179 Clarissa Street
Rochester 8, New York

June 15, 1948

Mr. Carl Van Vechten
101 Central Park West
New York 23, New York

Dear Mr. Van Vechten:

I believe I have already been introduced to you
through Cedric Dover's correspondence with you. He is
as anxious as I am that we become acquainted.

I will be in New York for a week starting Monday
June 21st. Dover gave me a phone number with which I
could contact you. I will call you Tuesday morning and
if I am successful in reaching you, it would be highly
pleasurable to me if we could arrange a meeting some-
time during my week in New York.

The New School
66 West 12th Street
New York 11, New York

October 7th, 1948

Dear Carl:

I want to ask you a tiresome favour arising from the fact that the immigration authorities are being difficult about continuing my visa. The problem is that I have a visitor's visa, and the whole principle of such visas is that their holders are not normally permitted to work in this country. Exceptions are made for educators and actors, but their visas can only be renewed if they continue to work at the same place (which I did not know before).

Therefore if the immigration people wished to be very formal they could now send me back, but they are being very reasonable about it. They will consider renewal if I produce "strong" letters from Fisk and the New School saying that my experience is "unique", which I will of course present to them. I feel though that an additional letter from a solid private citizen with experience in the same field would be useful, as officials often attach more importance to the private recommendation than to one by an employer.

Could you give me such a letter? I should be very grateful - and am sure, since you are so kind, that it will be a masterpiece of overstatement. It should be addressed to the Director, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, New York City, but should be sent to me for personal delivery.

I was at Saranac Inn during the weekend talking to the Librarians Congress about books and authors. The pine-fringed lake, circled by hills carpeted with reds and yellows, was satisfyingly beautiful - and the Inn itself was delightfully old-fashioned and colonial. I suspect that I am a horrible, anti-progressive (or rather anti-progress) feudalist at heart.

On the way there I read a little personal book by Mulk Raj Anand - an old friend who is now India's leading novelist and literary philosopher - entitled APOLOGY FOR HEROISM: an Essay in Search of Faith. I feel you simply must have it and have written for an inscribed copy.

8 Jones Street
New York 14, New York

February 3, 1949

Dear Carlo:

You are so stubborn, I could almost shout at you. Instead,
I mildly insist again (and will go on insisting) that your
selected essays should be reprinted. Such essays keep
the stream of literature flowing, and need to be reprinted
when a new generation has grown up to which they are
<u>quite new</u>. And this fact, if Knopf must be commercial,
apart from the fact that essays are now popular, means
a market as new as when they were first published.

At the same time, I agree with you most emphatically that
NIGGER HEAVEN, which is now literary history, should be
republished - and quickly. I think it needs an intro-
duction now which will relate it to the 'twenties and the
New Negro, and also discuss some of the storms that have
raged round it. It could be noted, too, that essentially
it is still contemporary.

Moreover, I feel that it should be illustrated by some
Negro artist of the "Renaissance", such as Aaron Douglas,
and not some youngster of today. I know there is a
"situation" between Aaron and Knopf, but in so far as
Aaron is concerned I can promise to see that he will
deliver the drawings.

And my new generation argument applies much more forcefully
here. Indeed, it has been proved that, when a new
audience has grown up, a book that has even appeared in
several cheap editions can be a good seller again in a
standard edition.

So please 'phone Knopf right away.

3 ST. PETER'S SQUARE
LONDON W.6

20 April 1951

My dear Carlo,

I am most grateful to you for the exciting new edition of
*Nigger Heaven*, over which I loitered affectionately as I have often
done since I first read the book. The notations gave me two ideas:

(1) it would be valuable if you helped some young man to do a
bibliography of *Nigger Heaven* - editions, translations, major
reviews - with an introduction; (2) if Carl Van Vechten, who is
cussed about these things, refuses to write his autobiography
then the least he can do is to encourage the writing of a biography
- but it needs a mature Writer.

More before long. Let me know if I can do anything here.

3 ST. PETER'S SQUARE

LONDON, W.6.

14 July 1951

Dear Carlo,

I hope my catsities gave you a moment's amusement.

After a fierce struggle with myself, I sent you recently
a somewhat special proof of *Paul Robeson, Negro* for your Yale
Coll. I feel it belongs there, rather than with me.

I also sent (a) the proofs of *Feathers in the Arrow* and
(b) all the production stages of *Brown Phoenix*. If you don't
want them, please be very kind and turn them over to the
Schomburg.

One of these days when you are feeling especially sweet,
and can find cheap copies, please send me (1) the recent reprint
of *Handy's book on the blues*; (2) his autobiography; and (3)
*Mister Jelly Roll* by *Alan Lomax (1950)*.

They won't altogether be gifts: I shall send you things
too. Do you have these Dover-items (v. rare) in the J.W.J. Coll.?
- *The Eurasian Problem; Hell in the Sunshine; Talking to India.*
Negro materials in the last two.

Am doing a symposium on The American Negro for United Asia.

With rhizanths and rogation flowers,

3 ST. PETER'S SQUARE
LONDON, W.6

28 July 1951

Dear Carlo,

There is a note of unhappiness and age in your letter which makes me very sad and worried for you. I do hope you are well - and that your holiday in Haiti will be a bright and wonderful tonic.

Of course, I am disappointed by your refusal: in had looked forward so much to having you in my symposium, which will I think be an important event. Therefore, I am not giving up hope. Perhaps, one day before the end of September, you will suddenly feel in the mood. I was born a Roman Catholic and have never quite lost my early belief in miracles.

With every good wish,

34

Bookman Associates
Inc.

34 EAST 23RD STREET

NEW YORK 10, N. Y.

GRemercy 7-1255

FREDERIC H. YOUNG, S.T.B., PH.D., Editor
Library of Current Philosophy and Religion
JEROME ZEITLIN, Editor
Social Science Books

JOEL E. SALTZMAN, President
JACOB STEINBERG, Managing Editor

A LIBRARY SUGGESTION

From

Cedric Dover

I feel I should let you know that my friends, Bookman Associates, will publish on November 1, 1952 a definitive edition, selected by the author before his death, of the poems of Claude McKay, with a long foreword by John Dewey. We all know Claude McKay as the leader of the revolt in Negro literature, but this book will also establish him, I am sure, as one of the great American lyric poets. It is an event of primary importance, which will survive as an enduring memorial to a great coloured man and the people who inspired him. I regard it as a privilege for me to bring it to your attention.

P.S. Attached is an order form.

CEDRIC DOVER

BOOKMAN ASSOCIATES Inc.
34 East 23rd Street
New York 10, N.Y.
U.S.A.

Please send me copies of the SELECTED POEMS OF CLAUDE MCKAY at $2.75 per copy, post free.

Name

Address

CEDRIC DOVER

3 ST. PETER'S SQUARE

LONDON, W.6

8 June 1956

My dear Carlo,

I have not heard from you for such a long time. Sometime ago I sent you a book which came back marked "Gone away", while my special card for your 75th birthday and my Christmas card were even more distressingly marked "Return to Sender". I was very worried, but Harold Jackman has relieved my mind by telling me that the only mystery was that you had moved. I also had good news from Arna Bontemps saying that you were well and that I simply must read FRAGMENTS.

There is to be a World Negro Conference (largely cultural) in Paris this September, which will be preceded by an exhibition and a ball here in Paris, with which I am much mixed up. It occurs to me that if you would care to send me a collection of photographs (mounting and framing can be done here) of famous Negroes, including some of the non-American ones, it would be wonderful for the exhibitions here and in Paris; and thereafter it can be quite frequently exhibited on other occasions. A photograph of yourself/would, of course, be essential in such a collection.

Over the years I have sent various oddments for the James Weldon Johnson Collection and have more to send. Is there a published catalogue of the Collection?

With love and every good wish,

["THE STUDIO", "17A THE BUTTS", "BRENTFORD", "MIDDLESEX", "4 May 1959", "Dear Carlo,", "I write to share an excitement with you: I have just signed a contract with the leading British art publishers to deliver by mid-October the text and pictures of a book on American Negro Art. There will be four coloured plates and fifty half-tone plates (10 x 7"), a few with two pictures; and I feel that this is an opportunity to do something really good.", "Naturally, you will be in this book, but I should like to make certain that I do you justice. Therefore, I should be grateful for articles, press-cuttings and catalogues (which I will return promptly) which will enlarge my understanding of your encouragement of Negro artists; and also for photographs of works you specially like, particularly if they are in your own collection or donated by you.", "Your advice, accompanied by a stern threat never to speak to me again if I do not include certain works, would put me further in your debt.", "I have sent you by surface mail a souvenir of the new Stratford Othello with Paul Robeson and Sam Wanamaker.", "With every good wish,"]

THE STUDIO

17A THE BUTTS

BRENTFORD

MIDDLESEX

17 May 1959

Dear Carlo,

Thank you very much for your letter. You are most kind and I
am deeply grateful.

With regard to your encouragement of Negro artists I was not
thinking so much of what you had written directly about them, but
about the climate of opinion you helped to create and the practical
help you have given in so many ways. However, I know a little more
than the outline and my spies will help to fill in the details.

I am eager to include photographs of the following artists in
the book: H. O. Tanner, Sargent Johnson, N. Elizabeth Prophet,
Archibald Motley, Aaron Douglas, Hale Woodruff, Horace Pippin,
Augusta Savage, Richmond Barthé, James Porter, Eldzier Cortez, Jacob
Lawrence, Beauford Delaney, Hughie Lee-Smith, Selma Burke and Geoffrey
Holder. Also Alain Locke.

I have, or can get, these photographs, but it would thrill me
particularly if they could all, or nearly all, be yours. The
collection would emphasise your photographic documentation of the
Negro - and this has been a long labour of love which I would certainly
like to emphasise.

I do not know Geoffrey Holder's work, so any photographs you
can send me of his paintings, including your Voodoo ceremony, will
be very useful. Indeed, any photographs you send me of paintings
and sculpture will be welcome, for even if I do have one or two from
other sources I would be happier using yours. I do not have
photographs of any of the sculpture of Selma Burke, or of the
paintings of Richmond Barthé, Ellis Wilson, Hughie Lee-Smith,
Romare Bearden and Beauford Delaney - the last two were rather
neglected by the Harmon and in the books by Locke and Porter.

With every good wish,