's still in style or not. I could tell more about its
effect on the suspense if I knew whether nine out of ten read-
ers still know that Theseus conquered the Minotaur, and why he
fought it.

Also, at end of Chapter VIII Hermos says that he is going
to make his (i.e. Solon's) proposition to Antiope. Yet during
first several pages of Chapter IX story swings back entirely
to her relations with Theseus, and Hermos does not speak to her
until about the middle of the chapter. Yet, if I follow any oth
er plan, I lose Solon out of the action for rather a long time.

Another problem in IX: I am not satisfied with the way
into which Antiope's reverie--memories of her childhood visit to
the Isle of the Black Stone, etc.--is worked in. I tried five or
six different ways, but hadn't the patience to emulate Anatole
France and try thirty. I am not M. Anatole, and I doubt if even
he would have revised the same passage 30 times during a summer
as hot as this. This bit is meant as general build-up for the
invasion of Attica, and in particular for what Wagner would have
called the Menace-of-Molpadia Motif--it's she who is to kill An-
tiope.

In Chapter VII the problem is more one of psychology
and taste. The marriage-by-capture is bound to be an unpleasant
theme, and the first version I wrote horrified my mother. I
have enclosed just one page of it along with the revised copy.
I liked some of the ideas expressed in it--think them clearer
than anything in the revision, and more original--but of course
they don't dodge the issue as well. To her "honor lay in what
she did, not in what was done to her," and he, from his point of
view, was "making an honest woman" of her. I think there is a

--2--

certain brutal and predatory innocence about him in this episode, but of course the brutality is what sticks out. I prefer to write about mythological characters as sincerely as I can, without either minimizing or exaggerating unpleasant features, but a perfect balance is hard to attain.

However, perhaps you'd rather read MS. "as is" without previous knowledge of my personal perplexities. I'll draw a pen-cil line beside paragraphs on technique.

I do hope you like Antiope--I am very fond of her. She seems to me to have stolen the spotlight from Theseus, but of course in this first third of the tribology she's the real "tragic character"--he only becomes one in later life. If I have been successful in my character-drawing both his strength and his weaknesses should be becoming apparent--the things that will make him great and the things that will pull him down. Thucydides calls him a "king of equal intelligence and power," but it seems to me that the events of his life show him as too much the prey of his own emotions ever to have kept his balance and lived up to that description for very long at a time. He rises higher and falls farther (by his own unaided efforts) than any other figure in Greek mythology.

However, I'm at it again--more of the way I myself feel about the story.

In regard to hotels, my ideal would be a fading, old-ish hotel, centrally located (that saves so many transportation problems), and still too self-respecting to have roaches in the bathtub.

I:30 p.m. My mother just had a letter from the Harrison Hotel--she would write it Monday, though I thought that a place with such ornate ads would be too swell for us. However, the rates are much more reasonable than I'd have expected, and so I am enclosing their letter in this. If you think that that's likely to be as good as we can do, I suppose it would be better if you just 'phoned them and made the reservations. I don't know the hotel at all, but if it's just off Michigan Boulevard I should think it would be an easy place from which to reach your shop. She wrote in my name, but the hotel stenographer has certainly evolved a peculiar version of it--two of them, in fact.

I haven't yet received your bill for last month's books, but am enclosing check for what would be amount if tax is included in the list price.

5.95

16 October 1944

Dear Evangeline:

Thank you for your note -- this can't be an answer, just an
acknowledgment -- because I'm so terribly rushed, as you can
imagine.

I was glad to have your letter about YOUNG THESEUS, but I
haven't had a chance to do anything. Although I am living
here at the shop, and had thought that it would allow me
so much additional time, I find now that every moment is
crowded, although I usually work until 2:00 or 3:00 in the
morning.

However, next week I will get down to Theseus.

All my best to you.

Mrs. Evangeline Walton Ensley
2558 Illinois St.
Indianapolis, Indiana

ba/ws

indeed to autograph copies of my book
for your shop. I received one letter
of yours yesterday--Mr. Jones enclosed
it in one of his. He speaks of having
had another forwarded, but I never
have received it. Possibly my pen-
name 'Walton' confused the post-office
people.

I'm supposed to visit Chicago when
the book comes out--about October 30th;
and I'll telephone you then, unless
you prefer to make the arrangements
earlier, by mail.

With many thanks for your interest
in the book--I certainly share your
hope that you may sell many copies,