A Life in Letters
Page 20
(5) Thank you for getting Gatsby for me in foreign languages
(6) Sorry about John Biggs but it will probably do him good in the end. The Stranger in Soul Country had something + the Seven Days Whipping was respectable but colorless. Demigods was simply oratorical twirp. How is his play going?
(7.) Tom Boyd seems far away. I’ll tell you one awful thing tho. Lawrence Stallings was in the West with King Vidor at a huge salary to write an equivalent of What Price Glory. King Vidor told me that Stallings in despair of showing Vidor what the war was about gave him a copy of Through the Wheat. And that’s how Vidor so he told me made the big scenes of the Big Parade. Tom Boyd’s profits were a few thousand—Stallings were a few hundred thousands. Please don’t connect my name with this story but it is the truth and it seems to me rather horrible.
(8) Lastly + most important. For the English rights of my next book Knopf made me an offer so much better than any in England (advance $500.00; royalies sliding from ten to fifteen + twenty; guaranty to publish next book of short stories at same rate) that I accepted of course.1 My previous talk with Cape was encouraging on my part but conditional. As to Chatto + Windus—since they made no overtures at my All the Sad Young Men I feel free to take any advantage of a technicality to have my short stories published in England, especially as they answered a letter of mine on the publication of the book with the signature (Chatto + Windus, per Q), undoubtedly an English method of showing real interest in one’s work.
I must tell you (+ privately) for your own amusement that the first treaty Knopf sent me contained a clause that would have required me to give him $10,000 on date of publication—that is: 25% of all serial rights (no specifying only English ones,) for which Liberty have contracted, as you know, for $40,000. This was pretty Jewish, or maybe an error in his office, but later I went over the contract with a fine tooth comb + he was very decent. Confidential! Incidently he said to me as Harcourt once did to Ernest that you were the best publishers in America. I told him he was wrong—that you were just a lot of royalty-doctorers + short changers.
No more for the moment. I liked Bunny’s book + am sorry it didn’t go. I thot those Day Edgar stories made a nice book, didn’t you?
Ever Your Devoted Friend
Scott
I append the sheet of brilliant ideas of which you may find one or two worth considering. Congratulations on the Eddy Book
(Suggestion list)
(1.) Certainly if the ubiquitous and ruined McAlmon deserves a hearing then John Bishop, a poet and a man of really great talents and intelligence does. I am sending you under another cover a sister story1 of the novelette you refused, which together with the first one and three shorter ones will form his Civil-War-civilian-in-invaded-Virginia-book, a simply grand idea + a new, rich field. The enclosed is the best thing he has ever done and the best thing about the non-combatant or rather behind-the-lines war I’ve ever read. I hope to God you can use this in the magazine—couldn’t it be run into small type carried over like Sew Collins did with Boston + you Farewell to Arms? He needs the encouragement + is so worth it.
(2) In the new American Caravan amid much sandwiching of Joyce and Co is the first work of a 21 year old named Robert Cantwell. Mark it well, for my guess is that he’s learned a better lesson from Proust than Thornton Wilder did and has a destiny of no mean star.
(3.) Another young man therein named Gerald Sykes has an extraordinary talent in the line of heaven knows what, but very memorable and distinguished.
(4) Thirdly (and these three are all in the whole damn book) there is a man named Erskine Caldwell, who interested me less than the others because of the usual derivations from Hemmingway and even Callaghan—still read him. He + Sykes are 26 yrs old. I don’t know any of them.
If you decide to act in any of these last three cases I’d do it within a few weeks. I know none of the men but Cantwell will go quick with his next stuff if he hasn’t gone already. For some reason young writers come in groups—Cummings, Dos Passos + me in 1920–21; Hemmingway, Callaghan + Wilder in 1926–27 and no one in between and no one since. This looks to me like a really new generation
(5) Now a personal friend (but he knows not that I’m you)—Cary Ross (Yale 1925)—poorly represented in this American Caravan, but rather brilliantly by poems in the Mercury + Transition, studying medicine at Johns Hopkins + one who at the price of publication or at least examination of his poems might prove a valuable man. Distincly younger that post war, later than my generation, sure to turn to fiction + worth corresponding with. I believe these are the cream of the young people
(6) [general] Dos Passos wrote me about the ms. of some protegée of his but as I didn’t see the ms. or know the man the letter seemed meaningless. Did you do anything about Murray Godwin (or Goodwin?). Shortly I’m sending you some memoirs by an ex-marine, doorman at my bank here. They might have some documentary value as true stories of the Nicaraguan expedition ect.
(7.) In the foreign (French) field there is besides Chamson one man, and at the opposite pole, of great great talent. It is not Cocteau nor Arragon but young René Crevel. I am opposed to him for being a fairy but in the last Transition (number 18.) there is a translation of the beginning of his current novel which simply knocked me cold with its beauty. The part in Transition is called Mr. Knife and Miss Fork and I wish to God you’d read it immediately. Incedently the novel is a great current success here. I know its not yet placed in America + if you’re interested please communicate with me before you write Bradley.
(8) Now, one last, much more elaborate idea. In France any military book of real tactical or strategical importance, theoretical or fully documented (+ usually the latter) (and I’m not referring to the one-company battles between “Red” + “Blue” taught us in the army under the name of Small Problems for Infantry). They are mostly published by Payots here + include such works as Ludendorf’s Memoirs; and the Documentary Preparations for the German break-thru in 1918—how the men were massed, trained, brought up to the line in 12 hours in 150 different technical groups from flame throwers to field kitchens, the whole inside story from captured orders of the greatest tactical attack in history; a study of Tannenburg (German); several, both French + German of the 1st Marne; a thorough study of gas warfare, another of Tanks, no dogmatic distillations compiled by some old dotart, but original documents.
Now—believing that so long as we have service schools and not much preparation (I am a political cynic and a big-navy-man, like all Europeans) English Translations should be available in all academies, army service schools, staff schools ect (I’ll bet there are American army officers with the rank of Captain that don’t know what “infiltration in depth” is or what Colonel Bruckmüller’s idea of artillery employment was.) It seems to me that it would be a great patriotic service to consult the war-department bookbuyers on some subsidy plan to bring out a tentative dozen of the most important as “an original scource tactical library of the lessons of the great war.” It would be a parallel, but more essentially military rather than politics-military, to the enclosed list of Payot’s collection. I underline some of my proposed inclusions. This, in view of some millions of amateurs of battle now in America might be an enormous popular success as well as a patriotic service. Let me know about this because if you shouldn’t be interested I’d like to for my own satisfaction make the suggestion to someone else. Some that I’ve underlined may be already published.
My God—this is 7 pages + you’re asleep + I want to catch the Olympic with this so I’ll close. Please tell me your response to each idea.
Does Chamson sell at all? Oh, for my income tax will you have the usual statement of lack of royalties sent me— + for my curiosity to see if I’ve sold a book this year except to myself.
DISASTER, TENDER IS THE NIGHT,
“CRACK-UP ”
1930–1937
April 1930
ZF has first breakdown in Paris, enters Malmaison clinic outside Paris, then Valmont clinic in
Switzerland. Publication of the first Josephine story, “First Blood” in The Saturday Evening Post; the five-story series appears in the Post from April 1930 to August 1931.
June 5, 1930
ZF enters Prangins clinic near Geneva, Switzerland.
Summer and fall 1930
FSF in Geneva, Lausanne, and Montreux.
Late January 1931
FSF’s father dies. FSF returns alone to America to attend the funeral and for a brief trip to Montgomery to report to the Sayres about ZF.
February 1931
“Babylon Revisited” in The Saturday Evening Post.
September 15, 1931
ZF is discharged from Prangins; Fitzgeralds return to America permanently.
September 1931–spring 1932
Rent house at 819 Felder Avenue in Montgomery. FSF goes to Hollywood alone to work on Red-Headed Woman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
November 17, 1931
Death of Judge A. D. Sayre.
February 1932
ZF’s second breakdown; she enters Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
March 1932
ZF completes the first draft of her novel, Save Me the Waltz, while at Phipps Clinic.
May 20, 1932–November 1933
FSF rents “La Paix” on the outskirts of Baltimore.
June 26, 1932
ZF discharged from Phipps; joins family at “La Paix.”
October 7, 1932
Publication of Save Me the Waltz.
December 1933
FSF rents house at 1307 Park Avenue, Baltimore.
January 1934
ZF’s third breakdown; enters Sheppard-Pratt Hospital, outside Baltimore.
January–April 1934
Serialization of Tender Is the Night in Scribner’s Magazine.
March 1934
ZF enters Craig House clinic in Beacon, New York.
March 29–April 30, 1934
ZF art exhibit in New York.
April 12, 1934
Publication of Tender Is the Night.
May 19, 1934
ZF is transferred back to Sheppard-Pratt Hospital.
February 3, 1935
FSF, convinced he has tuberculosis, goes to Oak Hall Hotel in Tryon, North Carolina.
March 20, 1935
Publication of Taps at Reveille, fourth short-story collection.
Summer 1935
FSF at the Grove Park Inn, Asheville, North Carolina.
September 1935
FSF takes apartment at Cambridge Arms, Baltimore.
November 1935
FSF at the Skyland Hotel in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where he begins writing “The Crack-Up” essays.
April 8, 1936
ZF enters Highland Hospital in Asheville.
July–December 1936
FSF at the Grove Park Inn.
September 1936
Death of Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald in Washington.
January–June 1937
FSF at Oak Hall Hotel in Tryon.
TO: Maxwell Perkins
May 1930
ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University
Paris
Dear Max
First let me tell you how shocked I was by Mr. Scribner’s death. It was in due time of course but nevertheless his fairness toward things that were of another generation, his general tolerance and simply his being there as titular head of a great business.
Please tell me how this effects you—if at all.
The letter enclosed1 has been in my desk for three weeks as I wasn’t sure whether to send it when I wrote it. Then Powell Fowler2 + his wedding party arrived + I got unfortunately involved in dinners + night clubs + drinking; then Zelda got a sort of nervous breakdown from overwork + consequently I havn’t done a line of work or written a letter for twenty one days.
Have you read The Building of St. Michele3 + D. H. Lawrences Fantasia of the Unconscious? Don’t miss either of them.
Always Yours
Scott
Adress till July 1st
4 Rue Herran
What news of Ernest?
Please don’t mention the enclosed letter to Ober as I’ve written him already.
TO: Maxwell Perkins
May 1930
ALS, 1 p. Princeton University
Paris
Dear Max:
I was delighted about the Bishop story—the acceptance has done wonders for him. The other night I read him a good deal of my novel + I think he liked it. Harold Ober wrote me that if it couldn’t be published this fall I should publish the Basil Lee stories, but I know too well by whom reputations are made + broken to ruin myself completely by such a move—I’ve seen Tom Boyd, Michael Arlen + too many others fall through the eternal trapdoor of trying cheat the public, no matter what their public is, with substitutes—better to let four years go by. I wrote young + I wrote a lot + the pot takes longer to fill up now but the novel, my novel, is a different matter than if I’d hurriedly finished it up a year and a half ago. If you think Callahgan hasn’t completely blown himself up with this death house masterpiece1 just wait and see the pieces fall. I don’t know why I’m saying this to you who have never been anything but my most loyal and confident encourager and friend but Ober’s letter annoyed me today + put me in a wretched humor. I know what I’m doing—honestly, Max. How much time between The Cabala + The Bridge of St Lois Rey, between The Genius + The American Tragedy between The Wisdom Tooth + Green Pastures.2 I think time seems to go by quicker there in America but time put in is time eventually taken out—and whatever this thing of mine is its certainly not a mediocrity like The Woman of Andros + The Forty Second Parallel.3 “He through” is an easy cry to raise but its safer for the critics to raise it at the evidence in print than at a long silence.
Ever yours
Scott
TO: Harold Ober
Received May 13, 1930
ALS, 4 pp. Lilly Library
Paris
Dear Harold:
(1st) I will be mailing a new story about the 25th. Glad you liked A Nice Quiet Place. Did you ask about the corrected proof of First Blood—I do so want to have it. Glad you put up a kick about the illustrations—they were awful, with all the youthful suggestion of a G.A.R. congress
Thanks for the statements. I’m about where I feared I was.
Zelda was delighted with your compliments about the Millionaire’s Girl.
Now—about the novel—the other night I read one great hunk of it to John Peale Bishop, and we both agreed that it would be ruinous to let Liberty start it uncompleted. Here’s a hypothetical possibility. Suppose (as may happen in such cases) they didn’t like the end + we quarreled about it—then what the hell! I’d have lost the Post, gained an enemy in Liberty—who would we turn to—Ray Long? Suppose Liberty didn’t like even the first part + went around saying it was rotten before it was even finished. I want to be in New York if possible when they accept it for there’s that element of cutting, never yet discussed—are they going to cut it? Are they going to cut my stories to 5000 words or not? Are they going to pay $3500. or $4000. At one time I was about to send four chapters out of eight done to you. Then I cut one of those chapters absolutely to pieces. I know you’re losing faith in me + Max too but God knows one has to rely in the end on one’s own judgement. I could have published four lowsy, half baked books in the last five years + people would have thought I was at least a worthy young man not drinking myself to pieces in the south seas—but I’d be dead as Michael Arlen, Bromfield, Tom Boyd, Callaghan + the others who think they can trick the world with the hurried and the second rate. These Post stories in the Post are at least not any spot on me—they’re honest and if their form is stereotyped people know what to expect when they pick up the Post. The novel is another thing—if, after four years I published the Basil Lee stories as a book I might as well get tickets for Hollywood immediately.
Well, that’s how things are. If you’ll have co
nfidence in me I think you’ll shortly see I knew what I was doing
Ever Yours
Scott Fitz—
This letter sounds cross but I’m stupid-got with work today + too tired to rewrite it. Please forgive it—it has to get tomorrow’s boat.
Addenda
Zelda’s been sick + not dangerously but seriously, + then I got involved in a wedding party + after 2 weeks just got to work on new story yesterday but 3000 words already done—about as many as I must owe you dollars.
Meanwhile I acknowledge
(1) The account
(2) News about “the Beautiful + D——”
(3) Costain’s1 suggestion (incidently he can go to hell). The only way I can write a decent story is to imagine no one’s going to accept it + who cares. Self-consciousness about editors is ruinous to me. They can make their critisisms afterwards. I’m not doing to do another Josephine thing until I can get that out of my head. I tore up the beginning of one. You might tell him pleasantly, of course, that I just can’t work that way—Still there’s no use telling him—the harms done but if he has any other ideas about writing stories please don’t tell me.
(4) I’m sorry the proofs destroyed on First Blood. Could you get me a copy of the magazine its in—I’ve lost mine. I want to fix it while I remember. By the way I don’t mind not having when I’m here on my own stories—but when I’ve worked on a proof its like losing a whole draft of a thing.
Yours Always
Scott
Last Word
I understand the movies are buying short stories again. Do you know a good agent in Hollywood you might persuade to interest himself in Majesty.
Its constructed dramaticly like a play + has some damn good dramatic scenes in it
FSF
Address till July 1st
4 Rue Herran
TO: Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald