[Rarebooks] FS: Incredible Archive of Robert Lowell Letters and Manuscripts

[Charles Agvent]

 From our latest Internet Catalogue which contains a truly amazing array 
of TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS, LETTERS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS, a 
total of 90 items, many quite scarce and remarkable as well as revealing 
of the creative process and personal lives of the subjects.  It includes 
a number of archives, some rather substantial, including Sherwood 
Anderson, W. H. Auden (SOLD), Robert Lowell, Norman Mailer (SOLD), John 
Masefield (SOLD), John O'Hara, Clifford Odets, Maxwell Perkins (SALE 
PENDING), E. H. Shepard, and Philip Whalen, among others.  We also have 
similar material from previous catalogues that can be found with our 
search engine on our web site:
http://www.erols.com/agvent


LOWELL,  Robert  & HARDWICK, Elizabeth. ARCHIVE of  TYPED  LETTERS
SIGNED    (TLSs),  AUTOGRAPHED  LETTERS   SIGNED  (ALSs)   and   TYPED
MANUSCRIPTS  to critic Selden Rodman. [1946]-1969. Fine group of early
letters  from  Lowell SIGNED both in full and with his familiar  "Cal"
as  well  as several later letters from his wife  Elizabeth  Hardwick.
Includes  two postcards from Lowell and two from Hardwick as well as 9
AUTOGRAPH  LETTERS SIGNED (most in pencil), a TYPED LETTER SIGNED, and
2  TYPED MANUSCRIPTS by Lowell and 3 TYPED LETTERS SIGNED by Hardwick.
In  the  earliest  dated  letter (5 July 1947),  Lowell  writes  about
having  some  poems reprinted: "The QUAKER GRAVEYARD is  really  seven
poems,  so that $50 doesn't seem very high to me." In another  letter:
"I  didn't think for a minute that you had anything to do with Pound's
exclusion....  I  suppose it's the doing of that great patriot  Cerf."
He  comments  on  a feud between Delmore Schwartz  and  Karl  Shapiro.
Another  letter:  "My  best poem, I think, is a long poem  called  The
Quaker  Graveyard....  I think Jarrell, Shapiro and Schwartz are  much
the  best  of the younger American poets; MacNeice, Thomas and  Empson
of  the English.... In Land of Unlikeness, my favorites are In  Memory
of   Arthur  Winslow,  Salome  and   The  Drunken  Fisherman."  Lowell
elsewhere  discusses his new manuscript [LORD WEARY'S CASTLE] and  its
composition.  In one exceptional typed letter, Lowell comments on  the
state  of modern poetry mentioning a number of specific poets: "I feel
our  poetry  is caught between beat mush and an academic veneer."  The
two  typed  poems  are  "The Sleeper" and "War  after  Rimbaud."  Many
letters  are  scorched  on  the right side  to  varying  degrees  with
occasional loss of text. Fair to Near Fine                  $12,500.00

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