by Ann Hulbert
28 “She was not assured”: JS, “Between the Porch and the Altar,” Collected Stories, p. 412.
29 “leaving herself alone”: Ibid., p. 413.
30 one critic observed: Albert Gelpi, “The Reign of the Kingfisher: Robert Lowell’s Prophetic Poetry,” in Robert Lowell: Essays on the Poetry, ed. Steven Gould Axelrod and Helen Deese (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 60.
31 “my heart”: Robert Lowell, “Colloquy at Black Rock,” in Lord Weary’s Castle and The Mills of the Kavanaughs (San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace/A Harvest Book, 1974), p. 11.
32 “quite clearly Lowell”: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 97.
33 “second prize-winning novelette”: Partisan Review 12 (Spring 1945), p. 149.
34 “Anything happening”: Randall Jarrell to Robert Lowell, Aug. 1945, in Randall Jarrell’s Letters, ed. Mary Jarrell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1985), p. 128.
35 “Since I like”: Allen Tate to JS, Aug. 9, 1945, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.
36 “The ivory tower”: JS, “The Captain’s Gift,” Collected Stories, p. 439.
37 “You have concentrated”: Caroline Gordon to JS, n.d., McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.
38 “cut off cleanly”: JS, “The Captain’s Gift,” Collected Stories, p. 445.
39 “What I am trying”: Caroline Gordon to JS, n.d., McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.
40 “ideas tested by”: Allen Tate, quoted in Axelrod, Robert Lowell: Life and Art, p. 39.
41 Lowell too was seduced: Ibid., p. 40.
42 “richer in immediate experience”: Ibid., p. 44.
CHAPTER 9: Maine
1 roughly twenty thousand dollars: Harcourt, Brace royalty statement fox Boston Adventure, JS Collection, U. of Co.
2 “It is about”: JS to Cecile Starr, Aug. 23, 1945, courtesy of Cecile Starr.
3 “I imagine it”: JS to Paul and Dorothy Thompson, Aug. 23, 1945, courtesy of the Thompsons.
4 “Two families living”: Caroline Gordon to JS, n.d., McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.
5 In December of 1945: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 108.
6 Stafford meanwhile: Robert Giroux to author, May 6, 1991.
7 “Everything crashed”: JS to Cecile Starr, Nov. 27, 1945, courtesy of Cecile Starr.
8 “I shouldn’t tell”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, Nov. 27, 1945, JS Collection, U. of Co.
9 “One might think”: Delmore Schwartz to Helen Blackmur, quoted in Atlas, Delmore Schwartz, p. 263.
10 “Underseas fellows”: “To Delmore Schwartz,” Robert Lowell, in Life Studies and For the Union Dead (New York: Noonday Press, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977), p. 53.
11 “You said”: #152, John Berryman, in The Dream Songs (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969), p. 171.
12 “to ‘express’ ”: Atlas, Delmore Schwartz, p. 231.
13 “No matter where”: Ibid., p. 235.
14 “suicide that had come” to “by the New Deal”: JS, “Truth and the Novelist,” p. 187.
15 “my friends said”: Ibid., p. 188.
16 “circulating malicious rumors”: Atlas, Delmore Schwartz, p. 265.
17 His gossip was: Roberts, Jean Stafford, p. 237; and Frank Parker interview with author, Nov. 23, 1990.
18 “We shall probably”: JS to Cecile Starr, Mar. 11, 1946, courtesy of Cecile Starr.
19 “house of ingratitude” to “house He built”: John Berryman, “Lowell, Thomas &c,” Partisan Review 14, no. 1 (Winter 1947), p. 76.
20 “Death comes”: Axelrod, Robert Lowell: Life and Art, p. 52.
21 “When he came”: JS to Peter Taylor, Dec. 19, 1946, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 111.
22 “We have had a taste”: JS to Allen Tate, Jan. 4, 1946, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 108.
23 “They were entirely different” to “to fuse the two manners”: Harvey Breit, “Talk with Jean Stafford,” The New York Times Book Review, Jan. 20, 1952, p. 18.
24 “less inclined”: Lambert Davis to JS, Dec. 21, 1945, JS Collection, U. of Co.
25 “Your major change”: Robert Giroux to JS, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
26 “creature of funny precocity”: Robert Fitzgerald, “The Children,” The Nation 164 (Apr. 5, 1947), p. 400.
27 “Gradually I became Molly”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
28 “double bildungsroman”: Charlotte Goodman, “The Lost Brother/The Twin: Women Novelists and the Male-Female Double Bildungsroman,” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 17 (Fall 1983), pp. 28–43.
29 “He looked at”: JS, The Mountain Lion (New York: E. P. Dutton/Obelisk, 1983), p. 116.
30 “this scrawny” to “satiric nature”: Ibid., p. 143.
31 Bonney merchants and the Kenyon men: Ibid., p. 114.
32 “sissy life”: Ibid., p. 79.
33 “unseemly second marriage”: Ibid., p. 22.
34 “half legendary”: Ibid., p. 55.
35 “massive, slow-footed bear”: Ibid., p. 33.
36 a reconsideration of the novel: Blanche H. Gelfant, “Reconsideration,” The New Republic 172 (May 10, 1975), pp. 22–25.
37 “virile opacity”: JS, The Mountain Lion, p. 168.
38 She was a symbolic element: Gelfant, “Reconsideration,” p. 22, for example.
39 “always smoldering”: JS, The Mountain Lion, p. 98.
40 “list of unforgivable” people to “were all fat”: Ibid., pp. 178–179.
41 “She burst into tears”: Ibid., p. 217.
42 “bereft in an unadulterated”: Maureen Ryan, Innocence and Estrangement in the Fiction of Jean Stafford (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), p. 55.
43 “Ralph was troubled”: JS, The Mountain Lion, p. 186.
44 “Because his own”: Ibid., p. 168.
45 “If he did not become”: Ibid., p. 186.
46 “ ‘My literature is”: Ibid., p. 95.
47 “Gravel, gravel”: Ibid., p. 31.
48 “Everyone said she had”: Ibid., p. 144.
49 “though there was nothing” to “to have tuberculosis”: Ibid., p. 182.
50 “The pain was not”: Ibid., p. 131.
51 “For the most part”: Ibid., p. 177.
52 “In some respects” to “uses of literary expression”: Philip Rahv to JS, Feb. 8, 1947, JS Collection, U. of Co.
53 “My theory about children”: Alice Dixon Bond, “Fascination with Words Started Jean Stafford on Writing Career,” Boston Sunday Herald, Jan. 27, 1957.
54 “I know I’m ugly” to “got a home”: JS, The Mountain Lion, pp. 139–140.
55 “For ages”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
56 “I felt perpetually”: JS to Paul and Dorothy Thompson, Apr. 3, 1947, courtesy of the Thompsons.
57 “Come as soon as you can” to “pleasure and profit”: JS to Peter and Eleanor Taylor, Apr. 5, 1946, Vanderbilt University Library.
58 “That awful summer!”: JS, “An Influx of Poets,” p. 43.
59 “last summer of innocence”: Simpson, Poets in Their Youth, p. 134.
60 “It has been the most confused”: JS to Cecile Starr, n.d., courtesy of Cecile Starr.
61 She called it “the incident”: Oliver Jensen interview with author, Dec. 1, 1986.
62 “as if it were their”: JS, “A Country Love Story,” Collected Stories, p. 138.
63 “it seemed to her”: Ibid., p. 138.
64 “seized with the terror”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
65 “nest of ex-Communists”: JS unpublished memoir, courtesy of Oliver Jensen.
66 “tongue of an adder”: JS, “Influx of Poets,” p. 52.
67 “There was an influx”: Ibid., p. 48.
68 “Theron the poet’s”: Ibid., p. 47.
69 “I helped in every way”: Ibid., p. 56.
70 “Mine! Remember”: Ibid., p. 46.
71
“God almighty”: Ibid., p. 51.
72 “baby bards” to “drink didn’t help”: Ibid., p. 43.
73 “listening to the poets”: Ibid.
74 “all poets’ wives”: Atlas, Delmore Schwartz, p. 223.
75 “the prodigal poet”: Marjorie Perloff, “Poètes Maudits of the Genteel Tradition,” in Robert Lowell: Essays on the Poetry, ed. Axelrod and Deese, p. 109.
76 “I knew—although”: JS, “An Influx of Poets,” p. 43.
77 “But great as you are”: Nancy Flagg Gibney to JS, Jan. 29, 1979, JS Collection, U. of Co.
78 “somber mood”: Simpson, Poets in Their Youth, p. 135.
79 “Everything is going” to “houses with servants”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, June 13, 1946, JS Collection, U. of Co.
80 “I don’t care”: Robert Lowell to Peter Taylor, Aug. 13, 1946, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 115.
81 “There has been such”: JS to Cecile Starr, n.d., courtesy of Cecile Starr.
82 “I have wanted to write”: JS to Peter Taylor, Aug. 28, 1946, Vanderbilt University Library.
PART IV: Manhattan and Other Islands, 1946–1979
CHAPTER 10: Patterns
1 “There was something” to “can protect me”: JS to Peter Taylor, Nov. 20, 1946, Vanderbilt University Library.
2 “He was, despite”: JS, “An Influx of Poets,” p. 44.
3 “If it had not been”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
4 “I have finally”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, Sept. 23, 1946, JS Collection, U. of Co.
5 “my marvelous man”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, Oct. 26, 1946, JS Collection, U. of Co.
6 Cecile Starr thought of her: Cecile Starr interview with author, Dec. 4, 1986.
7 “Boston Adventure was the product” to “finished the book”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
8 “almost more than”: JS, “A Personal Story” MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
9 “Still, the torment”: Ibid.
10 “So ignorant and sheeplike”: JS, “An Influx of Poets,” p. 55.
11 “All I can feel now”: JS to Peter Taylor, Dec. 31, 1946, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 122.
12 “not go any further”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
13 “If only I could sleep”: JS to Peter Taylor, Nov. 20, 1946, Vanderbilt University Library.
14 “safe between innumerable”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, Dec. 21, 1946, JS Collection, U. of Co.
15 “Luna Park”: Simpson, Poets in Their Youth, p. 150.
16 “I think the stumbling block”: JS diary, June 9, 1947, JS Collection, U. of Co.
17 “I warn you”: JS to Peter Taylor, Jan. 6, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
18 “I have had many very”: JS to Peter Taylor, n.d., Vanderbilt University Library.
19 “to get yourself”: Peter Taylor to JS, Nov. 12, 1946, JS Collection, U. of Co.
20 “a symbol to me”: JS to Peter Taylor, Mar. 31, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
21 “I must be believed in”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
22 “Once again I have”: JS to Peter Taylor, Mar. 31, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
23 “appearing in the Nation”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
24 “Cal, let me point”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
25 “last year’s authors”: Cyril Connolly, “Introduction,” Horizon 93–94 (Oct. 1947) p. 5, quoted in Roberts, Jean Stafford, pp. 265–266.
26 “I am only”: JS to Cecile Starr, n.d., courtesy of Cecile Starr.
27 “I have never”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
28 “What do I care” to “being a writer”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
29 “incapable of being loved”: JS to Peter Taylor, Dec. 19, 1946, Vanderbilt University Library.
30 “Jean has suffered”: Peter Taylor to Robert Lowell, Nov. 19, 1946, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
31 “I love children”: JS, “Sisterhood,” an unfinished essay, JS Collection, U. of Co.
32 “I have never”: JS biographical fragments, JS Collection, U. of Co.
33 “Partly because I was born”: JS to Mary Lou Aswell, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
34 “My mother’s death”: JS miscellaneous notes and drafts, JS Collection, U. of Co.
35 “I received”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
36 “I grieve that”: JS to Peter Taylor, Feb. 5, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
37 “I try to see” to “presently be kidnapped”: JS diary, JS Collection, U. of Co.
38 “Deep-rooted as it all is”: JS to Peter Taylor, Dec. 25, 1946.
39 “There are no pictures”: JS diary, JS Collection, U. of Co.
40 “I felt awful” to “without drinking”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, Feb. 11, 1947, JS Collection, U. of Co.
41 “mutilated with woe” JS to Peter Taylor, June 2, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
42 “Faced with its loveliness”: JS to Cecile Starr, n.d., courtesy of Cecile Starr.
43 awarded a Pulitzer: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 124.
44 “The pictures of him”: JS to Peter Taylor, June 2, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
45 “I went alone”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, postmarked May 19, 1947, JS Collection, U. of Co.
46 “It would be”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
47 “What Pansy thought”: JS, “The Interior Castle,” Collected Stories, pp. 182–183.
48 “the time would come” to “rosy luster”: Ibid., p. 192.
49 “never had the quiet” to “treasureless head”: Ibid., p. 193.
50 “And now that”: JS, “ ‘My Sleep Grew Shy of Me’ ” Vogue 110 (Oct. 15, 1947), p. 135.
51 “I honored the good practice”: Ibid., p. 171.
52 “convalescence, the charming” to “had forsworn forever”: Ibid., p. 174.
53 “I have been here”: JS hospital diary, May 30, 1947, JS Collection, U. of Co.
54 at that point Lowell had agreed: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
55 “without money” to “cannot be appealing”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
56 “Bring a number”: Atlas, Delmore Schwartz, p. 253.
57 “I have been grateful”: JS to Peter Taylor, Aug. 4, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
58 “It was more”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
59 “a fit of trembling”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
60 “returned to me”: JS to Peter Taylor, Apr. 27, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
61 “I am studying” to “feeding upon a fungus”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
62 “You will be”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
63 “the first of [her] saviours”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
64 “Dr. Cohn”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
65 “Before we meet”: Dr. Alfred Cohn to JS, Mar. 25, 1948, JS Collection, U. of Co.
66 “It has been rather rough” to “what happiness is”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
67 “I cannot truly”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
68 “Alas, I am”: JS to Peter Taylor, Dec. 17, 1947, Vanderbilt University Library.
69 “I went to Bard” to “my principal ambition”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
70 “low pitch”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard Universi
ty.
71 “[My lecture] is so foolish”: JS to John Crowe Ransom, n.d., courtesy of the Greenslade Special Collections of Olin and Chalmers Libraries at Kenyon College.
72 “Uncle Ransom”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
73 “loutishly well-adjusted”: JS, “The Psychological Novel,” Kenyon Review 10 (Spring 1948), p. 218.
74 “It is fashionable”: Ibid., p. 215.
75 “drive toward being”: Ibid., p. 220.
76 “in the respect”: Lionel Trilling, “Art and Neurosis,” in The Liberal Imagination, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), p. 170.
77 “detachment from our characters’ ”: JS, “The Psychological Novel,” p. 220.
78 “We must be experts”: Ibid., p. 221.
79 “Naturally I go” to “do not make sense”: Ibid., pp. 223–224.
80 “lowers the story”: Ibid., p. 217.
81 “At forty I’ve written”: Robert Lowell to William Carlos Williams, Dec. 3, 1957, quoted in Axelrod, Robert Lowell: Life and Art, p. 91.
82 In December she sold: Roberts, Jean Stafford, p. 275.
83 “secretly enjoyed”: James Thurber, The Years with Ross (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press Book, Little, Brown and Co., 1959), p. 97.
84 “the word ‘casual’ ”: Ibid., p. 13.
85 “not edited for the old lady in Dubuque”: Ibid., p. 85.
86 “for many years” to “that had style”: Brendan Gill, Here at The New Yorker (New York: Random House, 1975), p. 390.
87 “one of her best friends”: Linda H. David, Onward and Upward: A Biography of Katharine S. White (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 152.
88 “a remarkable reviser”: Ibid., p. 154.
89 “a vague, little man”: Thurber, The Years with Ross, p. 131.
90 “the pointless and inane”: Edmund Wilson to Katharine White, Nov. 12, 1947, quoted in Edmund Wilson, Letters on Literature and Politics, 1912–1972, ed. Elena Wilson (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977), p. 410.
91 “It’s easy to”: Delmore Schwartz, “Smile and Grin, Relax and Collapse,” in Selected Essays of Delmore Schwartz, ed. Donald A. Dike and David H. Zuckor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 416.
92 “powerful and pernicious”: Ibid., p. 412.
93 “in The New Yorker”: Ibid., p. 416.