Vol. 31, No. 1 Spring 2003 Editor: Norman T. Gates
520 Woodland Avenue
Haddonfield, NJ 08033-2626, U.S.A.
e-mail: ntgates@worldnet.att.netAssociate Editor: David Wilkinson
The Old Post Office Garage, Chapel Street, St. Ives
Cornwall TR 26 2RL, U.K.
e-mail: books@book-gallery.co.uk
Correspondents:
Catherine Aldington, Michael J. Copp, C.J. Fox, F.-J. Temple, Caroline Zilboorg.
Correspondent and Bibliographer, Shelley Cox.
Biographer, Charles Doyle
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Michael Copp noted a number of references to RA in The Short, Sharp Life of T.E. Hulme, by Robert Ferguson, recently published by Allen Lane The Penguin Press.
Member Copp also noted the following items offered in the current Catalogue (No. 101) of Clearwater Books, Bridport, Devon: The Colonel's Daughter, first edition (London), 1931, deluxe issue of 210 signed copies, £55.00; Seven Against Reeves, first edition (London), 1938, £30.00; Ronald Storrs' trenchant review of RA's Lawrence of Arabia and warm vindication of its subject (Originally a broadcast for the "Third Programme") in the periodical The Listener, Vol. LIII, No. 1353, 3 February 1955, £20.00.
NCLS member Richard L. Smyer contributes the following: Among works in The University of Arizona library by Lawrence Clark Powell-noted UCLA librarian and later professor in residence at UA-[see NCLSN, 29.3.4] mentioning Richard Aldington are titles perhaps not widely available. In The Alchemy of Books (Ward Richie Press, 1954) LCP refers to Hollywood's pecuniary attractiveness to RA and other British writers ("A Southwesterner in Scotland," p. 49); to RA's sound advice about book buying ("In Praise of English Books," p. 58); and to his skills and versatility as novelist, poet, editor, biographer, and translator ("On Reading and Collecting," p. 110); "Books, People, and the Earth on Which We Live," pp. 136-137, 145). In Books in My Baggage (World Publishing Company, 1960) RA's biographies of T.E. and D.H. Lawrence are praised ("Glory of Life," p. 37 {this essay also in Islands of Books (Ward Richie Press, 1951)}; "No Life Without Books," (p. 61); LCP notes RA's interest as a novelist in Casanova's Memoirs ("Of the Earth Earthy," p. 33); and approving reference is made to RA's criticism of the reading public's neglect of well-written but unfashionable books ("Glory of Life," p. 46). The autobiographical Fortune and Friendship (R.R. Bowker, 1968) briefly describes the first meeting between RA and LCP and the 1944 display of RA's books at the UCLA library (p. 131). A sequel, Life Goes On (Scarecrow Press, 1986), mentions RA's valued gift of a book of poems by the Portuguese Fernando Pessoa (p. 21).
NCLS member William Pratt (The Imagist Poem: Modern Poetry in Miniature [1963, 2001]) reports that an Imagist Panel is being convened in Baltimore on February 27, 2003 at which he will discuss "Imagism in the 21st Century: Absolute or Obsolete?" The panel to which Professor Pratt has been invited to speak will be part of the Association of Writing Programs Conference taking place at the Baltimore Marriott Harborside Hotel.
The initiation and reception of our e-mail edition of the NCLSN was very successful. One word of warning: if you change your e-mail address, be sure to advise us. The one difficulty we did encounter was the rejection of our mailing because some of the addresses on our list were not valid. This edition is being distributed by regular mail and e-mail, depending on each member's choice.
NCLS member MaryAnn Crawford has agreed, with some little help from your editor, to revise the "Index to the NCLSN" to supplement the present index of volumes 1-25, compiled by her and her late husband, Fred D. Crawford. We plan to make the new "Index to the NCLSN: Volumes 1-30" available as hard copy or on a disk (both at cost) and as an e-mail attachment (free). This thirty years record should be valuable not only to Aldington scholars, but also to anyone interested in literature between the beginning of RA's career and today. We will have more definite information on this project in the Summer issue of the Newsletter.
Welcome new NCLS member Barbara Clask, the daughter of RA's good friends, Carl and Flo Fallas. She wrote to Professor Charles Doyle asking that she be put on the Newsletter mailing list.
Beginning with Vol. 30, No. 4, Winter 2002-2003, the NCLSN will be online at http://imagists.org/aldington/nclsn.html thanks to website editor Paul Hernandez who also plans to create a new folder, beginning with the Spring number, in which to archive the older issues. Check our online edition.
NCLS member William Pratt sends news of two new books
Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young, Editors, Dear Diary: A History of Poetry in Letters, The First Fifty Years: 1912-1962. New York: Norton, 2002. Chapter 10, "World War 1 and the Aftermath," pages 212-232, contains several letters from Richard Aldington to Harriet Monroe written from the Front.
William Pratt, Editor, Ezra Pound, Nature and Myth, New York: AMS Press, 2002. Contains a Preface by Hugh Kenner, and essay published for the first time in book form by Ezra Pound, "European Paideuma," written in 1939, an Introduction by the Editor, and essays centering on Pound and Rapallo by the Editor and other Pound scholars.
The current issue of T.E. Notes, A T.E. Lawrence Newsletter includes an article, "The Many Lives of T.E. Lawrence: A Symposium" by Harold Orlans that includes references to RA.
New NCLS member David Lavin, Professor of Art History, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, noted a passing mention of RA in "Analyze That," a review by Robert Gottlieb of Letters of H.D., Bryher, and Their Circle, edited by Susan Stanford Friedman (New York: New Directions, 2002). The review appeared in The New York Times Book Review, December 22, 2002, pp. 13-14.
Member Dominic Hibberd informs us that his latest book, on Wilfred Owen, was published in September and is already into its fourth impression. He also says that: "Presumably on the strength of my biographies on Owen and Monro, I've been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature."
Stephen Steele found four letters written by RA to Robert Creeley; details are given below in Checklist form. Creeley, Robert ( known primarily for his many volumes of poetry and his ties to the Beat Generation; also an essayist, novelist and short story writer); 4 letters 4 - 21 September, 3, 7, and 16 October 1951 - tls, Montpellier, SU.
Creeley begins a letter dated 17 October 1951 to his friend/publisher Paul Blackburn on the same page as RA's letter of the 16th noted above. In his ten page letter he refers to RA several times; he also includes "The Party," a sketch later included in his Collected Prose.
Creeley (b. 1926), answering a query from Steele about the letters listed above recalls them as follows: "I never managed to meet Richard Aldington during that time in France. As you'll know from the correspondence, he was a thoughtful and responsive elder with respect to Rainer Gerhardt's sad situation. Pound had suggested I get in touch with him (or so I remember) for advice as to how Rainer and his family might be got out of Germany. In any case, the correspondence, such as survives, will tell you all that I might."
Professor Steele has received permission from Catherine Aldington to cite one of the above letters in his introduction to "Richard Aldington et Gustave Cohen, l'un pour l'autre: inédites d'Aldington à Cohen" that will appear in French Studies Bulletin 86 (Spring 2003).
Gavin Jones, an editorial assistant at HarperCollins, is looking to obtain permission to include RA's poem, "Bombardment," in their forthcoming educational title, Campaigns and Conflicts, which is due for publication in April of this year.
Shelley Cox calls attention to a book by Suzanne Rodriguez, Wild Heart: A Life: Natalie Barney's Journey from Victorian American to Belle Époque Paris. New York: Ecco, 2002, that includes quotations from RA's letters involving Barney's and RA's mutual friend, Remy de Gourmont, and others."
Michael Copp found references to RA in Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939 by Virginia Nicholson (Penguin/Viking, 2002), and in The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore, ed. by Bonnie Costello (Faber & Faber, 1998).
Shelley Cox has received a copy of Joseph Pearce's Bloomsbury and Beyond: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell (NY: Harper Collins, 2001). Here are a few of the many RA references: RA sent the Campbell family a "huge Christmas turkey" in December 1947, which was much appreciated because of the rationing. There is a two-page coverage of Campbell's visit to France in 1950, which included taking Catha to the circus. Campbell describes RA: "He seems a bit like W.L. [Wyndham Lewis] in the way that most of his reactions are hostile. He is a recluse and seems anti-everything. For him everyone is a 'Jew'-including Eliot, Lewis and Pound. He is unlike Lewis however in that he is good-naturedly 'anti'-there is no real rancour in what he says" (pp. 300-301). Then there is RA's description of Campbell, to Alan Bird, June 1956: "I no more accept his Catholicism than his bull-killing but can tell you that he is one of the most warm-hearted and generous men I ever met, keeps the table in a roar. And he is a very great poet, certainly our greatest satirist since Byron" (p.328). Cox notes that, like many scholarly books, the sources for this one seem to be purely published materials.
SIU's Rare Book Library has obtained the typescript for RA's D.H. Lawrence, published by Heinemann in 1935, which includes numerous holograph corrections and alterations by RA all of which are incorporated in the published text. There is also a single corrected (not by RA) ts. of Lawrence's works.
The Collected Essays of Robert Creeley (U. of California, 1989) has a reference to RA in the book review, "Witter Bynner: Journey with Genius (1954). This collection also includes a "Note" on Rainer Gerhardt who is mentioned above in the quotation from Creeley's letter to Professor Steele.
Those of you who receive the Newsletter by regular mail will find enclosed a self-addressed, stamped postcard. We urge you to check and return it to us. We want to send the NCLSN to all of you who wish to receive it. We would also like to send your copy by e-mail if you are connected to the Internet.
Dr. Jean Moorcroft Wilson, biographer of three of the First World War poets-Sassoon, Rosenberg, and Sorley-is exploring the possibility a new biography of RA. Dr. Wilson, at the suggestion of Shelley Cox, first contacted me in November when she had just completed the second and final volume of the critical biography of Siegfried Sassoon. "I am interested in writing about Aldington," she wrote, "who has not, I believe, yet received his due here in England. I was shocked to discover, for example, that when the Imperial War Museum chose twelve soldier poets for their current Exhibition, Aldington was not among them… . Perhaps the 'Establishment' have never forgiven him for his book on T.E. Lawrence!" As the biographer of three of the First World War poets, Dr. Wilson is very well acquainted with that period of RA's life. Her main aim as a biographer is to focus on the relation of the subject's life to his or her work, and in RA she finds someone whose"own life was nor only fascinating in itself-far more so than most writers' lives-but he has links to an extraordinary number of other interesting and significant figures and movements of the first half of the twentieth century."
Among further letters to Douglas Goldring that Stephen Steele has acquired for his Aldington-Goldring study is one from Louis Wilkinson (June 1, 1933) who writes that he would like to see RA "again after all these years," one from Trevor Blakemore (November 6, 1943) mentioning RA's divorce, a long letter from Irene Rathbone in which she says that Nancy Cunard's book on Douglas was "overpraised" and RA's "underpraised," and one from Jimmy Stern (n.d.) in which he writes of a distraught Arabella (Dorothy Yorke)
David Wilkinson found an article on page 2 of The Malta Independent On Sunday for 7 November 1999 which was headed: "Patriotism is a lively sense of responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill" Richard Aldington (1892-1962) British author. From 'The Colonel's Daughter' 1931."
Michael Copp noted a number of references to RA in Jason Harding's The Criterion: Cultural Politics and Periodical Networks in Inter-War Britain (Oxford University Press, 2002). Most of these reflect RA's personal and professional relationships with T.S. Eliot.
Welcome new NCLS member Michael Garrety who was proposed by member John Morris. Garrety contributed an essay on Mottram and Hemingway to The First World War in Fiction (Ed. H. Klein, MacMillan, 1976) so that he will be familiar with RA's early period.
Catherine Aldington put the following poem by her father on the listserve for the Aldington Society under the subject "War."
Those who lived here are gone
Or dead or desolate with grief;
Of all their life here nothing remains
Except their trampled, dirtied clothes
Among the dusty bricks,
Their marriage bed, rusty and bent,
Thrown aside useless;
And a broken toy left by their child . . . .