The Elegant Variation: THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA BEACH

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May 05, 2010

THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA BEACH

Regular readers know of my love of great literary correspondences. As I dig out and prep my PEN posts and tend to other business, I'll be sharing a few random letters from Columbia University Press's lovely The Letters of Sylvia Beach. Like this one:

October 8, 1929
Paris
Dear Hemingway,
Joyce would telephone to you if you had one. He asked me to ask you and Pauline to go to their house this evening at about nine. He hopes you will excuse the invitation coming at the last minute, but the party is quite impromptu, They only just now decided to have you. He hopes you are free.
Yours hastily,
Sylvia
(Please excuse scrawl)

Heady days, eh?

For more letters, check out the New Yorker's recent selection of letters by Saul Bellow.

Back to work I go. More anon. And thanks to all those who attended Marisa Silver's reading Monday night in NY!

Posted at 03:45 PM in Literary Letters | Permalink

Comments

Oh for simpler times eh?

Now we literary folk just shoot texts, facebook messages, tweets, crackberry msgs, IMs, or emails to our author friends. Where's the romance in that?

Posted by: Mayowa | May 06, 2010 at 07:57 AM

Not all, Mayowa, not the older writers, and no, I'm not talking about Andy Rooney types, those World War II vets, I'm talking about people like myself who don't text message, facebook, or twitter. We write long and windy e-mails to anyone who'll read them.

Posted by: Ward | May 06, 2010 at 10:01 AM

I enjoyed reading Bellow's letters. Ironically, they were so much better written than his turgid novels. But that's often the case.

Posted by: Niall | May 06, 2010 at 10:03 AM

"Ulysses" was published in 1922, and the great man was still without a phone!

Posted by: Miriamlevine | May 08, 2010 at 09:05 PM

I've been following your blog and enjoy it very much! Since you mentioned your love for literary correspondence again - something I share - I wanted to mention my recent article on the Shelleys and their personal writings while I was following their steps in Geneva:

http://thomasapolis.com/2010/04/30/reading-with-the-shelleys/

It's a general arts and culture blog, but the articles often focus on literary issues since I'm a PhD student in English. I think that you'll find at least this post interesting, and hopefully amusing!

Posted by: Thomas Apolis | May 09, 2010 at 06:11 PM

"Ulysses" was published in 1922, and the great man was still without a phone!

From this letter it seems to me that Joyce did have a phone, but Hemingway did not.

Posted by: peep | May 10, 2010 at 11:22 AM

Enjoy the event Mark, mobile, phone, texts and whatever else's at hand.

Looking forward to reading more.

Posted by: Coll B. Lue | May 11, 2010 at 06:45 AM

I was struck by Bellow on writers. From the letters: "Meantime my hopes are in people—like you and Sophie—who, like me, have devoted their lives to novels, poems, music, painting, religion, and philosophy. To most Americans we are respected freaks entitled, like everybody else, to live. They don’t have to eliminate curbstones for us, as for the blind. Like spastics whose brains outpace computers, or like those clairvoyants to whom the cops turn to find missing bodies when all police methods are exhausted, we have our place.”

Yep.

Posted by: Shelley | May 11, 2010 at 09:43 AM

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

May 05, 2010

THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA BEACH

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

May 05, 2010

THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA BEACH

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism