THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON A COOPERATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
(Professor Robert E. Spiller) reports as follows;

After the acceptance of its report of December, 1939, by the American Lit-
erature Group at the New Orleans meeting of the Modern Language Association,
your Committee on a Cooperative History of American Literature, composed of
Professors Bradley, Canby, Rusk, Spiller and Williams, was reappointed by
Chairman Wilt and enlarged by the addition of Professors Boynton (Chicago),
Jones (Harvard), Hubbell (Duke), and Wright (Huntington Library). Although it
has been unable to hold meetings during the past year because of the wide
Geographical distribution of its membership, much has been accomplished by
correspondence and conferences.

Perhaps the greatest gain of the year is the spread of interest in the
project among Group members and scholars in allied fields. Among the more im-
portant of such discussions are the symposium in the November issue of American
Literature, the papers which were presented at the English Institute meeting
in New York last September, several of which will soon be published in the
English Institute Annual, 1940, and the program on literary history which is
planned for the Cambridge meeting of the M.L.A. in December. When the project
is formally launched, it will have the advantage of much preliminary thought by
most of those who are likely to be concerned with it. A cooperative history
would not be successful unless it won the support of practically all those who
are engaged in studies in the field of American letters, whether members of the
Group or not.

In its December, 1939, report, the Committee outlined a skeleton plan as a
basis for further study and negotiation. This report proposed that, in from five
to ten years from its inception, a history be compiled in ten volumes by the
cooperative efforts of Group members and other qualified scholars, and that a
supplementary survey history in from one to three volumes and a bibliography
in like form be included in the set, making a total of twelve to sixteen volumes,
three distinct works in one. It also proposed that the editorial direction of
the work be undertaken by a small board and that the set be issued on contract
with a publisher of established reputation. Although the Committee asked for and
received authorization at New Orleans to make business arrangements and to start
the work of compilation, it has refrained from so doing because of increasing
evidence that much time is needed to bring the thought of so many persons to
focus on a problem of such scope. An editorial policy which is adequately repre-
sentative of the thought and work in contemporary American Literary scholarship
cannot be settled hastily or by a small group. On the other hand, there seemed
little use in discussing theories of literary history unless the compilation
and publication of a cooperative, multi-volume survey of the field could be
proved to be practically possible. The Committee has therefore devoted its
efforts to accumulating data on this problem.

All of the following proposals and plans should be regarded as tentative
because they depend to such a great extent upon the personnel which is entrusted
with the responsibility of carrying the project through, and the tenure of the
Committee is on an annual appointive basis. They should also be regarded as
subject to modification in the light of later developments. They represent a
way in which the History might be made a reality; there may be other equally
satisfactory ways.

1. **PRELIMINARY RESEARCH:** When a satisfactory editorial policy has been determined and the persons selected to carry it out, the first practical problem to be faced will be the planning and subsidizing of a program of research which would enable recognized scholars to devote time to fresh studies and younger scholars to undertake tasks which must be accomplished before the History could make any pretense at completeness. The Committee has made a preliminary exploration of this problem and is ready to report that one of the larger foundations would give consideration to a request for a total fellowship fund of $25,000 to $50,000 to be devoted to making possible one-year leaves of absence for ten to twenty scholars over a period of five to ten years. If this request

is granted and the plan put into successful operation, it could be supplemented
by fellowships awarded to individuals by other foundations, by societies, by
libraries, and by universities having such funds at their disposal. Several
inquiries along these lines have met with cordial response. Any such funds
should probably be administered by a special Committee on Awards representing
the History through its Editorial Board, the Group through its Advisory Council,
and other interested bodies, including those which provide the funds.

2. LOCATION OF HEADQUARTERS AND MEETING: Meetings of editorial and administrative bodies and the contributors to the several volumes should, as far as possible, be held at one or at most two centers. Editorial headquarters would require offices for the Editor-in-Chief, the Managing Editor and two secretaries, a small conference room for the Editorial Board, working space for contributors, and the resources of a great library. The Committee is happy to report that the Librarian of Congress has extended an informal invitation to the History to establish working headquarters in the new Annex of the Library and to occupy two air-conditioned study-rooms in that building, and would be glad to consider a request for additional space to be provided if available. One of the publishers who has become interested in the project suggests similar facilities. Those two possibilities, together with one or two others which have been investigated less thoroughly, would seem to make the problem of location capable of satisfactory solution.

3. RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BIBLIOGRAPHY: If the headquarters of the History
is located at the Library of Congress, it would be desirable to move the W.P.A.
Bibliography of American Literature, now being compiled at the University of
Pennsylvania, to Washington, and to continue it under its present direction
in cooperation with the directors of the History. Preliminary study of this
possibility has been made and there seem to be no insuperable difficulties.
The Librarian of Congress is cordial to the idea, if the necessary space can
be found, and the directors of the project are not unwilling to consider the
possibility of the move, especially if it would mean assured and continued
financial support after completion. If a move proves impossible, a system of
duplicate cards of completed entries might prove desirable.

4. EDITORIAL EXPENSES: The Committee proposes that the Editors receive compensation for their work, and that the traveling expenses of Committees and others connected with the project be paid. Either the Managing Editor or the Editor-in-Chief should be on full time, the other Editors probably on half time or less. It proposes compensation to contributors by a prorata sum per word or page, either in a single payment or on a royalty basis; and the employment of two full time secretaries. It is impossible to estimate the exact sum necessary for those expenses, or how much might be covered by expected revenue from the sale of the History and how much from subsidy. The experience of similar projects would suggest that the subsidy should be in at least six figures, even if the costs of publication are more than paid by the sale of the sets. The problem of raising the necessary funds for editorial expenses cannot be solved until the terms of the publishing contract are settled. The Committee has made some exploration of the possibility of private subsidy without success to date, but has refrained from approaching any foundation with a request until the organization of the History and method of publication are determined.

5. PUBLICATION: At least five publishers have, on their own initiative, studied the Committee's reports and seriously considered undertaking the work. Of these, two have made tentative proposals, and a third will probably do so in the near future. The directors of the History will have the problem of choosing rather than of discovering a suitable publisher. The two proposals so far submitted are almost equally optimistic and differ in principles of procedure rather than in liberality of terms. In the first, the publisher deals with the

directors as it would with an individual and assumes no responsibility for the preparation of the manuscript. The proposal is in terms of a normal royalty contract with liberal provision for advance royalties and an outright subsidy of $10,000. The directors would be responsible for raising a subsidy sufficient to cover editorial expenses, but returns from sales would pay for contributions and would cover the costs of production and marketing. In the second proposal, the publisher would assume financial responsibility for the project as a whole, including the raising of a subsidy for editorial expenses, but attempts no itemized estimate of costs. (Since making this suggestion, the publisher in question has expressed doubt of his ability to confirm it at this time.) Both are publishers of established reputation with reserves sufficient to guarantee any contract they might sign. Both are equipped to produce and market a set of books which would meet high standards of quality and design. With these two proposals, and probably a third, in hand even though unconfirmed, the problem of publication should not in itself present difficulties, and its solution might even solve the problem of subsidy. It should be noted that both these publishers recognize the need for a long period of research and preparation before a manuscript can be submitted, and are more interested in publishing an enduring work than in pushing for immediate production and sales.

6. THE NEXT STEP: The Committee has informally approached the American Council of Learned Societies with the proposal that a conference to make plans for the History be held at the expense of that organization and that a small subsidy be allowed to cover current expenses during the period of planning. As several of the officers of the Council are interested in the project and there is a small fund for such purposes, this request, if made formally, might meet with a favorable reception. It will be necessary, however, for the Committee to meet and to prepare a special report to the Advisory Council of the Group before it can present a definite recommendation. This special report should be ready for the Cambridge meeting in December.

articles, which might be doubled in number if all the notes on American speech and all the printings of folk tales and ballads were included. In Group VI, General, there were listed 75 articles, of which many are valuable, on many phases of American literature. In this compilation over 200 periodicals were checked, and each article relating to American literature was read and an analysis was made. Nearly every listed article received an analytical comment indicating its contents and importance. This compilation, therefore, is more than a mere check-list, but an annotated bibliography by scholars in American literature.

In the publishing of "Research in Progress" and of "Articles on American Literature" in the quarterly issues of *American Literature* we were ably assisted by Professors Hubbell and Clarence Gohdes, and by Dr. David K. Jackson.

The third compilation was that of the "American Literature" section of the "American Bibliography," published in the annual supplement of PMIA. This is an annotated bibliography of the scholarly publications in the field. It differs from the "Articles on American Literature" by including monographs and books, by restricting the items to Americans and Canadians, by excluding folk-lore, and by being selective rather than inclusive. In the last compilation -- that for 1939 -- 216 articles, monographs, and books were listed. Since few articles and books about American literature are now being published abroad, this bibliography in PMIA approaches a complete bibliography of American literature. It receives the editorial scrutiny of Dr. Percy W. Long.

These various listings can be made more complete and accurate by your making suggestions for improvement and by sending in items for listing.

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES FOR RESEARCH (Professor Thomas O. Mabbott, Chairman) reports as follows:

Our committee is happy to report that the appeal for Longfellow correspondence met with a good response. In this connection, it may seem an obvious thing to say, but it might be well to recall that the work of scholars is rarely complete and that members of our group should be on the watch for further uncor copies manuscripts relating to all authors of importance, and should remember that in cases where it is not possible to obtain a photographic reproduction, a careful transcript is worth making, even of a document that seems at present hardly important enough to print.

There are two important problems of index-making still to be thought of. One is an index of texts of letters, poems, etc., given fully or in part in unpublished theses. The second is of documents printed only in dealers' catalogues. While some of the last may not be models of accuracy, they are often better than nothing at all.

We regret that forgers are busy, and scholars should be on their guard, not only against forgeries of manuscripts but even of small printed books. This sort of thing is already too well known in American literature. On the other hand, the present unhappy state of the world should remind us of the value of legitimate reproductions of books of importance that seem to be known in only one copy.

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRINTED MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE (Professor Sculley Bradley) reported as follows:

The Bibliography of American Literature in August, 1940, completed its second year of joint sponsorship by the Federal Records Survey of the Works Progress Administration and the University of Pennsylvania. Until July 1 there were from fifty-five to sixty workers employed, and Mr. Edward H. O'Neill has been giving his full time to the editorial supervision. In July and August the staff was considerably reduced as a measure of government economy, but the project has since been restored to full strength.

Although it is estimated that not more than one-third of the task has been accomplished, the project is nevertheless making satisfactory progress. The author list now includes approximately 10,000 names. The number of bibliographical items on file August 1, 1940 was 652,804, an increase of 387,000 items during the year. All the published bibliographies available in the Library of the University of Pennsylvania have been broken down and classified. Meanwhile the analysis of periodicals has resulted in the complete examination of 1950 volumes of 147 different magazines, from which all bibliographical data has been culled. This work has resulted so far in bringing 516 different author bibliographies to an advanced stage of completeness. While no single bibliography can be regarded as complete until all available sources have been examined, it is believed that a large proportion of these bibliographies are already larger than any lists previously compiled. These indexes are available in their present form for the use of qualified scholars and many have already been given access to the files or assisted through correspondence.

Since the resources of the Library of the University of Pennsylvania will be exhausted within the next year it has been planned to establish small groups of trained workers in other libraries in the Philadelphia area where valuable periodical files exist, beginning with the Philadelphia Free Library, the Mercantile Library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Plans are being considered to extend the survey beyond the Philadelphia area as soon as that has been exhausted. Either the Library of Congress or the New York Public Library will be selected when means are available.

The burden of the editorial work falls heavily on the shoulders of Mr. O'Neill, and the project could be measurably accelerated and improved by the addition of one or two trained assistants expert in the fields of American studies. To this end the A. C. L. S. has been asked for a grant of funds, and the matter has been referred by the Executive Committee of that body to a committee for study. Dr. Leland has recently made a personal visit to the project in order to acquaint himself with its progress and merits.

Your committee feels that this project is making satisfactory progress and has already achieved a very useful accomplishment. In making this report we would ask that a committee of the Group be continued to act in an advisory capacity with Mr. O'Neill and to represent the official concern of the American Literature Group in this valuable work.

to work, or a machine had become immobilized in heavy ground, or
a horse had lamed himself. Once, even, toward noon, an entire
plough was taken out of the line, so out of gear that a
messenger had to be sent to the division forge to summon the
machinist.

Annixter had disappeared. He had ridden farther on to the
other divisions of his ranch, to watch the work in progress

ENGLISH INSTITUTE
1940
Discussion Group on Literary History

**The Problem:** Points of view and techniques of literary history, with special reference to the cooperative History of American Literature proposed by the American Literature Group of the Modern Language Association.

(May literature be treated in terms of historical evolution and development? What part should aesthetic judgment play in such treatment? Should literature be regarded as the expression and documentation of cultural evolution, or should cultural factors be considered as the sources and backgrounds of literature? What techniques may be used for organizing a body of literature for chronological and evolutionary study?)

**First Session: Literary Forms and Types**

(What is a literary type and what determines it? Are there four main types (fiction, poetry, drama, essay), with sub-types, or are there an indefinite number of types? What problems arise when literary history is written by types? What treatment should be given the versatile many-type author? The influence of fashion and the life-cycle of a type.)

**Second Session: Literary Movements and Periods**

(What is a literary movement and what determines it? Are there only two, romanticism and classicism? Are such movements as sentimentality, realism, naturalism, etc. independent of these classifications or were subdivisions? How may a movement be described and dated? The problem of overlapping and coincidental movements. Movements as determinants of chronological periods.)

**Third Session: The Problem of Greatness**

(What determines the hierarchy of authors and works of literature? Does greatness confer a degree of immunity from the historical process? Should the major author be treated in full and alone; the minor authors grouped into schools? Psychology and aesthetics as aids in measuring greatness. Is there any validity in the "Belles lettres" hypothesis?)

**Fourth Session: Social Forces and Backgrounds**

(Can the history of literature be written in terms of social, political, and economic evolution? Is all literature basically social and cult related documentation? Or is literature a phase of evolution capable of autonomous treatment with reference to social evolution as background or cause? What techniques may be used for relating literature to social factors? Is there a fundamental conflict between this treatment & aesthetic judgment?)

**Fifth Session: Intellectual Forces and Backgrounds**

(Can the history of literature be written in terms of the history of ideas? Is literature basically intellectual documentation? Or may literature be treated historically with reference to intellectual "atmosphere" and development as background and cause? What techniques may be used for relating literature to philosophical and psychological factors? Is there a fundamental conflict between this treatment and aesthetic judgment?)

A Plan for the new collaborative MLA

Suggested by Harry Hayden Clark

The Problem: How to secure balance, proportion, and integrated unity in a
complete collaborative history of American literature as it relates to (a) the
American environment and the social history of America, (b) European cultural
influences, (c) the personalities of the literary artists and the quality of
their literary forms, and (d) the history of ideas vs judicial evaluation of
belles lettres.

How can the new History be made superior to the _Cambridge History of American Literature_ (CHAL) and other histories?

A. General:

1. With twenty volumes, the new History will have some four times as much _space_ for the full development of the subject.

2. By working out through thorough discussion a comprehensive and carefully articulated plan, the American Literature Group of the MLA can give this History a _unity_ lacking in the _CHAL_.

3. The History will be the first major work to draw upon and be integrated with the exhaustive _Bibliography_ now being prepared by Dr. O'Neill and his helpers.

4. This History can be _documented_, succinctly but precisely, so as to render its conclusions more convincing than those of the relatively undocumented _CHAL_.

5. It can make an important contribution by an analysis of the mass of writing which has been done in the quarter of a century since the _CHAL_ appeared.

6. This History can be not only descriptive but explanatory, showing _why_ various doctrines developed by interpreting them "in the light of the basic assumptions and points of view dominant in other fields of speculation at the time."

7. It can take advantage of a great many studies of the vogue and influence of European authors and ideas in America, and thus substitute for a provincial and chauvinistic approach one that is cosmopolitan and possessed of a broader perspective.

8. It can strive for balance in treating with precision not only ideas but also literary forms -- matters of structure, pattern, prosody, etc. -- as well as literary theory and criticism on which the _CHAL_ was deplorably weak.

-2-

B. The partially conflicting claims of the social historians and the literary aesthetes can be met by recognizing two levels of our literature, following the accepted doctrine of Coleridge, De Quincey, and Emerson:

1. The "literature of knowledge," written to convey information or to win logical assent as a means of furthering some practical purpose.
(Examples: The Federalist Papers; Progress and Poverty.) This literature, vast in bulk, being strongly conditioned by social and political and environmental factors, can best be interpreted in the stream of social and intellectual history, and judged by what Arnold called "the historical estimate," that is, relative to time and place.

(a) The new History can far surpass the *CHAL* in dealing fully with Puritanism and The Enlightenment (1607-1809), two fields in which scholarship during the last twenty-five years has made great progress.
(Cp. Perry Miller's *N.E.Mind*, and the recent studies of "scientific" Deism, political theories, and the Revolution.)

(b) By assigning a committee composed of social historians and literary historians to discuss and arrive at an integrated interpretation of the writing culminating in each of a succession of social or political crises, such as Independence, Abolition, etc., much of this "literature of knowledge" can be placed in its natural historical context and viewed with proper perspective.

(c) Such a method should give the work necessary flexibility. For example, if regionalists such as Eggleston and Garland say that their work is an illustration of Taine's doctrine that literature is determined by time, place, and race, and that they are providing a segment of social history, they can be interpreted in the light of such history.

(d) Since the drama as a form is dependent upon the approval of large social groups whose taste it reflects, the sections on the social history and literature of each period might include a chapter on the drama.

(e) The frank recognition of the claims of "Understanding" as well as the higher "Reason," of the qualities proper to the genre of ordered argument, should help to eliminate the capricious treatment and condescension which social historians find distasteful among so many literary historians and judicial aesthetes. The theories underlying such writing can be ascertained, as well as the social effectiveness of the writers in practising these theories.

2. The "literature of power," possessed of a partially-inexplicable "quickening" quality acting on the reader's emotions or spirit, to be judged by what Arnold called "the real estimate," that is, in the light of universal standards transcending time and place. Examples: Emerson's *American Scholar*; Hawthorne's *Marble Faun*.

(a) While the "literature of knowledge" can best be treated in broad periods and movements focused on a succession of "causes" or "crises" which stirred the masses, this higher "literature of power" can be

-3-

best approached by isolating the individual masters and studying
in genetic manner the articulated growth of each man's mind and
art. There might be 25 to 30 such full-length studies. Models:
C. H. Faust's *Edwards*; Margaret Alterton and Hardin Craig's *Poe*;
McDowell's *Bryant*.

(b) Since the higher reaches of artistic inspiration are inexplicable, the environmental and cultural factors being common to great multitudes of men while only a few "elect" produce great literary art, this division of the subject should begin with the consideration of a third factor beyond the American environment and European culture (too deterministic a concept): the personality of the artist. What light can biography and psychology cast on that margin which distinguishes him from his mediocre contemporaries?

(c) In these special individuals put under a microscope, we should follow the trail of their thought wherever it leads, recording inductively the *genetic inter-relations* and logical articulation of political, religious, social, and literary ideas, their sequence, and the manner in which they are modified by the impact of current political and social events, experience, and reading.

(d) In these genetic studies of individuals, special attention should be devoted to elaborating the development and logical articulation of each man's *literary and aesthetic doctrines* and aims, including changes of view, in order that at first he may be interpreted and appreciated sympathetically in the light of his own peculiar and perhaps unique ideals.

(e) Considerable attention should be devoted, in these genetic studies, to *craftsmanship and form*, prosody, etc., as a means of balancing the excessive tendency to stress "the history of ideas." In the case of all the acknowledged artistic masterpieces, what qualities made them live? Suggested model: G. W. Allen's *American Prosody*.

(f) Finally, after having striven for historical explanation and sym-
pathetic interpretation, this History will have provided a necessary
basis for judicial evaluation of these master-artists. This evaluatic
should be not relative but absolute, based on universal standards
embodied in literature which has endured from the Greeks down; and
it should render a verdict not merely on individual poems and essays,
but on the worth of the man as a whole, considering both his ideas
and his art and his total contribution. Such criticism can perhaps
be conducted with the least offensiveness by the method of inductive
comparison and contrast with parallel world figures. The History
will conclude, then, with an analysis of that small apex of our
literary pyramid which transcends nationality and reaches a level
with the masters of other times and lands.

-4-

C. **Subsidiary Studies:** While occasional attention will naturally be given to the following subjects in the studies already outlined, individual volumes can well be devoted to unified chronological surveys of:

1. The History of the English Language in America (as it relates to literature, with special emphasis on regionalism and dialects).

2. The History of American Taste, Literary Theories, Parallel Developments in other Arts, and the role of schools and colleges in providing a reading public of changing intellectual levels. (Since the literary theories of the 25 masters will be included in the genetic studies devoted to them, this volume would be primarily concerned with a survey of the taste and aesthetic theories of the two hundred odd intermediate critics and theorists -- such as Henry Tuckerman, E. P. Whipple, H. H. Boyesen, etc. -- who have been neglected, as well as with a survey of "rhetorics" which inculcated various standards of taste and usage. Much attention should be devoted to essays and book reviews in the magazines, as studied by F. L. Mott, considered as indexes to changing tastes and as markets and incentives for writers. Some attention should also be devoted to writers on art and relatively "pure" aesthetics such as William Dunlap, Washington Allston, J. J. Jarves, W. W. Story, W. J. Stillman, William Knight, John Bascom, C. E. Norton, and George Santayana.)

3. The History of Religions in America, combining the different religious education of the masses, the Sunday School movement, theological controversies including those involving science, and the changing philosophies of the elect.

4. American Social History and Literary History. (A succinct survey serving to focus and summarize environmental factors, and the emergence of a distinct nationalism.)

5. A survey of European influences, media of operation, etc. Classical, Mediaeval, English, German, French, and Spanish. (2 volumes)

Oh, dear, dear me.

There was an old woman, as I've heard tell,
She went to market her eggs for to sell;
She went to market all on a market day,
And she fell asleep on the King's highway.

There came a pedlar, whose name was Stout--
He cut her petticoats all round about;
He cut her petticoats up to the knees,
Which made the old woman to shiver and freeze.

When this little woman first did wake,
She began to shiver and shake,
She began to wonder and she began to cry,
"Oh! deary, deary me, this is none of I!

"But if it be I, as I do hope it be,
I have a little dog at home, and he'll know me;
If it be I, he'll wag his little tail,
And if it be not I, he'll loudly bark and wail."

Home went the little woman all in the dark;
Up got the little dog, and he geban to bark;
He began to bark, so she began to cry,
"Oh! deary, deary me, this is none of I!"

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE
SWARTHMORE, PA.
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

August 31, 1940

Dear Mr. Pearson:

We are counting on you for
the Literary History Program of the English
Institute on September 10th.

I imagine that you have
already made arrangements for your board
and lodging during your stay. I shall
arrive on Monday and stay through the week
probably in Livingston. I hope that you
will be able to attend the later sessions
of the conference so that discussion may
be cumulative.

Mr. Norman Holmes Pearson

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

April 17, 1940

Dear Mr. Pearson:

I have put you down for the first (Tuesday) session of the English Institute section on Literary History. You will probably be followed the next day by Professor Wellek, then by Thorp, Warfel, and H.H.Clark. Your topic will be "Literary Forms and Types."

Personally I am not interested in whether you are officially connected with Yale University or not. If you are not, you probably have more time to think. But I shall not list you as a graduate student. It is enough, I think, merely to give your address as New Haven, Conn.

As I shall probably take about twenty minutes or a half hour of the first session to discuss the topic of the conference as a whole, there will not be much more than a half hour for discussion after your paper, assuming that you too take a half hour. I hope that you will be able to stay throughout the week and attend the other sessions. Your topic is probably the least controversial of the lot as it deals with one of the more or less traditional methods of literary history. I think of the first two topics mainly as providing background for later discussion.

Professor Rudolf Kirk of Rutgers, the Secretary of the Institute, can provide you with information about the practical details of, the Institute; time, place, costs, etc.

Need I add that I am delighted that you can participate?

Professor Norman Holmes Pearson

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

March 30, 1940

Dear Mr. Pearson:

I enclose a provisional outline of the discussion planned for the Literary History Group of the English Institute which meets at Columbia University during the week following Labor Day. Could you assist me with one of the sessions by presenting the problem in the form of a half-hour paper or informal discussion and by conducting the subsequent debate?

Columbia University offers dormitory rooms and meals at lowest cost and most of the participants will, we hope, stay throughout the week. As the Institute is more intimate and more leisurely than an M.L.A. convention, much more real thinking is done.

Both exact dates and topics are as yet somewhat uncertain. If you would indicate which of the sessions you would prefer to lead, I may be able to accommodate your wishes, although I suspect that I shall be looking for someone to do the second.

Professor Norman Pearson

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

PHILADELPHIA

THE COLLEGE

October 2, 1948

English Language
and Literature

Professor Norman H. Pearson
Department of English
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Norman:

Your characteristically helpful letter makes me want to send you everything in our files, but that in itself would not be a friendly response. I think your approach to the problem is excellent and far more than any of us had hoped for. Stanley, of course, has, or perhaps I better say had, all the material that you would want in his files, but I am enclosing, as you suggest, some of the instructions that we sent to contributors. If you need more information, let me know.

It may, however, help you to know the editorial steps we took
between 1940 and 1948.

1. The Editorial Board of four was constituted.

2. The three associates were appointed.

3. The Editorial Board, with occasional visits from one or more of the associates, met for week-end conferences on the average of once every six weeks for a year to thrash out the philosophy, the content, the organization, and the procedure. The editors and associates chose the chapters which they wished to write themselves, totaling about one quarter of the book.

5. Contributors were invited, not so much as specialists in the field of the chapter, but because of their demonstrated mastery of that kind of material and their demonstrated ability to communicate what they had to say to the general intelligent public.

6. Upon acceptance of the invitation, each contributor was supplied with a summary of the topics he was to deal with in his chapter and a list of writers who might logically come up for discussion. He was allowed complete freedom in his opinions on these topics and full right to include or exclude any writers as his chapter seemed to him to require.

Professor Norman H. Pearson

October 2, 1948

Page Two

7. Each contributor set his own deadline within a progressive schedule. When his chapter was received, it was sent for editorial criticism to the seven editors and associates. Individual criticisms were assumed to be confidential and the contributor received only the chairman's digest and recommendations.

8. The contributor was asked to revise his chapter in the light of these recommendations if he saw fit to do so. Moral compulsion was the only form used. When the revised chapter was returned to the chairman, it was again circulated for criticism, but this time only to the four editors. The chairman then proceeded to edit the chapter as occasion required, sometimes very lightly, sometimes drastically.

9. The chapter was then returned to the contributor and he was asked to approve it in its final form. All but one of the fifty-five accepted their fate with varying degrees of grace and a special arrangement made it possible to use the chapter of the recalcitrant gentleman. Our score was then 99 and 44/100 percent.

10. The manuscript was then considered to be in final form and was processed through publication by the editorial board.

We had hoped at the beginning that it would be possible to take advantage of the varying gifts of knowledge of a wide variety of people without sacrificing the fundamental unity attainable in the work of a single writer. You can judge better than we to what extent we have succeeded.

RES:sid

LITERARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Information for Contributors

March 27, 1943

A. General Principles

1. This work is a collaboration by a group of historical critics; not a collection of monographs by specialists. Its primary purpose is to bring to the intelligent general reader the best of modern scholarship in American literary history in a unified and interesting account. If scholarly standards are to be maintained, the result should also be of value to the specialized student. The text should be written in clear, rapid English, and should be accurate in fact and fair in judgment. American literary history is interesting, and this work must be interesting throughout.

2. Literary history is defined as the description and evaluation of those writings which, for their merit as expressions of experience, are worthy of preservation. It is history in that such writings are arranged and accounted for in their historical contexts. It is American in that the experience counted must have its roots within what is now the United States. The planning of the book has proceeded from the writings of major authors, to those of minor authors, to intellectual, social and circumstantial factors in so far as they determined the form and content of such writings. Chronology as such is subordinate.

3. The outline reverses this procedure, furnishing short chapters on the intellectual, social and circumstantial factors, followed by longer chapters on groups of minor authors and on major authors, all within books concluding with short chapters of summary in which the literary taste and other aspects of the period are defined. The work as a whole reaches two climactic points: that of the mid-nineteenth century group of major authors and that of the immediate past and the present.

B. Analysis

In general, the work contains five types of chapters as follows:

1. Intellectual and social history (patterns of culture): These chapters are short and attempt to describe the dominant ideas and the patterns of culture in which the literature was produced. They are not chapters on intellectual and social history as such, but only with reference to the literature.

2. Instruments of literary culture: These chapters also are short and are supplementary to the above. They attempt to describe the cultural instruments which gave shape to the form and content of the literature. These include such cultural agencies as church, forum and school, and agencies like the press, library, copyright laws, etc. which brought the author into touch with his reader.

3. Major authors: These are the longest and most important chapters in the work. They attempt well rounded interpretations and evaluations of authors in their historical contexts. Critical criteria are traditional and broad, and are not dominated by doctrinaire ideologies. There is in each chapter an opening section which attempts to place the author in the literature of his time and to provide a transition from the preceding chapters. This is followed by a bio-

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graphical account which deals only with those materials directly connected with the author's work. This is followed by a critical evaluation of the major and minor works of the author's work as a whole.

4. **Minor authors:** These chapters group minor authors in terms of their place as groups, or as otherwise related to each other, in our literary history. Each of them has a dominant theme of organization. Critical criteria are less closely applied to the work of individuals and biographical facts are less detailed than in the case of major authors; literary forms and movements are given more emphasis.

5. **Summary:** Each book concludes with a short chapter which attempts to draw together and interpret all the above in terms of the literary taste of the period.

### C. Terms

1. Contributions from whatever source will be accepted only upon written invitation of the editorial board and will be paid for in terms of the manuscript requested rather than of that submitted or of that accepted for publication. Each contributor will receive, upon publication of the work, one cent per word for his contribution; if and when the work has earned a total of $20,000 in royalties or subsidies, he will receive an additional one cent per word; if and when the work has earned a total of $30,000 in royalties or subsidies, he will receive an additional one cent per word, making a total of three cents per word for his contribution. No further payments will be made.

2. Contributors will be guided in advance by the editors, who will suggest, in the interest of general unity, certain desired approaches to the assigned topic and certain desired materials to be discussed. Contributors should feel free to express their own judgments and convictions. The editors may reject a requested manuscript without compensation to its author only if it fails to fulfill agreed specifications as to approximate length, topics discussed and materials considered. If the manuscript fulfills these requirements, it will be provisionally accepted for incorporation in the over-all plan of the work.

3. As the unity of a book is both more important and more difficult of achievement than that of a magazine, a greater degree of flexibility in editing the text is necessary. In most cases, the editors and contributors will have to collaborate on revisions and rewritings of manuscripts after they have been accepted in first draft. These changes may even include the reorganization of material within a chapter or the lifting of parts of a chapter for incorporation in other parts of the book. Opening and closing sections of all chapters will be revised in the interest of providing logical transitions from one chapter to the next. If a contributor, after full discussion, objects to the changes which the editors deem necessary or desirable in the interest of the work as a whole, he may refuse publication and receive, when the work is issued, half of the minimum fee (i.e. a total of one half cent per word) for his manuscript as previously agreed, but nothing further. Contributions will not be signed, but a list of contributors, with a key to the parts which each is responsible, will be included in the work.

4. A selective bibliographical essay, to be prepared by the editors, will be included in the second volume of the work (see Memorandum attached on Bibliography). This essay will have its own organization and will not follow the pattern of the text. Each contributor is asked to supply, with his manuscript, a minimum list of books and articles (preferably on 3" X 5" cards) which, in his judgment, should be mentioned in this essay, and to cooperate with the edi-

Lawrenceville, New Jersey

29 March 1944

Dear

Now that chapter assignments for the History have been completed and many contributors will be starting work upon them shortly, I am sending a brief memorandum regarding the bibliographical aid which contributors may render. This supersedes all former instructions.

1. The estimated 250-page bibliography will not follow the chapter pattern, and bibliographical information therefore which contributors supply need not follow a set procedure beyond the very desirable routine of listing all titles on standard 3x5 filing cards, with a separate card for each entry.

2. The bibliography will be selective rather than inclusive, and designed for the graduate student in the field as well as for the inquiring lay reader. The information to be serviceable should include the following:

(a) An annotated listing of critical and source material pertinent to the chapter. Each card, in addition to factual data, should carry a phrase or sentence on the use or worth of the item.

(b) An annotated listing, where appropriate, of collected and other editions of the works of individual authors, indicating their usefulness, availability, etc.

3. A short account would also be useful of the location and availability of manuscript material. To what extent has it been competently studied or used? And a sentence or two, where desirable, regarding desiderata within the limits of the chapter would be of assistance to serve students whose interests might thus be guided and stimulated.

Do not hesitate to send as much bibliographical information as you wish. The more than can be assembled the better, particularly when it is critically annotated.

Please forward this material, when assembled, directly to me.

Third Memorandum to Contributors, November 6, 1944

REPORT ON CONFERENCES

Conferences. Four conferences have been held within the past six months, and all but five or six contributors have attended at least one or have conferred with the editors personally. Two of these conferences were held in New York City, one in New Haven, and one in Princeton. No further conferences are planned for the present, but an informal gathering of such contributors as attend the MLA meeting at Christmas may be possible. When almost all of the manuscript is in hand, the editors may wish to call a final conference for advice on its organization.

No major changes in policy, plan, or outline resulted from these conferences, but many points were clarified and elaborated in detail, and a few chapters were added or re-arranged. The following report is a summary of matters discussed, decisions reached, and policies further explained.

**Present Status.** The book as now planned contains 79 regular chapters, plus the preface, introduction, ten summary chapters, and probably an epilogue. Of these twenty-one, or a little more than one-fourth, have been submitted and most of them read and criticized. Three have been revised by their authors and are presumably ready for the final editorial work. About ten further chapters have been reported to be in advanced stages and should be submitted in the near future. All chapters in the outline are assigned to a total of 53 persons. Most of these persons will write single chapters, but some will write from two to six, not counting the summaries all of which will be written by the editorial board. It begins to look as though about one-half the book would be in hand in first draft by January 1, 1945. As the editors are using their Rockefeller leaves of absence this winter and spring, and the bibliographer his following year, contributors can help by cooperating with this schedule.

**Submission of Manuscripts.** Please submit all manuscripts in at least two copies on the thinnest possible paper. Contributors so far have not done this and the editorial process has been somewhat hampered. The first copy of each manuscript is circulated among the editors and associates for criticism. The second is either held for safety in the file or sent to writers of other chapters related in subject matter to it. With so much mailing and re-mailing the cost of postage becomes unreasonable when the manuscripts are on heavy paper.

**Principles of Organization within Chapters.** There has been considerable discussion of the distinguishing characteristics of various types of chapters. Within each of the ten books there will be found in most cases five types of chapters: intellectual backgrounds, instruments, major authors, minor authors, and summaries. Within the category of minor authors there are several different types which run through the book, the most important of which are organized by regions, by literary forms, by literary groups and movements, and by homogeneous sub-literary material. Examples of each of these are respectively: the chapters on the Colonial literature of the South, on contemporary fiction, on the poets and critics who took Stedman's theory as a common gospel, and on the American language. It has been noted many times that this organization provides many series of similar chapters which run through the book and bind it more

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closely together. For example, one may follow the literature of the South or West or any one of the types from book to book as almost a work within a work. Perhaps the most striking case in point is the series dealing with those writers who were committed to other than purely literary aims but who wrote really good literature. The type here might be called "prose" or "the literature of ideas." This series starts with the Colonial chapters, is picked up by those on the prose of the post-Revolutionary period, and is followed through the mid-century historians, and the social economic, and philosophical writers of the past half century or more.

Contributors have experienced some confusion as to the distinction between this last series and the introductory series dealing with historical and intellectual factors. Many have been concerned about the possibility of overlapping treatments. As the purposes of these two series are very different, the repetition of names is altogether permissible. Introductory chapters on intellectual background attempt to summarize briefly the mental atmosphere in which the authors to be discussed in the following book lived and worked. In doing so they will include discussion of a wide variety of factors and will differ from each other. When an age is dominated by wars and political revolutions, the introductory chapter will read almost like political history. On the other hand when there are fundamental changes in human thinking such as that caused by the Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century and the scientific movement of the later, such chapters will read more like pages from a book in the history of philosophy. Each of these chapters can be shaped best by a study of the probable content of the book which it is designed to introduce rather than by trying to integrate it with similar chapters in previous or following books. The one important question is: Does this chapter really introduce the book in question, and does it provide a general point of view which will make the later discussion of specific authors and books more intelligible?

The instrument chapters are organized in a similar fashion. Each should describe the concrete factors which helped, hindered or otherwise determined the literature discussed within the book to follow. They may or may not form a unified sequence among themselves.

Most other chapters within each book build upon these two kinds of introduction and devote whole attention to the historical and critical discussion of books and authors.

**Principles of Selection of Material.** A check has recently been made of the authors and books which one might possibly expect to find mentioned in a literary history of the United States. Lists of these authors have been sent to each contributor and he has been asked to indicate whether or not he plans to include each of them, and how much attention he will give to those he discusses. There is a danger in this procedure in that it may encourage the inventory method of writing which we so much wish to avoid. Please act as sole judge of whether or not a given author or book really belongs to your assignment, and add or reject as your chapter plan requires. It is the editors' responsibility to see to it that the work is sufficiently inclusive.

Minor writers may receive (a) full discussion (about three to ten pages), (b) brief discussion (a paragraph or two), or (c) mention (the name with a characterizing phrase). But they may also be (a) suggested for transfer to some

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other part of the book, (b) omitted from the text entirely to be included in
the bibliography, or (c) omitted from any mention at all.

*Details of Method and Style.* When a book is first mentioned in the text the full title should be followed by the date of publication in parentheses. Thereafter the title may be abbreviated at will.

Facts not immediately in the reader's mind should be illuminated by a word or phrase to characterize them. Footnotes in the final manuscript will be at a minimum and may be omitted entirely from the first submitted draft of a manuscript, if the author has retained on his own copy the references necessary for footnotes which may be added later. The editors will delete or request footnotes where in their judgment the text requires, and the author may supply them in the revised version if he prefers.

Contributors may retitle chapters at will and suggestions for titles are welcome. When the final manuscript is being prepared the editors will reconsider all titles according to a uniform standard yet to be established.

**Pre-Publication of Material.** If a contributor has discovered material or developed a thesis which is not adequately treated in his chapter, he may publish a special article on this subject if it is an entirely fresh piece of writing. Further it may prove desirable to have certain chapters published in whole or in part in magazines immediately before the appearance of the book. In such cases the contributor will receive all the additional financial return involved. No part of any chapter may be published elsewhere in advance of the book publication without the permission of the editorial board and The Macmillan Company.

**Contributor Payments.** The project is now in better financial condition than it was when the first memorandum for contributors was issued. By the terms of that agreement payment for contributions is to be made at the time of publication, but the presence of a reserve fund makes certain exceptions to this rule possible. Already a payment of ten dollars on account has been made to the authors of most chapters and can be made to all. In special circumstances the board will further honor any draft up to one-half cent for each contracted word at any time after the signing of the contract, or any draft up to two cents for each contracted word at any time after a revised manuscript has been accepted for publication, and its author has waived the rights of withdrawing it or of objecting to further editorial revision. The final one cent per word will be paid when the book has earned it.

**Epilogue.** Decision as to whether or not there would be an epilogue, and if there is one, what form it would take, was deferred to the first meeting of the editorial board in January, 1945.

Robert E. Spiller

INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Supplementary Memorandum, April 20, 1944

**Audience.** We hope that our principal audience will be composed of people with intelligence equal to our own but of relative ignorance in the literary history of the United States. We shall not need to talk down to this audience but we shall need to provide it with expository data as well as critical opinions. Before writing your chapter select in your own mind a lawyer, a doctor, one of your colleagues in another department, or some other such person and see to it that your text supplies whatever would be necessary for his interest and understanding. We cannot assume that this reader has read all the works under discussion or has read any of them recently. Nor can we assume that an inventory of names, titles, and dates will have much meaning for him. We must therefore insert descriptive words and phrases and occasional informational passages and we must avoid lists which we cannot make meaningful.

**Length.** In our contract with the publisher we have agreed to a book of approximately 500,000 words and in our contracts with contributors we have allotted this total to allow the relative emphasis indicated by our outline. As our budget is based on this total, payment on contracts with contributors will be made on the basis of these allotments. It is obvious however, that we can not have predicted accurately in advance the exact proportioning of the final manuscript, and some flexibility will be necessary in the later stages of the work. Some manuscripts will be longer and some shorter than the contract lengths. These variations will be in terms of hundreds rather than of thousands of words in most cases

**Organization of Miscellaneous Material.** Chapters dealing with backgrounds of thoughts or instruments and those dealing with large numbers of relatively minor authors will cause some difficulties. Such chapters should in every case focus on a central theme, draw upon the relevant material as on a reservoir, select and disregard as the focus of the chapter requires, and tie the whole into the over-all thematic structure of the book. No contributor is under obligation to discuss all the material relevant to his topic. He should try only to deal with the most significant parts of it and use the remainder as illustration for his text.

**Preliminary Summary.** We have found that the preparation in advance by each contributor of a fairly detailed summary of what he plans to say helps to work out differences in aim and perspective between himself and the editors, and to avoid drastic revision after the manuscript has been prepared in first draft. Contributors should use this device wherever it suits their individual methods of writing. The editors will be delighted to receive and comment on such summaries at any time.

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**First Draft Editorial Criticism.** The first draft of each manuscript should be submitted to the chairman in at least two copies and preferably on thin paper in order to save postage. These manuscripts are sent to the seven editors and associates for full criticism. When they have made this round the chairman digests the criticisms and prepares a full statement for the contributor with advice as to what revisions seem desirable. The contributor is then in a position to redraft or otherwise revise his chapter himself, and to conform to or to disregard editorial advice as he sees fit. In so far as he can conform without damaging his design and style he will move toward the goal of unity for the book as a whole.

**Second Draft Editorial Revision.** When the contributor has submitted a revised second draft of his manuscript, it will be read by the four editors and such further revisions as are deemed essential will be made by them. These should be mainly the addition of transition phrases and paragraphs, the pointing up of cross references, the elimination of repetition, and occasionally the removing of a passage from one part of the book to another; but more drastic revision may on occasion be necessary in the interest of unity of thought or style. When these changes have been made the manuscript will be retyped at the expense of the Board and submitted to the contributor for his final approval before being put to press.

**Payment for Contribution.** The editors are now in a position to pay two cents a word to contributors on the agreed length of each chapter at the time of publication. As funds for this purpose are already in hand, there is no reason why contributors should not feel free to draw against the sum due them at any time up to the amount of one-half cent per word, the agreed minimum compensation regardless of whether the contributor finally consents to publication or not. The balance will then be paid at the time of publication, and the additional one cent per word as soon as the book has earned it. This provision is made in order to help contributors cover the cost of preparing and revising the manuscripts.

**Cost of Author's Revisions and Copyright Material.** The editors neglected to specify in their original memorandum that they will follow the customary practice of charging against contributors the cost of alterations in proof over and above the total allowed by the publisher, and any cost for the quotation of copyright material. The editors will prepare a form letter requesting the use of copyright material and each contributor will use this letter in addition to one of his own in seeking such permission. All copyright material will have to be cleared before a manuscript can be finally accepted for publication. Some assistance in paying for essential and copyrighted quotations may be obtainable from The Macmillan Company, but this should not be assumed.

**Chapter Titles.** The titles of books and chapters as given on the outline are tentative and many of them will be changed in the final text. Contributors are urged to suggest their own titles, but the final decision will of course rest with the editorial board.

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**Footnotes.** Footnotes dealing with supplementary ideas or opinions should be eliminated and such material incorporated in the text. Refer ential footnotes should be kept to a minimum and used chiefly for ex- tended quotations or for obscure or crucial points. These footnotes should be numbered in sequence through the manuscript and inserted in their proper places in the body of the text. They should be stated as briefly as possible in the style used by the journal *American Literature*, and in every case a full bibliographical note should be supplied on a separate card for each reference.

**Bibliography.** The contributor is under no obligation to prepare a full bibliography of the subject of his chapter, as the bibliographical essay at the end of the book will have an organization of its own and will not follow chapter assignments. Each contributor should, however, supply on 3x5 cards as much bibliographical data as he can. Such entries will follow the conventional form as given in the *Chicago Manual of Style* or other standard work of reference. They need not be uniform as they will merely be used as source material by the bibliographer in preparing his essay. The bibliographer has recently sent to each contributor a somewhat more detailed memorandum on this subject.

**Schedule.** Dates for the submission of manuscripts have been agreed upon in most cases. As the editors have been allowed by the Rockefeller Foundation freedom from other engagements for their editorial duties during the early part of the year 1945, it is important that all or most of the manuscripts should be submitted in first draft as early as possible in the present year. If the editorial work on the major part of the book has been completed before January 1, 1946, we can hope that the book might be published before the end of that year.

(Revised May 22, 1943)

# LITERARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

## Basic Outline

**Note:** This outline was adopted by the Editors on March 27, 1943, as a guide to contributors. It is subject to continuous revision as the work progresses. Material different from or in addition to that indicated will be included in most chapters, and the order, length, or titles of chapters may be changed.

## Preface

**Introduction:** (c.3,000 words) Working definition of literary history and of its relation to American life; the framework in which it developed in America; the dominant themes with which it has dealt; the emergence of great writers; of schools; contemporary literature in terms of the past, and past literature in the perspective of the present.

Book I: **The Colonies: Importation and Adaptation** (editor: T. H. Johnson)

Chapter I: **The New Plantation:** (c.4,000 words) Migration of the thought and culture of western Europe; the furniture of the colonial mind; literary importation and adaptation.

Chapter II: **Instruments of colonial culture:** (c.3,000 words) the cultural life and institutions of the colonies; means for producing and circulating literary work.

Chapter III: **Reports and Chronicles:** (c.6,000 words) reports of explorers from Columbus, to Hariot; of settlers from Smith to Penn; diaries and histories of the colonists.

- Chapter IV: **Poetry and Prose of New England:** (c.6,000 words) the Mathers, Taylor, Wise, etc.

Chapter V: **Jonathan Edwards** (c.4,000 words)

Chapter VI: **Poetry and Prose of the Middle and Southern**

(Basic outline - 2)

**Colonies:** (c.4,000 words) Byrd, Sandys, Woolman, etc.

Chapter VII: *Benjamin Franklin* (c.6,000 words)

Chapter VIII: *Summary of the period to 1760*: (c.3,000 words)
critical evaluation of colonial writing; the relationship of litera-
ture to colonial life.

Book II: *The Republic: Adaptation and Inquiry* (editor: R.E.Spiller)

Chapter I: Revolution and Reaction: (c.3,000 words) origins and growth of the political ideals of democracy and of federalism; of religious liberalism; reactions to these movements; the growth of mental independence; literary forms and movements.

Chapter II: *Instruments of Early National Culture* (c.3,000 words)

Chapter III: *Propaganda and Debate*: (c.10,000 words) state
papers, letters, tracts, speeches, pamphlets: Jefferson, Hamilton,
Dickinson, Paine, etc.

Chapter IV: *The New World as Seen from the Old*: (c.6,000 words)
the writings of travellers and the use of the theme of America in
European literature.

Chapter V: *Literary Consciousness (Poetry and Essay)*: (c.6,000 words) Freneau, the Hartford Wits; the nature writers; the periodical essay; the critical essay, Webster, Rush.

Chapter VI: *Literary Consciousness (Fiction and Drama)*:
(c.6,000 words) the beginnings of fiction, Rowson, Brackenridge,
Brown; the beginnings of drama, Godfrey, Tyler, Dunlap.

Chapter VII: *Summary of the Period to 1820* (3,000 words)

Book III: *The Nation: Declaration of Literary Independence* (editor: R. E. Spiller)

Chapter I: *The Great Experiment*: (c.3,000 words) Independence

(Basic outline - 3)

as a working principle in politics, religion and culture; discovery
of the backwooda; sectional consciousness of North and South;
romanticism and the growth of a national literature.

Chapter II: <u>Instruments of Culture</u> (c.3,000 words)

Chapter III: _The Man of Letters as American:_ (c.10,000 words)
Irving, Cooper

Chapter IV: <u>The Middle States</u>: (c.6,000 words) Paulding,
Halleck, Bird, Willis

Chapter V: New England: (c.6,000 words) Channing, Dana, Bryant

Chapter VI: _The Old South:_ (c.6,000 words) Simms, Kennedy,
Chivers

Chapter VII: Poe (c.10,000 words)

Chapter VIII: Summary of the Period to 1850 (c.3,000 words)

Book IV: _The Nation: Fulfillment_ (editor: Willard Thorp)

Chapter I: <u>Democratic Vistas</u>: (c.3,000 words) Philosophical
and social idealism; awareness of current issues; ferment and ex-
pansion; achievement of a national literature.

Chapter II: _Emerson_ (c.10,000 words)

Chapter III: Thoreau (c.10,000 words)

Chapter IV: Hawthorne (c.10,000 words)

Chapter V: <u>Melville</u> (c.10,000 words)

Chapter VI: <u>Whitman</u> (c.10,000 words)

Chapter VII: Summary: (c.4,000 words) Critical evaluation of
the achievement of the major writers of the mid-nineteenth century
in their historical context.

Book V: _The East: Refinement and Success_ (editor: Willard Thorp)

Chapter I: _The War and After:_ (3,000 words) Effects of the war

(Basic outline - 4)

on the thought and cultures of the South, the Middle States, New England. Growing awareness of the West; renewed study of European thought and literatures; wealth and refinement; echoes of Victorian moral and social standards; literature speaks to "the people."

Chapter II: *Instruments of Eastern Culture* (c.3,000 words)

Chapter III: *History and other Prose*: (c.6,000 words) Prescott, Parkman, the writers for the *North American* and the *Nation*.

Chapter IV: *Oratory, Political and Religious*: (c.6,000 words)
Webster, Calhoun, Lincoln, Parker, Beecher, Brooks

Chapter V: *Literature and Conflict*: (c.10,000 words) Whittier, Greeley, Bryant, Stowe, southern writers of the war period.

Chapter VI: *The Cambridge Ascendency*: (c.10,000 words) Long-fellow, Lowell, Holmes

Chapter VII: *Summary of the period to 1870* (c.3,000 words)
with reference to the point of view of the East.

Book VI: *New Perspectives: Expansion and Adjustment* (editor: Willard Thorp)

Chapter I: *The Extension of Cultural Boundaries* (c.4,000 words)
from the close of the eighteenth century to the latter part of the
nineteenth; motives for migration; the mind of the pioneer and sett-
ler; growing awareness of a continental nation; reiteration of
colonial attitudes; the mingling of races and cultures; literary
imitation and adaptation; the growth of folk consciousness and the
new sectionalism in life and literature.

Chapter II: *Instruments of Culture on the Frontier* (c.3,000 words)

Chapter III: *Seers and Pioneers*: (c.10,000 words) writings of the pioneers and travellers; Walt Whitman and the vision of

(Basic outline - 5)

American democracy; Irving, Emerson, Parkman, etc.

Chapter IV: **Folk-lore**: (c.6,000 words) traditional, occupational, negro, Indian.

Chapter V: **Humor**: (c.6,000 words) the link with folk-lore; the tall tale; the professional humorists.

Chapter VI: **The Mingling of Tongues**: (c.10,000 words) Literature in languages other than English and of races other than Anglo-Saxon.

Chapter VII: **The American Language** (c.4,000 words)

Chapter VIII: **Summary**: (c.3,000 words) factors and forces which set the literature of the United States in the context of a continental nation.

Book VII: **A Continental Nation: Tradition and Experiment** (editor: R. E. Spiller)

Chapter I: **The Second Discovery of America**: (c.3,000 words)
The conflict between Eastern conservatism and the forces and concepts of the whole nation; development of many new cultural centers; extension of cultures of New England and the South; the back-trail and the reconquest of the East; the nation becomes one in its diversity; significance of the new sectionalism for local color, for romance, for realism, for social criticism.

Chapter II: **The Tradition in Criticism and Poetry**: (c.6,000 words) Gilder, Curtis, Aldrich, Stedman, Taylor, Timrod, Hayne.

Chapter III: **Romance and Travel in Essay, Fiction, and Drama** (c.6,000 words) Crawford, Wallace, Jackson, Roe, Stockton, Smith, Warner, Taylor, Leland, Boker.

Chapter IV: **The Rise of Realism**: (c.6,000 words) Howells, DeForest, Howard, Herne.

(Basic outline - 6)

Chapter V: **Literary Exploitation; the New America**: (c.6,000 words) (Romance vs. Realism): Eggleston, Harte, Riley, Muir, Miller, King, etc.

Chapter VI: **Literary Exploitation; the Old America** (Romance vs. Realism): (c.6,000 words) Jewett, Wilkins, Cable, Russell, Foster, Murfree.

Chapter VII: **New Currents in Poetry**: (c.6,000 words) Lanier and Dickinson

Chapter VIII: **Mark Twain** (c.10,000 words)

Chapter IX: **Summary of the Period to 1890** (c.3,000 words)

Book VIII: **The United States: Disillusion, Reform, Definition**
 editor: R. E. Spiller)

Chapter I: **A World to Win or Lose**: (c.3,000 words) Shift from emphasis on religious and political to philosophical, sociological and economic bases of thought due to the impact of the scientific movement and the industrial revolution; prosperity and reform; the pragmatic compromise; realism and naturalism in literature.

Chapter II: **Instruments of Culture** (c.3,000 words)

Chapter III: **The Literature of Ideas; Prose**: (c.6,000 words)
 George, W. James, Veblen.

Chapter IV: **The Literature of Ideas; Fiction**: (c.6,000 words)
 Bellamy to Sinclair.

Chapter V: **Henry James** (c.10,000 words)

Chapter VI: **The New Realism in Fiction**; (c.10,000 words)
 Garland, Crane, Norris, Dreiser

Chapter VII: **Iconoclasm, Art, and Escape**: (c.6,000 words) from
 Bierce to Huncker

Chapter VIII: **Henry Adams** (c.10,000 words)

Chapter IX: **Summary of the period to 1910** (c.3,000 words)

(Basic outline - 7)

Book IX: *The United States; Confidence and Criticism* (editor:
H. S. Canby)

Chapter I: *The New Democracy*: (c.3,000 words) Hey-day of the
Progressive Movement; new freedoms and new promises; the United
States as World Power; economic and social readjustments; social
consciousness and internationalism; the search of literature for a
philosophic base in naturalism, humanism, estheticism; American
influence abroad and its reflection at home; influence of French
and Russian literatures.

Chapter II: *Instruments of Culture* (c.3,000 words)

Chapter III: *The New Criticism* (c.6,000 words): Turner, Dewey,
Parrington, Beard; Brownell; More, Babbitt; Mencken, Brooks, Bourne,
Mumford.

Chapter IV: *E. A. Robinson* (c.4,000 words)

Chapter V: *The New Poetry*: (c.10,000 words) Frost, Sandburg,
Amy Lowell, etc.

Chapter VI: *The New Fiction*: (c.10,000 words) Wharton, Cather,
Glasgow, Cabell, Lewis, Anderson, Lardner.

Chapter VII: *The New Drama*: O'Neill (c.6,000 words)

Chapter VIII: *Summary of the Period to 1925* (c.4,000 words)

Book X: *The United States: A New Synthesis* (editor: Willard Thorp)

Chapter I: *A World Between Wars*: (c.3,000 words) The "return
to normalcy"; era of prosperity and depression; influence of
doctrinaire philosophies of society and the individual (Marx,
Freud); reaction against war, the pacifism of disillusionment;
total skepticism; the retreat to Europe; return and catharsis;
social reconstruction and the New Deal; literary probing to the
roots of tragic and comic experience.

(Basic outline - 8)

Chapter II: Instruments of Culture (c.3,000 words)

Chapter III: **Fiction** (c.10,000 words)

Chapter IV: **Drama** (c.10,000 words)

Chapter V: **Poetry** (c.10,000 words)

Chapter VI: **Literary Criticism** (c.6,000 words)

Chapter VII: The Essay and Critical Prose, the populatization
of knowledge and familiar journalism. (c.6,000 words)

Chapter VIII: Summary of the Period to 1940. (c.3,000 words)

*Epilogue*: (c.15,000 words in all) A symposium of not more than three literary critics on literature since 1940. (editor: H.S. Canby)

*Bibliographical Essay*: (editor: T. H. Johnson)

a. Author Bibliographies

b. General Bibliography

*Chronology*

*Index*

Summary of Editorial Comment

Book: Chapter:

Title:

Length

Contract:

MS:

Date:

This manuscript has been read by the Editors and Associates. Each has been asked to consider the following questions:

Is it directed to the audience the book is intended to reach?

Does it fill its proper place in the plan of the book?

Should it be cut or expanded; and if so, how?

Are there minor inaccuracies or stylistic details which need attention?

It is now returned to you with a summary of these comments and such marginal notes as seem worthy of your attention so that you may rewrite, revise, or otherwise alter it to such extent as you can or will without destroying its creative integrity. These comments are intended to be suggestive rather than mandatory.

If satisfactory, the revised and resubmitted manuscript will be provisionally accepted by the editors, and will be typed and filed for editorial revision when the manuscript of the book as a whole is worked into its final shape (See "Information for Contributors, March 27, 1943," C,3). You will have an opportunity to pass on it again before it goes to press.

Memorandum on Copyright Permissions

University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia 4, Pa.
January 28, 1946

Contributors are responsible for obtaining permission for any copyright or
previously unpublished material included in their chapters. Will you kindly
check your contributions carefully and prepare letters to the proper persons
asking for these permissions? If these letters are sent to me, I will forward
them with a covering letter from the editors.

Permission from the owners should be obtained for the use of all previously
unpublished material. The practice with respect to published material is de-
scribed in the following letter from The Macmillan Company:

"I wish I could give you 'details on the copyright laws' covering
the use of quoted material. Unfortunately the laws are not all specific
on this point. Certain practices have become more or less accepted
among the publishing fraternity and it is only very rarely that any-
one makes a test of the copyright laws by bringing suit for plagiarism.
Theoretically it is necessary to get permission from the copyright
owner for the quotation of any copyright material whatsoever. It is
common practice for authors to make brief quotations of 50 words or
less with the mere citation of the source. I think you are perfectly
safe in telling your contributors that if they will always give the
citation for such brief quotations there is no need for them to secure
permission to do so.

In longer quotations, and especially in quotations of more than
150 words, it is always necessary to secure the written permission
of the copyright owner. In most cases this is the publisher but
occasionally a given copyright is in the name of the author or even
the literary agent. It is usually easy to ascertain the name of the
copyright owner. For long quotations, that is, a page or more, there
is usually a charge; while briefer quotations are generally given
grats. In order to be perfectly safe I think you should instruct
your contributors to write and request permission to quote all pas-
sages more than 50 words in length. In asking for permission the
writer should be careful to specify page and line as well as the
edition from which he desires to take the quotation."

Robert E. Spiller

Style Sheet # 1: Text

General

1. Keep style of author unless the meaning is not clear to the general intelligent reader, the inconsistency with other parts of the book offensive, or the effect too learned. Remember that this is the manuscript approved, after exchange of criticism and revision, by both the author and the editors. Most or all of the basic editing and styling has already been done.

2. Follow Macmillan's *Authors' Book* and the *Webster* (Merriam) *Dictionary* in all matters of detail. Except as noted below, follow the first or preferred usage in these books.

3. See style sheet # 2 for bibliography, footnotes, and references.

Form of Manuscript

1. Typed in three copies

Copy A: Hold to prepare for the printer after all editing and styling has been done.

Copy B: Deposit and keep in present state except when parts of it are needed to fill out manuscripts A and C or for other purposes.

Copy C: Use for all editing: (1) by book editor; (2) by general editor; (3) by author for final approval. All emendations will be transferred from this copy to Copy A as the last step in the editorial process.

2. Chapter titles on page 1 of each chapter in roman 1.c. Book and chapter numbers typed in upper left corner of page 1.
Page numbers in upper right for each chapter (black pencil)
Page numbers in upper right for entire History (red pencil)

3. Footnotes between lines where they occur in the text. Withhold numbering them until the manuscript is otherwise ready for the printer. Where they are needed and have not been typed in, insert them in ink.

Spelling

1. Follow the American usage, not the English (e.g. omit the "u" in words like "labor;" use single final consonant before suffix in words like "traveler" except when the accent is on the last syllable as in "controlling" "fulfillment;" use "rime," not "rhyme;" "theater," not "theatre.")

2. Spell out decades and centuries (e.g. "the forties," "the nineteenth century;" but not "the 1850's.")

-2-

3. Do not spell out titles (e.g. "Dr."). Omit titles altogether in referring to authors and critics, living and dead.

4. Omit final "s" in "toward," "beside."

5. Where usage makes a word familiar, omit hyphen and run together.

6. Spell "aesthetic" rather than "esthetic" or "aestetic." But spell "medieval," not "mediaeval."

## Punctuation

1. Enclose commas and periods within quotes whether they belong there or not, even in cases of single words. Enclose other punctuation within quotes only when it is part of the quotation.

2. When dashes are used, omit other punctuation except in cases where the sense requires more than a dash. Take out dashes and parentheses where they can be spared or other punctuation substituted.

3. Lean toward a minimum of punctuation, particularly commas, but put them in where there is the slightest ambiguity in sense or rhythm. Follow rules loosely and allow meaning and rhythm to modify them to the point of inconsistency. (e.g. Do not stick to the rules for commas after initial dependent clauses or phrases, or for appositives, etc., if the meaning or rhythm dictates other use in a specific case.)

4. Use square brackets for interpolated material only.

5. Use hyphen sparingly, but don't be afraid of it. Hyphenate double or multiple adjectives (e.g. "nineteenth-century fashions," "a dyed-in-the-wool conservative"). Hyphenate words with double vowels (e.g. "re-elect"). A hyphen represents a transitional stage in the agglutinative process of word formation, and its use is not stable. Follow the latest Webster's Dictionary, especially for words that have grown together "e.g. "today.")

6. Use three dots (not including period or other mark of punctuation) to indicate omissions in quotations, but omit such dots at the beginning and end of quotations.

7. Use apostrophe without extra "s" for possessive form of proper names ending in "s" (e.g. "Adams' reputation").

8. Use comma before "and" in series.

## Capitalization

1. "Negro."

-3-

2. "Bible", "God", but not synonyms of "God" (e.g. "deity"), nor pronouns referring to him. Do not capitalize adjectives (e.g. "biblical") or the word **bible** when used as a common noun (e.g. "Emerson's writing is a **bible** to many," "Many men, many gods.") Capitalize "Nature," "Truth," etc., only when the author under discussion (e.g. Emerson) uses them in a personalized or doctrinaire sense. **Consistency here is impossible.** Do not capitalize "hell" and "heaven."

3. Do not capitalize technical terms of philosophy, literary criticism, etc. (e.g. "romantic," "naturalism," "deism," "rationalism") unless they refer to a specific and well-defined movement or event (e.g. "Romantic Movement," "Transcendentalism," "Renaissance," "Second World War," "Gothic" novels.) Capitalize "Puritans," "Puritanism" when referring to a specific sect or force in seventeenth-century New England; do not capitalize the terms when used loosely for a state of mind attributed to people in general.

4. Capitalize titles when they refer to a specific person or office which carries a title (e.g. "Governor Winthrop," "the Governor rose to speak;" but not "He made a good governor.")

5. Do not capitalize "continent" even when referring to a specific continent like Europe (e.g. "He traveled in England and on the continent.") Do not capitalize "church" even when referring to a specific church like the Catholic (e.g. "His rise in the hierarchy of the church was rapid.")

6. Capitalize sections and regions when specifying well-recognized geographical groups (e.g. "the South," "Southern," "the Far West," "the Prairies," "the Plains.") Do not capitalize geographical direction (e.g. "southward," "northerly.")

## Quotations

1. Incorporate quotations in the text when they are about three lines or less, unless they are poetry or unless the usage of the specific chapter seems to demand the indentation of short passages for the sake of uniformity. Similarly, incorporate longer quotes in the text where the chapter's usage seems to demand it. Single-space and indent most of the longer prose and all the poetry, when quoted, and omit the quotation marks.

2. Quote verbatim and literatim except to modernize typography (e.g. modernize the long "s" and the use of "u" and "v").

## Italics

1. Title of books are italicized, but not individual sections or parts of books, which are put in quotes if cited. Contents of books, such as essays, short stories, and poems, which are also published separately, should be treated as separates, and italicized.

-4-

2. Include the article in the title if it is a part of the title (e.g. The House of the Seven Gables). When the article is not part of the title, do not italicize it (e.g. "He read the Literary History of the United States"). Uniformity on this point must be consistent.

3. Titles must be given in full when a book or shorter work is announced for discussion, but may be referred to in briefer form in other parts of the text (e.g. "The Education of Henry Adams is its author's most important work. He always referred to it as his Education.") Exception: Very long and involved titles (e.g. seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sermons and travel narratives may be shortened in the first citation, and the brief form indicated by three dots (e.g. Hakluyt's The Principal Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries... (1589)).

4. Titles of magazines and newspapers. Do not italicize the article or the city of publication even when they are part of the title (e.g. The New York Times, not The New York Times.)

5. Italicize the names of ships.

6. Avoid italicizing for emphasis as much as possible.

7. Avoid italicizing foreign words and phrases as much as possible. Foreign words which may be considered Englished (e.g. *cafe*, *role*) do not retain accents. Foreign words with accents not considered Englished retain the accents (e.g. "Rivière Sanglante,")

### Numerals

1. Enclose date after title at the point at which its major discussion is undertaken, but not elsewhere unless the chronology of the narrative depends upon it. Do not supply birth and death dates of authors after their names.

2. Dates are linked thus: 1894-96; 1894-1906.

### Diction

1. Wherever the sense will allow, omit pausing and connecting words like "however," "moreover," "nevertheless," "indeed," "of course," "now," "on the other hand," etc.

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH

PUBLICATION OF

The Speech Association of America

22 March 1949

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

WALDO ABBOT
JOHN BLACK
DONALD C. BRYANT
GIRAUD CHESTER
DORATHY ECKELMANN
DOUGLAS EHNINGER
HUBERT C. HEFFNER
EVELYN KONIGSBERG
ALAN H. MONROE
PAUL MOORE
ROBERT F. RAY
JOSEPH F. SMITH

EDITORIAL BOARD

PAUL D. BAGWELL
KENNETH G. BARTLETT
JAMES CARRELL
DAVID EDWARDS
FREDERICK W. HABERMAN
WILLIAM G. HARDY
LEE S. HULTZEN
T. EARLE JOHNSON
MEREL R. PARKS
AURORA M. QUIROS
CARRIE RASMUSSEN
E. J. WEST
ERNEST J. WRAGE

EDITOR

H. F. HARDING
Ohio State University
Columbus 10, Ohio

Mr. Norman Holmes Pearson
c/o Saturday Review of Literature
25 West 45th Street
New York 19, New York

Dear Mr. Pearson:

I am enclosing a copy of a review of the Literary History of the United States written by Professor Henry A. Myers of Cornell University. We are planning to publish the review in the April issue of the Journal. As you will observe Mr. Myers takes a view that is not exactly favorable to the Literary History. I have asked Bob Spiller and some of the other editors if they would care to reply or at least to explain ways in which Myers misconceives the purpose of the History. They have declined to comment for reasons that are quite understandable.

In view of your favorable review of the History I am wondering whether you would care to make some brief remarks about the Myers' review for publication in our next issue. We will be very glad to give space to whatever you may have to say.

HFH:mcs

323 Hall of Graduate Studies
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

April 16, 1949

Professor H. F. Harding
Editor, Quartlery Journal of Speech
Ohio State University
Columbus 10, Ohio

Dear Mr. Harding:

Your letter of the 22d of March was forwarded
to me from the "Saturday Review of Literature." I am
sorry for the delay in replying to it, but several
days elapsed before the letter actually reached me,
and I have been unusually busy since then.

I am delighted to give you a few words in
answer to Professor Myers' review of Spiller's
History, and enclose them herewith. I sympathize
with certain of the things that Myers called to at-
tention, but I appreciate even more the editorial
policy on the part of your Journal which balances
comments on any work when they are unduly unfavorable.
In view of the fact that your letter to me was sent
to the "Saturday Review," perhaps you will want to
make some statement in your magazine as to my qualifi-
cations for discussing the matter at all.

With William Rose Venet I edited the Oxford
Anthology of American Literature, and have edited both
the works of Hawthorne and Thoreau as well. Profes-
sionally, I am a member of the English Department at
Yale and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the De-
partment of American Studies.

If it is possible to have a few offprints of
my remarks, I should be most grateful.

NHP:w

The College

UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

PHILADELPHIA 4

AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

April 20, 1949

Dr. Norman Holmes Pearson
233 Hall of Graduate Studies
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Norman:

Your answer to the Myers review makes me feel very happy. We are in a period right now when the disaffected are having their day and the *LHUS* is suffering from an amazing amount of vitriol which is being poured upon its head. Did you see Hubbell's review in the *Yale Review* or Barzun's in *Harper's*? If you did you can realize how much it means to us at the moment to have someone point out what the *History* is really all about. We are not worried about the long run place that *LHUS* will occupy; flies can be annoying in summer time. Thanks again for your repeated good will and sound judgment.

RES/d

April 16, 1949

Professor Robert Spiller
Department of English
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Dear Bob:

I have had a letter from *The Quarterly Journal of Speech*, asking me to reply to Professor Myers' review of the History. Although such requests usually lead to more trouble than they are worth, I was delighted in this case to make at least some comment on what seemed to me to be his misunderstanding of the problems involved.

I enclose a copy of my remarks for your education, though I suggest that the innoentors in it can be understood only after you have seen his review.

NHP:W
Enc.

January 25, 1954

Dear Dr. Pearson:

I've been trying to get this off for weeks---finally decided to sit down at any costs and write it. You see, I'm at work and the office secretary takes careful aim on any dallying tactics.

Of course I should have written sooner, but since your last letter all hell has broken loose in my daily routine. To begin with, I had some blood vessels cauterized in my left eye, was laid up for awhile, then submerged for the October Bar (which I flunked), was then given a very good job law-clerking for Judge Peirson Hall of the U.S. District Ct., and have since been once more submerged for the onrushing April Bar...which I feel confident I will pass, Whew!

Nevertheless, I have steadily plodded along on the stories, despite some discouragement and disgust. Shenandoah lost the three stories I sent to them (I have copies), but more important, I have not been satisfied with the progress shown in my stories.

I think my problem was this: The very first stories I ever did were those you first reviewed for me. I wrote them 'out of the top of my head', having no time while in law school to be fancy or precious. Once free of studies, however, I became too impressed with what I was about and, generally, hammed up the place but good. I don't think the time was wasted because I did learn a lot about story problems, et cetera, especially what I have to look out for, personally, in putting together a yarn. But let's face it, the stuff I was doing until six months ago does stink. About that time I started to sit down and sound like me, come hell or high water or complete failure. I won't say the results are classical, but the vitality has returned and the plot development is once more present. I think I know what you want: Good plot structure, immediate reader interest, plenty of surface action, saving the imagery and fancy stuff for when it's appropriate. No doubt about it, I was showing off in my stories, a tendency that comes naturally with my corny temperament. But I've reread Brighton Rock, Butterfield-8, Sammarra, David Copperfield,...and I begin to see what you mean by plot and structure. I'll read more of O'Hara, Graham, and Dickens, when time and finances will allow.

I won't say I've written anything stupendous, but I will say I've returned to sounding myself. I'm no longer 'constructing' stories, I'm telling them---The results are gratifying, whereas before (since The Encounter), I haven't been able to look my stories in the face. My problems probably emanated from lack of experience. When I started writing I didn't know a damn thing about it, had never studied the short story, or writing, so was easily detoured by fads, gimmicks, bodge, and dishwater. I'm going to save up the things I'm writing now and send them to you in a bundle. Incidentally, I have written 21 stories since graduation, only sent you three. Only two of them

2

a
were worth reding, the last one being something more than abomin-
able. I can do better, so please bear with me.

This year is going to be the turning point for us in more than
one respect. I've done well financially since I've been out of
school, the 3-BR house is 40% paid for, and fully furnished. The
car gets paid off eight days from now. This is important because,
should anything happen to my sight, the consequences are obvious.
As it now stands, things look fine. Our equity in the house is
such that I can now convert to a different financing plan and there-
by be able to live adequately on my pension---should it ever be
necessary to do so. In short, in another few months we will have
considerably more security and comfort than we had only 20 months
ago. Also, it would then be possible to drop work altogether and
do nothing but write...should I ever become semi-successful at
that career. Also, I'll be free to make my own way in private
practice, having the financial cushion that we'll soon have. I
mention these things because I do believe them to be imporatnt
where all things are concerned, including the writing. I'm first
a family man, then a writer, then a lawyer. It isn't a question
of having to choose between masters, it's a mandatory 'must' that
I serve all of them. I've served all of them by achieving a sem-
lance of money success, much more so than my other graduates for
instance. I don't want you to think, however, that I'm in the
least sacrificing my writing dreams; quite the contrary, I probably
emphasize those dreams too much, to the sacrifice of my boy, girl,
and wife. My father was a good man, but he was also a roulette
dealer, a milkman, and a bootlegger, while my mother was and still
is, a manicurist. These things are perhaps of no consequence, but
they do not make for family confidence: I want my family to have
a natural and assumed confidence, and so my first plans, always,
are geared by practicalities and progress. As I say, this year is
the turning point. At one time I thought I could never take the
bar exam, now I'm sure I can pass it. At one time I thought my
writing was just a stunt, now I know I've got something to say,
and in a different way, and interestingly, too. I'll never be
a Proust or a Dostoievsky, but I sincerely feel that Barnaby Con-
rad or Irwin Shaw or even some of the others, are not beyond my
grasp. I've recently read Young Lions, Cruel Sea, The Gallery-
What they most have over me is maturity and organization. They
they're doing. But I'm willing to learn, and I intend to learn.
One thing I notice in a lot of writers: They don't feel things as
strongly as I do. Now James Jones feels things burning inside him
and that energy comes out in his writing. He loves to write. I hope
I can get some of that feeling in my own stories. God knows writing
is a real love for me, anyway.

Bill Clark was out to the house the other night. He'll be in
California for a few years (resident counsel for a N.Y. firm doing
legal work for No. Am. Aviation), and he tells me that Robert
(Red) Thompson has finished his first novel, that it is a good one,
that soon, perhaps, when our schedules ease up, the three of us

Sept. 26, 1954

Dear Dr. Pearson:

Your letter has given me a real boost and many thanks for
remembering me. So much has happened that, rather than write a long
letter now, I'll just hit one highspots and get this one in the
mail.

When last I wrote you, my eyesight was kicking up, or down, and
several other adversities were hounding me, all of which have
now been resolved in one way or another. For practical, reading
purposes, my sight began to go the last week in March. From that
date until the last week in July, Barbara and I were trying desperately
to find out what was wrong, but the doctors were simply fooled by
the scar that clouds my cornea. Then, I ran into a brilliant doctor,
man, and person,...Rodman S. Irvine..., and he operated on my eye
that last week in July. I can presently see well enough to enjoy
everything, except I cannot read or drive the car. Other neutral-
izing events have transpired, however, which have perhaps made this
this whole experience a blessing in disguise.

For instance: The gov't upped my pension to a helathhy, secure sum.
Judge Hall kept me on until we could level the second mortgage. We now
own almost half our home, the car, library, and every stick of
furniture. Therefore, at least for present economic and aesthetic
needs, we're well fixed. We have a home and security. Further: The Braille
Institute supplied me with a talking-book machine and, through it,
I can read, tirelessly, almost any book of consequence. I am taking
Braille and find it interesting. Sometime next year all lit-
erature will be available to me through that medium. in the mean-
time---since Aug. 19---I am writing to my heart's content. And, just
as I knew it would, it is beginning to sound the way I want it to sound.

I've lost all that pretentious word-consciousness and I'm actually telling
stories. When I look back now and think of all the writings, all
the failures and disappointments, I can't quite figure how I got
out of the groove. I guess after the first burst of creativity,
er somethin', you then must LEARN what a story is about. Well, it's
taken me some time to get just the rudiments made aware to me, but I
honestly think it's coming. The main thing is to think in terms of
STORY and the ENDING. Plus, keeping all the showing-off out of the
story-line. The damn thing has got to MOVE...and Lord how I forgot about
that. I got so denied i pressed with myself that I forgot how tough
it is to be good...at ANYTHING.

There's so much that I want to say---I hope that one day soon we can
get together and have a real talk. It seemed that I was always %
trying to say one week's worth every time we had ten minutes to
chew the fat. Rapid chatter is the best way to seem young. Not that I
wasn't, or aren't, but Gee I miss hearing what you have to say.

2

So here are my current plans. What do you think of them? I'm trying to put six stories together and get them off to you and eventually to Brandt and Brandt. Judging from their letter and the talk on the phone, she liked the stories very much, enough at least to practically demand that she see more of them. Today, this seems a remarkable thing to do, because the six thing that went into New York were among the first eight things that I ever did. I'm sure it's damn hard to do well in NYC with anything resembling a beginning talent. Some of those stories, as you well know, smack of rank, formless amateurishism. Two of them I have never reread. Due to the pressure of time and law school, I wrote GRANDFATHER WORE INFANTRY BLUE in FOUR hours, and that other boxing thing in SIX. Naturally, they read like it. Fortunately, however, they also read like the work of a confident swellhead, which seemed to pull it off in a somewhat amateurish, swellhead fashion. Anyway, I'm working sweet and true now and I think I could do well with that agency with some mature, professional stuff. It's hard to have any OTHER plan, really, because the slush pile looks more and more like a dead end. I want to write for slicks and pulps and for whomever will have me, but I don't know how to get to them without that B and B agency. I am firmly convinced that a REAL story can hit anywhere. That is, if a mag prints a certain kind of stuff, and your story more or less hits their kind of taste, you'll MAKE it...IF the story really has the cookies. I have also come to the conclusion that the literary-slick dichotomy is an unfortunate one, that an honest effort could do well in either context. For the present I'm writing to interests readers, not specific mags. (Gonna go watch the Ed Sullivan show)

I'll have to confess that at heart and mind I'm a real cornball and go for most TV schmaltz. The E.S. Show held me firmly for one hour.

Now then: Thus far I have these lined up:

THE LIVING IS THE DYING

Gallantry at San Jose

THE ENCOUNTER

B and B has not seen the first one---that is, one from the early efforts. I have completely junked the old version of ENCOUNTER (desert) and just today finished a six and one-half page job that has me very pleased with myself. There is no showing off in it and the STORY has a real and natural kicker that comes off slambo. I'm very anxious for you to see this fifteen hundred word thing because I feel it's the best thing I've ever done. I never did like the old version and rereadings embarrassed me. GALLANTRY is my first plotted story and, though it bogs here and there, it does come thorugh. As soon as I can get someone to type clean drafts, I'll have GALLANTRY and ENCOUNTER in the mails to you. The way I write these dys is a laugh, but we'll go into that in a later letter. Anyhoo, Er. Pearson, we're really moving, at last, and nothing but progress is ahead of us.

Now for important things: Hawthorne sounds great to me. Personally, he stands out amongst the Americana greats, dominating, for instance, the sometimes more heralded Milville. I don't pretend to know Am Lit too well, but, briefly, Hawthorne seems to have more range and versatility

3

then Melville. I've always wanted to reread Hawthorne, whereas Melville never really got to me. Everything I'm saying seems to sound very limp, but, sincerely, I should think the Letters of such a man, his love for his wife, early tribulations, etc., ---should be very rewarding work. My very best luck for that work's progress.

I need at least four copies of your piece on the Executorship,.. one copy for a truly fine estates planner, William Hillman. My closest lawschool buddy, Robert Wise, is now an editor for the Conn. Bar Journal and I should think he would be interested in publishing it for Conn and NY eyes, if you're at all interested. If you are, just tell me and I'll send him a copy, etc. I feel strongly that all lawyers can profit from that article. At least, that has been the response amongst my lawyer friends, including Judge Hall, to whom I gave the spare copy you sent me earlier.

Red Thompson received his manuscript from Knoff without one word of comment. Though I don't know Red, I have it on good authority, Bill Clark, that the novel came up to anything that he had ever done before. Bill tells me Red is very touchy on the subject and doesn't like to talk about the turn of events. Well, now's the time to dig in. Hell, if I'd had that kid's success, I'd probably start fluttering like your friend Louis Auchincloss. Who, incidentally, could write the pants off of me.

Well, Dr. Pearson, I go on and on, and I know you've goy things to do. I want you to know, however, what a real thrill it is for me whenever I get one of your letters. Please don't make it so longs between inspirational boosts. It's corny, I know, but I put your letter right in front of me as I finsihed the final version of ENCOUNTER.

All Best,

P.S. Obviously I can't see a word I'm typing, so excuse, if you will, the mess I've made. It prob'ly smacks of modern art. But at least it's broken my habit of thinking on paper.

Feb. 3, 1955

Dear Dr. Pearson:

I'm placing the 'Schaffner Package' in the mails in just a few
minutes. Five of the stories you have at one time or another
approved, while the sixth, THE INTRUDER, is the best both in terms
of knowing-my-business and possible markets. I hope you will
send them right on to Schaffner, as, during the meantime, I will
naturally be on pins and needles---a new phrase of mine. Unlike the
Brandt and Brandt adventure, I feel that this one could prove to
be very rewarding. The sixth story, qualitatively speaking, is
ROCK OF AGES, which is the one Miss Baumgarten liked most. This
time, well, there's simply more 'promise' to offer, and even, if kus
lucky, something he could use right now. Maybe, that is.

I wrote a one-page letter to Mr. Schaffner explaining who I am, who recommended me, telling him that I feel I'm ready to write for markets rather than for myself, that I'm ready to write upbeat news instead of downbeat, etc. The letter is enclosed in the very inner envelope, unsealed, and naturally I encourage you to read it. If you feel the letter's superfluous, then throw the darn thing away.

These stories, I'm certain, are several notches above the stuff
that went to B and B, though they are not as good as the one I'm just
finishing now. I know now what you meant when you said certain
writers were too arty for me just yet---But I know what you mean
because I now know enough about storytelling to know how much there
is to know. I'm confident, however, I can write the kind of thing
that publishes, and, as you say, bring my type up with me. It'll
take time, but I'll do it.

All my best and will write again soon,

UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

PHILADELPHIA 4

The College

AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

13 April 1955

Professor Norman H. Pearson
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Norman:

I wonder whether we could persuade you to come down to
Philadelphia on Monday, May 2nd as a guest critic of our Graduate
seminar in "Values as Index to 20th Century American Civilization."
The seminar meets at 4:00 P.M. and continues until 9:00 P.M. with
a generous intermission for dinner. You would probably wish to
spend the night in Philadelphia or in Swarthmore with us.

The group is composed of seven advanced graduate students
with some Post Doctoral and Faculty members. It has devoted its
attention chiefly to problems of methodology and is still madly
debating the question of whether social science methods can be
applied to literary material and vice-versa. We have experimented
some with the methods of Anthropology as well as literary criticism
and content analysis.

We would ask you merely to listen to what we had to say until
the spirit moved you to comment and then, after dinner, we would
ask you for an extempore summary of your impressions and recommen-
dations.

I won't trouble you with more details until I hear that you
can come. We would of course make it worth your while in addition
to covering expenses.

RES/blm

AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION

[ THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION ]

OFFICE OF THE
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

BOX 46, COLLEGE HALL,
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
PHILADELPHIA 4, PENNSYLVANIA

March 17, 1955

Dr. Norman Holmes Pearson
233 H. G. S.
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Norrum
Dear Dr. Pearson:

I am writing to ask you to accept appointment to what I consider to be one of our most important committees.

As you know, most of the regional development of the American Studies Association is past the organizational stage. The task before us now becomes more and more one of intensifying interest in the Association among scholars in various disciplines. Accordingly, the work of our Committee on Regional and Cooperating Societies becomes more and more important. Since we have no intention of having large national meetings ourselves, it becomes extremely desirable to develop our present plan for having joint sessions with other scholarly groups. The success of the recent sessions at the AHA and MLA in New York points the way.

Professor Leon Howard, of the University of California at Los Angeles, and Professor Richard H. Shryock, of the Johns Hopkins University, have consented to serve as co-chairmen of this committee. Its other members will represent different disciplines so that we may have contact with as many different national associations as possible. I hope that you will be able to help us in this part of our work.

RES:mjv

January 16, 1956

Professor Robert E. Spiller
Chairman, American Civilization Program
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia 4, Pa.

Dear Bob:

I must apologize for not having answered your good letter of December 16th before this, but it came just as my wife had torn the ligaments of her ankle and as Christmas was on us. With all that seems to happen at this time of year I am hardly breathing free even now.

I have posted the announcement of your third post-doctoral
two year fellowship, and for once I wish I were just finishing my
dissertation all over again. But the truth is that locally the few men
who have finished, or are nearly finished, with their degrees are being
taken on by us to take care of spots left by men who are having other
fellowships next year or have gone elsewhere. And it looks as though
we should have to be conducting twelve or more divisions of seminars,
The drain increases. Thank God for Mr. Coe and his benefactions.

I can't help, however, but wonder if Brom Weber, who is
finishing his degree at Minnesota might not be a possible candidate.
He is married and in his 30's, and has a good deal of experience already,
from having done a book on Hart Crane as well as an edition of his
letters; edited a volume of *Sut Lovington's*; taught creative writing at the
New School, etc. Last year he took his master's degree at Wyoming, and
then got a fellowship at Minnesota. Tremaine could tell you about him,
or so could Leo Marx who might know him better. He's worth looking into.

I hope all blossoms with you. I bought your one-volume
history, and read it with interest and profit. Some one told me it was
to be available in a paperback; we surely need something like that.

NHP:LLH

UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

THE DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

announces

A TWO-YEAR POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP

to study the problem of

LITERATURE AND CIVILIZATION

**The award** will be announced in the Spring of 1956 for the academic years 1956-57 and 1957-58.

It will be made by the Department of American Civilization in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in co-operation with the Department of English.

**Applicants** must be holders of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy either in English or in American Civilization, in either case with a specialization in American Literature. Candidates for the degree in June 1956 may compete on a provisional basis.

**The recipient** will be in residence at the University of Pennsylvania for two years, but will have an allowance for travel. During the first year he will study the relationships of literature to general culture with special reference to American Civilization, past and present. During the second year he will continue his studies by offering an experimental advanced course as a part of the undergraduate or graduate program in American Civilization.

**The fellowship** carries a total stipend of $8,000, plus $1,000 allowance for travel, for the two-year period.

**Closing date for applications:** March 1, 1956.

**Please address inquiries to:**

THE CHAIRMAN
Department of American Civilization
Box 18, Bennett Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia 4, Pennsylvania

(PLEASE POST)

Oct. 4

Dear Dr. Pearson:

Enclosed is the well-thought-out version of THE ENCOUNTER, the way I hope
you will let it stand. I've taken the fluff out of it and it moves
in terms of the socko ending.

Unfortunately, this is the only story I have been able to get typed
up for your dissecting eyes. Soon, however, I will have another on its
way; one, which, I think, confirms my thought that I have found the
the way to deal with plot instead of idea.

Should I send this to B and B, reminding them who I am (sending them
their letter which they had sent to me), or is this thing strong
enough to renew the acquaintance? My original idea was to send
them six stories---Should I wait? Now that I've posed the question,
the answer seems rhetorical---I SHOULD wait.

I'll send GALLANTRY to you very shortly.

ALL BEST WISHES,

12-25-56

Dear Norman,

Ah Dr. Pearson, it's always so darn wonderful hearing from you.
As long as I feel you're in my corner, it's the best of morale supports
a man could ask for. For God's sake, please avoid the apologies for
whatever time passes--It does, that's all. I do hope the next year
will be one of your best.

I don't know how many operations I'd had when last I wrote--probably three. Well, I've now had five but I do not intend to have even one more cut or stitch. They say the Lord chasteneth those whom he loves--Well, he must be liberally enamoured of me. In any case, he or something has done and is doing the job, and I feel, at long last, that I'm beginning to be a fractional facsimile of the person I want to be. This has perhaps been the best year of life, in many crucial respects, and I hope things, everything, will continue to look forward and up. But I didn't mean to become so flavorfully tangential, so enough. What am I doing?--what else but studying for the bar exam. I'm going to see this damn thing through, regardless. I'll take it with the sighted boys and, eventually, I'll nail it. I've been studying since last May, sitting, listening, understanding hundreds of hours of tape and records, and I think I can hammer the stuff home. I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but when I took it over three years ago, I came within a lover's whisper despite not getting to two full questions. I've got a 'system' now, and I'll have good news for you during '57.

More important, I'm beginning to sound like myself again. I'm rarin' to get writin', but I'm not indulging myself any privileges. I've got so damn many ideas kicking around that, well, I sometimes feel I should cork my ears when I go to bed. I think, and I hope, that I may have emerged from the long tunnel of self-consciousness some months ago. I have something going, naturally, and I think you may be satisfied--We'll see, but not for awhile.

About time, this used to worry me a good deal, but, now, well I think I'll make the grade if I just keep pluggin', and time, what the hell, it's the quality I'm after, regardless. I've discovered a few things, and, in the discovery, I often marvel at the kind of patience, or toleration, that I've received from you--It's taught me several times, in key instances, to allow myself the belief that this or that person would 'grow-up', would, through his own introspective honesty, find his way to become an older, wiser person. What a young ass I was, and, indeed, still am. But whereas I used to be exuberant over apparent success, or good writing, I'm now circumspectly sober about it, and I have no illusions about what a hard nut this is to crack, the writing that is. I feel I've got it, and I feel I'm not going to let you or me down. But I knew no longer feel I'm the 'natural' I used to think I was--not by a long shot. During one stretch of fifteen months, I had four of the operations, and I got a lot of needed reading done during this time--I've gained much from this, and I intend to go on a regular reading binge following the exam.

2

3

Well you just experienced one of the problems of not seeing too well--but I do have to earn my pension once in awhile. But repeating myself about Sanders, anything you could say or do for him would not be a waste of your time. He's the kind of fellow who gives you faith and hope in all the others.

I do not think the final door has been closed by Schaffner. He was certainly nice and he mailed the stories out, bravely it seems to me, to darn near everywhere--They just don't have a professional ring or potency about them. Barb and I are planning a trip East one year from this summer, and, at that time, I hope to have some good things for him, or, if he's disinterested, I will take them around myself and see what's what, or at least have fun. We'll be staying with friends in Stamford and I'll have time to accomplish several key objectives in NYC--I've got something up my sleeve, but I don't want to talk it out of existence.

All the very best to you, Dr. Pearson. And it must go on being Dr. until I'm 35 or published, whichever is sooner. I could have made print several months ago in a mag called 9 in One, a teachers' mag edited by my closest friend, but so what?--It would've been non-fiction having to do with what's wrong-with-teaching-in-our-schools, etc., but I honestly don't know what's wrong and I told him so. Besides, I'm zeroed-in on this law target and I'm going all out.

Cheers and fondly,

3 August 1965

Professor Robert E. Spiller
Department of English
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

Dear Bob:

Mrs. Brooks had told me of the task you had undertaken of prepar-
ing a volume of his letters. It is an immense task I know and I do not
envy you the amount of work which is entailed. Nevertheless the result
should be a valuable one. Van Wyck was a first class letter writer, and
especially in the earlier years he was very much in touch with the forward
literary movements.

Since you have the letters to him I suppose that you are using
those names as a key to trunks where his own letters to them may be stored.
If you have any particular names which are hard to trace, it is just pos-
sible that I might know the answers. However as I draw close to the grave
my own memory falters. I do know there is a substantial group of letters
among the John Gould Fletcher papers at the University of Arkansas for I
went there to go through them when I was arranging the Fletcher estate.
At that time Van Wyck very kindly allowed me to copy Fletcher's letters
to him and I have those copies now among my own papers here. Malcolm
Cowley may have a number but whether these are already at the Newberry
Library I do not know. I suspect that Lewis Mumford also must have a
substantial number. Not having actually worked on Brooks I am not alto-
gether clear as to which were his broad contacts.

NHP:d

- 2

like the Ritz (as we did) than to own or rent your own home and
keep house yourself. We found that we spent all our Kroner on
basic living, modest entertaining, and a little travel. We
drew on dollars for longer trips, for items to bring home, and
for part of the steamship fare of my wife and daughter. Of course,
I had a daughter with me, and that added to our costs substantially.

Your third question about being free to run off to
other countries : You can plan your schedule of lectures and
seminars so that you can get a week or so off even in term time
(and this is desirable if you plan to visit Copenhagen, Uppsala,
or other university towns). Your award will probably require a
minimum of time to be spent in Norway, but will allow plenty of
time for travel if you spend a full year abroad. Whether or not
you can change your Norwegian Kroner into other currencies will
depend upon the state of international exchange at the time. I
got enough Danish and Swedish Kroner to pay for a good part of my
expenses in those countries.

Don't let me scare you off. It's one of the best
things I ever did and I'd do it again in a minute if I had it to
do over again. But I'd want to be assured of a dollar in good
US currency in bank at home for every dollar I expected to get
in Kroner.

As for Walter Blackstock and the Dreiser papers,
I seem to remember a letter from someone asking to see the papers
so that he could make up his mind what he wanted to write about
Dreiser. I advised John Alden to answer that the papers are open
only to those who know what they want and why. As we have
practically everything there is by or about Dreiser, in all its
forms, to turn a youngster loose would not be fair to him, to the
papers, or to the other twenty or thirty Dreiser students and
scholars. If he has a definite project and has qualified himself
by a thorough general knowledge of Dreiser, we can quickly tell
him whether or not the coast is clear. I'd suggest now that he
write again, stating what he wants and why. Your statement is
clear enough, but we ought to have the request from him as an
assurance that he knows what he is about. By the way, John Alden
has gone abroad to work in the British Museum and Thomas R. Adams
is in charge of the Rare Book Room.

We would be always delighted to have any student of
yours work with any material we have.

P.S. You and Mrs. Pearson will probably be running down to
Washington at some point in the negotiations. Can't you drop off
at either Chester or Philadelphia and come out to Swarthmore
for a visit with us? We have a guest room always available.
We will be back home after Labor Day.
603 Ogden Ave. (Swarthmore 6-5256)