"Edgar Allan Poe" & Other PoemsFrom the Print
Tales: alchemical. / Criticism: polemical. / Subjects: tarn, tomb, raven, Ulalume…
21 December (1954): P. G. Wodehouse to Denis Mackail
Below, a short letter from P. G. Wodehouse to English novelist Denis Mackail, on the loathsomeness of the BBC and “louse” Max Beerbohm. TO DENIS MACKAIL December 21, 1954, New York How I agree with you about the BBC. … Continued
20 December (1931): Samuel Beckett to Thomas McGreevy
Below, Samuel Beckett writes to poet Thomas McGreevy on melancholy, the sexually “potent” Christ (“Xist”) of Perugino’s Pietà, and his dislike for Stendhal. TO THOMAS MCGREEVY December 20, 1931, Dublin Dear Tom Forgive me for not having replied to you before … Continued
Excerpt: "An Extraordinary Theory of Objects"
Upon arrival in France, I unpacked my little sack on the wooden floor of my new, empty bedroom…
19 December (1933): John Fante to Mary Capolungo Fante
Below, novelist John Fante (channeling, it would seem, his fictional alter-ego, Arturo Bandini), writes to his mother, discussing his struggle to launch himself as a screenwriter in 1930s Los Angeles and prospects of future fortune. 19th December, 1933 Dear … Continued
18 December (1907): Edith Wharton to Sara Norton
Below, Edith Wharton writes to close friend Sara Norton about her transatlantic voyage to Paris, on the occasion of The House of Mirth‘s appearance in French. TO SARA NORTON December 18, 1907, Paris Dear Sally—Your letter of farewell reached me on … Continued
17 December (1922): Edna St. Vincent Millay to Arthur Davidson Ficke
“Is this a snippy letter, dear?—No, it isn’t. I shall love you till the day I die.—Though I shan’t always be thinking about it, thank God.—Yet I shall be thinking about it every time I think about you, that’s sure.”
Mr. Didion
John Gregory Dunne was always the less successful of the pair. The last and most famous role he played was as negative space in his widow’s memoir. For us, he was never there—but then his absence was of immediate emotional enormity. He was a being whose most incentivizing move was to step off camera.
14 December (1957): Flannery O'Connor to Betty Hester
“About the Lourdes business. I am going as a pilgrim, not a patient. I will not be taking any bath. I am one of those people who could die for his religion easier than take a bath for it.”
Review: Mark Z. Danielewski’s "The Fifty Year Sword"From the Print
The stitched illustrations, more often abstract than mimetic, make up perhaps the most interesting part of The Fifty Year Sword. They intrude upon the page like the dire ganglia of some malign intelligence.