[Rarebooks] FS: Superb Theodore Dreiser Letter on Writing Fiction

[Charles Agvent]

DREISER, Theodore. TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS) on Writing Fiction. New 
York, 21 February 1938. Superb two-page TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS) on 
personal letterhead to Michael Kowan regarding his doctoral thesis and 
giving "merely an offhand statement about my own attitude." In part: "I 
think creative writing has more to do with emotion than any other single 
factor. Generalized and intensified feeling for life is what is 
expressed. When a writer traces the course of a complete emotional 
cycle, what you might call a selected causal chain, one view of it, or 
whatever, he has his work laid out, and the name by which it is called, 
novel, short story, play or poem, or whatever, really comes after the 
fact. It is the amount of material which is involved in the feeling 
which determines the form of the work. When you ask what is fiction and 
what is the novel I must say that I think the question is useless. The 
only place where such questions come up are 'borderline cases' where 
personal opinion is, after all, the only criterion.... The process of 
construction is not as slow or as cold as you imply in your questions. 
The idea or emotion completes itself, builds itself up. I can't imagine 
myself ever sitting down and figuring out a plot without the characters, 
their emotions, environment, and the ensuing scenes all well 
visualized." The last three words quoted are inserted in Dreiser's hand. 
With the original envelope. Heavy creases from mailing. Very Good. 
(#020963)        $1,000

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/020963/theodore-dreiser/typed-letter-signed-tls-on-writing-fiction

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