The Life of William Faulkner, page 63
129. Preface to The Marble Faun, 7.
130. Faulkner to Braithwaite, February 25, 1927, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
131. See Karl, 168–74, for a detailed account of the poets who influenced Vision in Spring.
132. All quotations are from Vision in Spring, ed. Judith Sensibar.
133. Gray, 94. I concur with Gray’s conclusion that Judith Sensibar inflates the importance of Vision in Spring as a significant step toward the major novels. It seems, instead, just one of several efforts of a floundering artist some years away from mastering his talent.
134. For Faulkner’s letters to his mother during his New Haven and New York stays, see W. Faulkner, Thinking of Home, ed. Watson.
135. Young, Stark Young: A Life in the Arts: Letters, 1900–1962, ed. Pilkington, vol. 1, 164.
136. Anderson and Kelly, 40–42.
137. Anderson and Kelly, 41.
138. Margaret Silver, “A Visit with Miss Maud” [final draft], McCall’s, May 1956, UM.
3. Postings
1. UM.
2. H. Edward Richard interview with Phil Stone, in Richardson, 34.
3. Phil Stone to Senator John Sharp Williams, May 1, 1922, UM: “It is true that his uncle, Judge John Falkner, of this place, is quite prominent in the faction opposed to us in politics, but this young man takes no interest in politics whatever and never votes except when I go get him and make him vote the way I want him to. He is one of my dearest friends and, in fact, I persuaded Mr. Oldham and Mr. Daily to get him this appointment. . . . This young man is . . . I believe, a man of considerable talent who will develop into something worthwhile if he has the time and money to devote himself to his writing.”
Notes to Pages 70–86 ∙
4. Interview with Ben Lumpkin, summer 1962, CCP.
5. Interview with Slim Billingsly, March 1963, CCP. Billingsly owned a barbershop in the building that housed the post office.
6. Richardson, 100, 112, points out wording that is reminiscent of The Marble Faun and other early poems.
7. Richardson, 101. Several critics have placed enormous importance on “The Hill” as a kind of key to the Yoknapatawpha fiction that would soon erupt in Faulkner’s writing: Putzel, 65–70; Gresset, “Faulkner’s ‘The Hill,’”; Momberger, “A Reading of Faulkner’s “The Hill.’”
8. Brooks, William Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha, 40.
9. Richardson, 212, quotes the Erikson passage.
10. Interview with Robert Coughlan, December 29, 1966, JBP.
11. Snell, 139, 141.
12. “The Faulkner I Knew,” Delta Review, July–August 1965, 38–39, 73, UM.
13. Webb and Green, eds., 68–76.
14. RHMP, September 19, 1972.
15. Webb and Green, eds., 76.
16. I’m indebted to Barbara Barnett, Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, and Rosemary Clark for helping me to piece together the joke.
17. W. H. Hutchinson to Blotner, January 11 and November 17, 1965, JBP.
18. J. Allan Christian to Blotner, September 22, 1965, JBP.
19. SL, 6.
20. Wasson, 66.
21. Interview with Robert Farley, April 3, 1965, JBP.
22. SL, 7.
23. My account of this period during the publication of The Marble Faun draws on Snell, 151–58, and FB (1974), 362–66.
24. newspaperarchive.com.
25. See, for example, Snell, 154; and Oates, 36.
26. LG, 41.
27. Faulkner misspelled this word in a letter to Hal Smith.
28. Paul Rogers to Blotner, March 6, 1980, JBP.
29. Wasson, 66.
30. Interview with Emily Stone, November 30, 1965, JBP.
31. See Wasson, 60–71.
4. New Orleans
1. Dardis, Firebrand, 176–77.
2. Reed, 9.
∙ Notes to Pages 87–101
3. Qtd. in Reed, 13.
4. Interview with Harold Dempsey, August 11, 1963, CCP.
5. La Farge, 125, 129.
6. For the whole song: http://www.horntip.com/html/songs_sorted_by_name/with_music/c/christopher_columbo/christopher_columbo.htm. T. S. Eliot was inspired to write his own pornographic poems that seem inspired by “Christopher Columbo”: http://www.units.miamioh.edu/humanitiescenter/node/519.
7. See “Oliver La Farge: American Writer and Anthropologist,” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RB_u9drQJf0.
8. FB (1984).
9. Eagle dance: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Eagle+Dance.
10. Spratling’s memoir of his friendship with Faulkner is included in the Kindle edition of Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles.
11. La Farge, 112.
12. Spratling, 30.
13. Luddington, 230. The biographer is quoting from Dos Passos’s letters and diaries.
14. James K. Feibleman, qtd. in Holditch, 26.
15. Lillian Friend Marcus to Carvel Collins, November 1, 1951, CCP.
16. Karl, 194.
17. Anderson, Sherwood Anderson’s Memoirs, 473. In Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles, Spratling drew a picture of himself and Faulkner, who sits in a chair beneath which can be seen three jugs of what is presumably corn liquor.
18. Interview, March 22, 1950, CCP.
19. Interview with Anita Loos, n.d., CCP.
20. July 27, 1925, CCP; ellipses are in the original.
21. Interview with Ben Wasson, n.d., CCP.
22. Reed, 109.
23. Kreiswirth, 4.
24. Snell, 151–52.
25. Notes on interview with Young, May 1950, CCP.
26. Qtd. in Carvel Collins’s introduction to New Orleans Sketches.
27. Qtd. in Carvel Collins’s introduction to New Orleans Sketches.
28. Qtd. in Carvel Collins’s introduction to New Orleans Sketches.
29. Reed, 34.
30. Reed, 164–65
31. See Collins’s informative introduction to New Orleans Sketches.
32. See the July 1921 cover shown in Reed, 41.
33. Interview with Emily Stone, January 27, 1963, CCP.
34. Snell, 172.
35. UM.
36. Still one of the best scholarly accounts of The Marble Faun and of Faulkner’s other poetry is George Garrett, “An Examination of the Poetry of William Faulkner.”
37. Qtd. in Reed, 33.
38. Qtd. in Reed, 33.
39. Brooks, William Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha, 100, 106.
40. Reed, 61.
Notes to Pages 101–116 ∙
41. Owen Crump to Blotner, June 9, 1966, JBP.
42. Interview with Harold Dempsey, August 11, 1963, CCP.
43. Interview with John McClure, March 18, 1950, CCP.
44. Interview with Anderson, n.d., CCP.
45. Anderson, Sherwood Anderson’s Memoirs, 462.
46. Anderson and Kelly, 100.
47. Interview with Harold Dempsey, August 11, 1963, CCP.
48. Reed, 18–19.
49. William H. Hoffman to Blotner, October 1, 1965, JBP.
50. Interview with Harold Dempsey, August 11, 1963, CCP.
51. Blotner (1984).
52. Interview with Feibleman, February 1, 1965, JBP.
53. Anderson and Kelly, 101.
54. Interview with Harold Dempsey, September 16, 1962, CCP.
55. Reed, 77.
56. Interview with Harold Dempsey, September 16, 1962, CCP.
57. See Holditch.
58. Reed, 75.
59. Interview with Caroline Durieux, March 26, 1963, CCP.
60. Notes on interview with Tichenor, CCP.
61. Interview with Ted. Liuzza, April 1963, CCP.
62. Reed, 14.
63. Qtd. in Reed, 15.
64. Interview with Margery Gumbel, March 22, 1968, CCP.
65. Interview with Margery Gumbel, April 5, 1963, CCP.
66. Two Jackson tales appear in W. Faulkner, Uncollected Stories.
67. Faulkner showed off his awareness of contemporary art in throwaway comments in “Mirrors of Chartres Street” (February 8, 1925), for example: “The moon had crawled up the sky like a fat spider and planes of light and shadow were despair for the Vorticist schools.”
68. See Richardson, 130–33, for a discussion of how the imagery, themes, and techniques of Faulkner’s poetry appear in his sketches.
69. Reed, 65.
70. Interview with Ted Liuzza, April 1963, CCP.
71. Skei, William Faulkner: The Short Story Career, 22, notes there is no typescript of the story but its setting and connection to other stories like “Don Giovani” and “Episode” is “sufficient evidence of a 1925 composition of them.”
72. Carothers, “Faulkner’s Short Story Writing and the Oldest Profession,” 46.
73. Interview with Harold Dempsey, August 11, 1963, CCP.
74. FB (1984).
75. Interview with Harold Dempsey, August 11, 1963, CCP.
76. Ted Liuzza to Carvel Collins, May 22, 1967, CCP.
77. Reed, 227.
78. Reed, 199.
79. Reed, 169–70.
80. Reed, 9.
∙ Notes to Pages 116–123
81. Reed, 214.
82. Interview with Ted Liuzza, April 1963, in Liuzza’s New Orleans office, CCP. Liuzza worked on the New Orleans Item in the 1920s.
83. Interview with Joyce McClure, March 20, 1950, CCP.
84. Reed, 242–43.
85. Holditch.
86. Reed, 241.
87. Faulkner’s introduction to the Modern Library edition of Sanctuary (1932), reprinted in the Library of America’s Novels 1930–1935, 1029–30.
88. Anderson, Sherwood Anderson: Selected Letters, ed. Modlin, 69–70.
89. Interview with Mrs. Edward B. Martin, March 28, 1963, CCP.
90. FB (1984).
91. Moser, 198–99.
92. FB (1984).
93. Throughout I use the title the novel was given on first publication, even though Faulkner preferred If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem, first used in the Library of America edition of the novel.
94. Faulkner, “Helen: A Courtship” and “Mississippi Poems” 23.
95. Wittenberg, Faulkner: The Transfiguration of Biography, 51.
96. Snell, 161.
97. FB (1984).
5. Wanderjahr
1. Spratling, 30.
2. Bacigalupo.
3. All quotations from Faulkner’s letters are from W. Faulkner, Thinking of Home, ed. Watson.
4. Interview with Else Jonsson, August 5, 1965, CCP.
5. Snell, 183, reports that Emily Stone saw a letter from T. S. Eliot, saying he had met Faulkner and “would pay more attention to him than he had before.” This letter is supposed to have been destroyed in the 1942 fire in Stone’s home.
6. FB (1974), 444.
7. Quotations are from the Cox edition; ellipses are in the original.
8. McHaney, “The Elmer Papers,” 49, refers to Elmer’s “aesthetic masturbation.”
9. The ellipses are in the original.
10. Brooks, William Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha, 117.
11. Skei, William Faulkner: The Novelist as Short Story Writer, 150.
12. Peek and Hamblin, eds., 225.
13. A. G. Jones, “Faulkner’s War Stories and the Construction of Gender,” 49.
14. Volpe, A Reader’s Guide to William Faulkner: The Short Stories.
15. A. G. Jones, “Faulkner’s War Stories and the Construction of Gender,” 50.
16. CGBC, vol. 2, 5.
17. See CGBC, vol. 1, 42–43, for photographs of the poem’s typescript.
18. Snell, 185–86.
19. SL, 27.
Notes to Pages 123–139 ∙
20. Richards, 23.
21. Simross.
22. Odiorne to Carvel Collins, March 15, 1963, CCP.
23. Unpublished Odiorne memoir, n.d., CCP.
6. Return
1. December 19, 1925, CCP.
2. Franklin Moak wrote out part of the minutes from the Rotary meeting for Carvel Collins on August 4, 1975, apparently in response to a conversation they had the day before.
3. This is my conjecture. See Paddock, “Trifles with a Tragic Profundity,” 413, who notes that details in Faulkner’s letter to his Aunt Bama in 1925 appear in the short story. However, he did not send out the story for publication until 1928.
4. Spratling, 33.
5. Volpe, A Reader’s Guide to William Faulkner: The Short Stories.
6. Paddock, Contrapuntal in Integration, 57.
7. All quotations are from Mayday, introduction by Carvel Collins.
8. Typescript, NYPL.
9. Limon, 119.
10. Wittenberg, Faulkner: The Transfiguration of Biography, 44.
11. Kreiswirth, 63–64.
12. Brooks, William Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha, 69–70.
13. Yonce, William Faulkner: Annotations to the Novels: “Soldiers’ Pay,” 48.
14. Yonce, William Faulkner: Annotations to the Novels: “Soldiers’ Pay,” 50.
15. “From Jazz Syncopation to Blues Elegy,” 71.
16. Yonce, Annotations to the Novels: “Soldiers’ Pay,” 161.
17. Yonce, Annotations to the Novels: “Soldiers’ Pay,” 166.
18. Singal, 64.
19. Volpe, A Reader’s Guide to William Faulkner, 52.
20. Snell, 187, 188.
21. WFCR, xi.
22. Bassett, ed., 3.
23. Cooperman, 160.
24. See Bledsoe.
25. Wasson, 72–73.
26. Mrs. McGehee to Robert H. Moore, April 15, 1970, RHMP.
27. Putzel, 27.
28. Interview with Harold Dempsey, August 11, 1963, CCP.
29. The Letters of Sherwood Anderson, 155.
30. Polk, “Faulkner: The Artist as Cuckold,” 37. For other readings of the story, see Bradford, and Peterson, the only critic to suppose the story was written in 1926. Most date it from about 1931, when it was first sent out to magazines. Millgate, Achievement, 18–20, has a careful and shrewd interpretation of the Anderson-Faulkner relationship.
31. Hönnighausen, Faulkner: Masks and Metaphors, 90.
∙ Notes to Pages 139–164
32. Irwin, “Not the Having but the Waiting,” 154, 156.
33. Spratling, 29.
34. Anderson and Kelly, 102. Putzel, 77, mentions seeing a copy of the book bearing a “good-humored inscription” in Anderson’s “own hand.”
35. Qtd. in Snell, 188–89.
36. Interview with Mrs. Edward B. Martin, March 28, 1963, CCP.
37. All quotations are from “Helen: A Courtship” and “Mississippi Poems.”
38. Interview with Mrs. Edward B. Martin, March 28, 1963, CCP.
39. Wasson, 79–81.
40. FB (1984). Karl, 268, referring to an undisclosed source, reports “Estelle became pregnant by a man not her husband.” This claim, not followed up by any explanation of what happened to Estelle’s pregnancy, is mystifying. Faulkner does not seem to have been the father, and I have seen no evidence that establishes whether or not he had sexual relations with Estelle before or during her marriage to Franklin.
41. SL, 35.
42. FB (1984).
43. FL.
