The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 1913-1946 Read online

  THE LETTERS OF GERTRUDE STEIN AND CARL VAN VECHTEN

  1913-1946

  THE LETTERS OF GERTRUDE STEIN AND CARL VAN VECHTEN 1913-1946

  EDITED BY

  EDWARD BURNS

  NEW YORK

  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

  Columbia University Press

  Publishers Since 1893

  New York Chichester, West Sussex

  cup.columbia.edu

  Copyright © 2013 Columbia University Press

  All rights reserved

  E-ISBN 978-0-231-51901-4

  Materials in this book are published with permission from the following copyright holders:

  Letters of Gertrude Stein © 1986 the Estate of Gertrude Stein

  Letters of Alice B. Toklas © 1986 Edward Burns

  Letters of Carl Van Vechten © 1986 the Estate of Carl Van Vechten (by permission of Donald Gallup, literary trustee for Carl Van Vechten)

  Letters of Fania Marinoff Van Vechten © 1986 the Estate of Fania Marinoff Van Vechten (by Joseph Solomon, executor)

  Gertrude Stein’s “And too. Van Vechten a sequel to One” © 1986 the Estate of Gertrude Stein

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Burns, Edward, 1944–.

  The letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 1913–1946 / edited by Edward Burns.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978–0-231–06309–8 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0-231–51901–4 (e-book)

  Library of Congress Subject Data and Holding Information can be found in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

  LCCN: 2013933742

  A Columbia University Press E-book.

  CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at [email protected].

  FRONTISPIECE (TOP): Carl Van Vechten, 1938. Photograph by Mark Lutz. Courtesy of Bruce Kellner.

  FRONTISPIECE (BOTTOM): Gertrude Stein in the studio, 27 rue de Fleurus, circa 1905. Private collection.

  COVER IMAGE: Gertrude Stein waving © Bettman/Corbis

  COVER DESIGN: Jordan Wannemacher

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  The Letters

  Coda

  Undated Letters

  Appendix A: The First Meeting of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten

  Appendix B: An Unpublished Portrait of Carl Van Vechten by Gertrude Stein

  Principal Works of Gertrude Stein

  Principal Works of Carl Van Vechten

  Selected Bibliography

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  Carl Van Vechten and Fania Marinoff, Venice, Italy, July 1914. COURTESY OF BRUCE KELLNER.

  Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, circa 1912. PHOTOGRAPH BY JACQUES-EMILE BLANCHE.

  Stein to Van Vechten, postmark 5 August 1923. COURTESY OF THE YALE COLLECTION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, YALE UNIVERSITY.

  Carl Van Vechten by Miguel Covarrubias. Inscribed, “As Mr. Van Vechten gooses a gold fish. Miguel.” PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF BRUCE KELLNER.

  Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson in the studio at 27 rue de Fleurus looking at the score of Four Saints in Three Acts, circa 1928–29. COURTESY OF THE YALE COLLECTION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, YALE UNIVERSITY.

  Edward Matthews as St. Ignatius in Four Saints in Three Acts. PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN (1934). COURTESY OF BRUCE KELLNER.

  Four Saints in Three Acts, Act Two with Beatrice Robinson Wayne, Bruce Howard, and Edward Matthews. PHOTOGRAPH BY WHITE STUDIOS.

  Four Saints in Three Acts, Act I, Cathedral of Avila. PHOTOGRAPHY BY WHITE STUDIOS.

  Photograph by Carl Van Vechten of Florine Stettheimer’s Portrait of Avery Hopwood. Photograph used as a postcard for Carl Van Vechten to Gertrude Stein, 20 April [1934]. COURTESY OF THE YALE COLLECTION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, YALE UNIVERSITY.

  Gertrude Stein with her dogs Pepe and Basket I on the terrace at Bilignin, 13 June 1934. PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

  Van Vechten, Stein, Toklas, and the flight crew of the United Airlines flight that took them to Chicago on 7 November 1934. COURTESY OF BRUCE KELLNER.

  Gertrude Stein, Carl Van Vechten, and Alice Toklas, New York, 4 January 1935. PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

  Gertrude Stein at Lucey Church, 13 June 1934. PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

  Gertrude Stein and Basket I on the terrace at Bilignin, 13 June 1934. PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

  Gertrude Stein in a small room at 5 rue Christine, April 1946. PHOTOGRAPH BY SIR CECIL BEATON. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

  Alice B. Toklas at the Cathedral of Chartres, 8 October 1949. PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

  Preface

  This edition collects all of the extant correspondence between Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten. For the sake of completeness I have included those letters written to or from both Alice Toklas and Fania Marinoff Van Vechten during the years covered by this correspondence, 1913–1946.

  The primary manuscript location for these letters is the Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Unless otherwise identified, the Stein–Van Vechten letters are from this collection. The Toklas and Marinoff letters are also from this collection.

  From his gift to Yale University Library, of Stein’s letters to him Van Vechten selected a few that dealt specifically with his writings and his silver wedding anniversary; these letters he presented to the New York Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division. Letters from this source are so identified in the heading for each letter.

  In preparing this edition I have benefited from the transcriptions of Stein’s letters prepared by Dr. Donald Gallup for the Yale Collection of American Literature. While his work has proved helpful as a reference, all the letters collected here were transcribed anew from the holograph letters. The transcriptions of the Van Vechten, Toklas, and Marino letters were made from photocopies of the originals.

  The goal in transcribing these letters has been to remain as faithful as possible to Stein’s and Van Vechten’s texts. The transcriptions, therefore, retain the original punctuation (including Van Vechten’s ever-present dots and dashes, which should not be construed as ellipses) or lack of punctuation; inconsistencies in the titles of books, newspapers, and articles; such compoundings as “alright” and “to-day”; Stein’s idiosyncratic “x” instead of “ex,” as in “xcited”; and her use of “inclosed” for “enclosed.”

  Misspellings, grammatical errors, repetitions, typos, and other unintended oddities that appear in the letters have been left uncorrected. Misspellings of proper names, however, are corrected in the text in brackets. Van Vechten’s initial misspelling of Toklas’ name has been noted and left uncorrected. I have silently added apostrophes in contractions since their absence did not follow any particular pattern. For the sake of clarity I have supplied given or family names in brackets. In instances where minor lapses prevent a clear reading of the text, I have supplied the necessary word or words in brackets. In cases where the text is nearly indecipherable, my interpretation, in brackets, is followed by a query.

  I have standardized all return addresses and dates and placed them in fixed positions at the head of the letter. No distinction has been made between printed
and written addresses. Interpolated addresses and parts of addresses are bracketed. Signatures appear as they appear in the letters; they have, however, been placed in a fixed position. Salutations have been separated from the body of the letter and also placed in a fixed position. All postscripts, regardless of where they appear in the letter, are placed after the closing. Van Vechten often used signs in the text to indicate a postscript and when there was more than one postscript he used numbers. To avoid confusion with my annotations, I have placed these numbers in parentheses.

  Stein seldom dated her letters. Fortunately, Van Vechten kept the envelopes. The dating of almost all of Stein’s letters, therefore, derives from the postmarks. Where it was possible, I corroborated the dating from internal evidence. Van Vechten was remarkably orderly, and I have not found any instance where a letter has strayed into a wrong envelope. Van Vechten sometimes only partially dated his letters, often leaving out the year. Where I have supplied a date or a part of the date, I have placed the date in brackets. Doubdul dates or those that are difficult to read are preceded by a query.

  I have placed the printed descriptions of a postcard in brackets in order to distinguish it from Van Vechten’s written identification of those postcards made from his own photographs.

  Before Van Vechten gave Stein’s letters to him to the Yale Collection of American Literature, he annotated many of them. These annotations appear in my notes except for simple identifications like “Picabia, the painter,” when such information is contained in a fuller annotation that I have prepared.

  In my notes I have not documented information acquired through conventional reference sources. Where I have used newspaper or magazine articles from the Yale Collection of American Literature and I cannot cite page numbers, I have cited YCAL as the source.

  Bibliographical information on Stein’s and Van Vechten’s principal writings is given in separate selected bibliographies. Works which appear in newspapers or reviews are fully documented in the citation. The selected bibliography contains those works that are referred to with frequency in my notes.

  I have used the following abbreviations in the text of my notes to indicate a source or to supply the location of a cross-reference:

  Columbia-Cerf Bennett Cerf Collection, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries

  Columbia-Random House Random House Collection, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries

  Doucet, Paris Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Universités de Paris

  NYPL-Berg Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, New York Public Library

  NYPL-Lincoln Center Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, New York Public Library

  NYPL-MD Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library

  Texas Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

  Yale-JWJ The James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters, Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

  YCAL Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

  Acknowledgments

  This edition of the Stein-Van Vechten correspondence received the 1983 Ellen Knowles Harcourt Award in Biography and Memoirs awarded by Columbia University and the Alfred Harcourt Foundation. I am grateful to Columbia University President Michael I. Sovern, William Jovanovich, chairman and chief executive officer of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., and the readers of my dissertation for this award.

  The suggestion that I edit the Stein-Van Vechten correspondence was made to me by Donald Gallup, now retired as curator of the Collection of American Literature, Yale University Library. Dr. Gallup has helped me throughout my work with his wisdom, encouragement, and information. Dr. David Schoonover, the present curator of the Collection of American Literature, has been continuously kind and efficient.

  In my quest for an accurate reading of the text of the letters and for information for my annotations I have had the benefit of the advice and counsel of Ulla E. Dydo and Leon Katz. They have both answered countless questions of great complexity and have generously shared with me their vast knowledge of Stein’s life and her writings. My research has been aided by my meetings with Bruce Kellner, Van Vechten’s very able biographer and bibliographer, and Lynn Martin, Donald Sutherland’s literary executor.

  I wish to acknowledge warmly the courteous cooperation given to me by the curators and staffs of The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library; The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library; the Rare Book and Manuscript Division, Columbia University Libraries; the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, New York Public Library; and the library of the Frick Collection.

  I wish also to express my gratitude to those individuals, cited in the text, who graciously answered my queries or who allowed me to interview them. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Madame Joan Chapman, who over many years has given me the benefit of her extensive knowledge of Stein and Toklas, and the region around Bilignin and Belley. In the early stages of this research she invited me to her home in Chazey Bons, near Belley, and took me on visits to the various sites mentioned in these letters and in Stein’s writings. She also arranged for me to meet some of the individuals still alive who knew Stein.

  I am indebted to the following individuals for their assistance and kindness: Joseph Barry, Bill Betts, Lillian Feder, Lynn Kadison, Denise and Claude Laurens, Allen Mandelbaum, Richard Morrison, Eleanore and Daniel Saidenberg, John Shawcross, Ruth Z. Temple, and Isabel Wilder. This edition was prepared as a doctoral dissertation for the English Department of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Alfred Kazin, David Greetham, and N. John Hall were generous with their suggestions, and I gained greatly from their experience.

  This edition has benefited consistently from the expert scrutiny of William Rice. His intelligence and keen observation forced me to rethink many questions in the dating of the letters and in my annotations.

  Louise and Michel Leiris have made my repeated visits to Paris periods of work to be recalled with the greatest of pleasure. They have been invaluable friends. At the Galerie Louise Leiris in Paris, Maurice Jardot, Bernard Lirman, Quentin Laurens, and Jeannette Druy have given me much help and advice.

  Thornton Wilder claimed that Gertrude Stein was the most inspired talker that he ever heard. For their help in recreating that voice for me (or the voice of Alice Toklas) I am grateful to the following individuals who are now dead: Thornton Wilder, Elena Genin, Sir Francis Rose, Bernard Faÿ, Donald Sutherland, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Louise and Redvers Taylor, and Virginia and Harold Knapik.

  For permission to quote the letters of Stein, Toklas, Van Vechten, Marinoff, and those writers whose letters are cited in the text by YCAL, I am grateful to Dr. David E. Schoonover, curator, Collection of American Literature, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

  The letters of Fania Marinoff Van Vechten are printed by the permission of the Estate of Fania Marinoff Van Vechten, Joseph Solomon, Executor.

  Permission to quote the letters of Carl Van Vechten has been granted by Donald Gallup, Literary Trustee for Carl Van Vechten.

  Thornton Wilder’s joint postcard with Stein and Toklas written to Van Vechten (postmark 27 July 1935, YCAL) and the excerpt from Wilder’s letter to Elizabeth Chapman are printed by permission of Donald Gallup, Literary Executor, Estate of Thornton Wilder.

  Permission to quote from Stein’s letters to Bennett Cerf (Random House) has been granted by Kenneth Lohf, director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries. Permission to quote from the Van Vechten-Marinoff letters in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division of the New York Public Library has been granted by Donald Anderle, associate director of Special Collections.

  A number of Van Vechten’s and Marinoff’s lett
ers to Stein were previously printed (either completely or in excerpts) in The Flowers of Friendship: Letters Written to Gertrude Stein, edited by Donald Gallup, Knopf, 1953. For permission to reprint these letters I am grateful to Random House, Inc.—Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

  I am grateful to Calman A. Levin for permission to print the letters of Gertrude Stein.

  Alice Toklas’ letter to the Van Vechtens of [31 July 1946], and an excerpt from her letter to Van Vechten of 22 October 1946 are reprinted from Staying on Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas, edited by Edward Burns, by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Copyright © 1973 by Liveright Publishing Corporation.

  Introduction

  In a writer’s letters what we want to hear is how he writes. We look to letters as the fascinating real-life background of works of art. We have come to expect that letters will reveal what is hovering in the writer’s creative consciousness, that they will illuminate the intimate association between the writer as a person and his work. We have been conditioned to have a highly romanticized view of a writer’s life—creative energy is believed to come from tensions within the writer’s psyche or between him and the outside world. Letters, intimate as a journal, are expected to reveal the heart and mind of a writer with greater frankness than any other writings.

  In the Stein-Van Vechten correspondence there is very little of the rich self-scrutiny that makes Henry James’s letters so interesting. There is little of the intellectual excitement that fills the Edmund Wilson-Vladimir Nabokov correspondence. Nor are there the moments of searing self-examination that we find in Melville’s letters. There is none of the Olympian display of knowledge and erudition that is found in Ezra Pound’s correspondence. And there is none of the literary cajoling that enhances the Sherwood Anderson-Van Wyck Brooks letters about Mark Twain.