Title: 4 Typed Letters, Including 3 Signed, by the Modernist Poet Wallace Gould Admired by William Carlos Williams & Marsden Hartley.
Description: Circa, [1930]. [1930]. Circa, [1930]. [1930]. - Four letters by the poet Wallace Gould addressed to John Hyde Preston, author of "Mad Anthony Wayne" and "Revolution 1776" and associated with "Direction" Magazine. Three of the letters are signed by Gould, the other unsigned but with a manuscript correction in the poet's hand. All four letters are typed on 14 inch high by 8-1/2 inch wide buff paper. Each, directly or indirectly mentions his book "Aphrodite" which he would like to correct and revise by hand. In what appears to be the first letter, with over 400 words densely typed on one page, Gould writes to Preston: "I have intended to write you.. I shall ask you if you possess a volume of Aphrodite. If so, would you find it interesting to possess in exchange for it another, with subsequent corrections and revisions? I have a great desire to place such a volume in your possession frankly with the ulterior motive of its being thus preserved for posterity.. Like so many other publishing houses, the Macaulay house is primarily interested in socialism and negrophilism and memoirs of famous bad women, including Peggy Joyce, but not Aphrodite, and has taken up the publication of poetry only as a new broom to sweep out Eleanor Glynn.." Far from wealthy, Gould inquires whether a play to be performed at the University is free: "And do I understand rightly that a Greek play is to be given soon at the University? .. And like Pericles, does Jefferson open the theater free to the mob? I quiver in suspense." Signed in full "Wallace Gould".
In a second letter, nearly 600 words densely typed on 2 pages, Gould again inquires about Aphrodite, apologizing for the necessity of trading copies with Preston because his "financial affairs have come to a crisis here.." He comments on Preston's forthcoming book "Mad Anthony Wayne": "I am eager to read the history of your American madman. Get the publishers to do up the book, so that you will have no excuse for not sending it." He goes on to say: "You asked about Farmville. Farmville is where Lee surrendered ----- southern Virginia, middle southern, a hundred and some miles from Richmond. No, less than a hundred.. Peggy Hopkins Joyce and I put Farmville on the map. She was born here.." Signed in full.
In his third letter of approximately 380 words, Gould now addresses his friend as "My dear Preston" and indirectly inquires if Preston has received his copy of Aphrodite. He goes on to reveal that "You and Alfred Kreymborg are the only ones I ever write to, these days. Do you know Alfred? He is an exception to the rule that applies to the artistic cult, so far as old fashioned friendship goes.." He later asks, "By the way, honey, solve a mystery for me if you can. In the November number of Harper's (I think November) there was a sonnet with a strange theme. It was written by a woman by the name of Onsett or some such name and was called Expatriate ------- was all about some poor devil playing solitaire as I do in my own poems, exactly, and about teakwood (which I would not have in the house). But the rest of it ran true, even to the end, at which point the expatriate, whatever that is, went to the window and looked out on the night, and off, up toward Maine. Strange, is it not?" Gould has made 2 corrections in pencil and signed in pencil "Wallace Gould". The left edge of this letter is roughed and the letter is slightly soiled and creased with several finger smudges as if it had been handled frequently.
His last sad letter, nearly 400 words, speaks of deep poverty: "There must come a change before I do more work. My very soul is sick with disgust and boredom. For the first time in my life I have been powerless to act ------ to rouse myself and get out of it all. Sheer poverty has forced me to chloroform all but three of my only spiritual companions, my cats, and for them I have three bottles of chloroform ready.. I read your letter with a thrill for you, however, and particularly your hopes of going westward, willy-nilly, even though with money.. Go on. Make yourself successful. Enjoy life, that is, rationally. Never tie yourself either by hope or compassion to any living being. Nobody is worth it. But do not forget to write to me. I charge you never write to me by reason of compassion or duty, however, for I much prefer that our friendship, almost impersonal as it is, and even as it may remain, must remain clean." This sad letter is not signed, although Gould has made two corrections in ink.
A moving correspondence, in very good condition, folded for mailing.
The Dictionary of Literary Biography writes of Wallace Gould that "Between 1917 and 1922 Wallace Gould published about twenty poems in some of the most celebrated little magazines of the day: the Dial, Poetry, Others, the Seven Arts, Broom, and the Little Review. He published two volumes of poetry, Children of the Sun: Rhapsodies and Poems (1917) and Aphrodite and Other Poems (1928). Poems by Gould werre included in a few anthologies, most conspicuously those in which Alfred Kreymborg had a part. Kreymborg was Gould's most faithful partisan and champion, but he was not alone in his enthusiasm for Gould's work, which was also praised by William Carlos Williams, Marsden Hartley, Paul Rosenfeld, Kenneth Rexroth, and a few casual reviewers. In Gould's correspondence there is evidence that later in his life he was at work on a poem somehow involving American history, but none of his work seems to have been published during the last twelve years of his life."
In an article entitled "The Poet of Maine" published in "The Little Review", Marsden Hartley proclaims "Thirty-seven years ago a tidal wave washed up on the shores of Maine a titan. It left him sitting on a rock and never returned."
"It was on return visits that I made the acquaintance of Wallace Gould the poet, who was to give me the pleasure of making him known to the poets Alfred Kreymborg and William Carlos Williams, who praised Gould's poetry for its solid execution and a true modernist touch, and who was a fanatical worshiper of Byron. Gould began life as a child prodigy at the piano and for some unknown reason gave up the idea of becoming a public pianist and for years afterwards played the piano in the first period of the silent pictures. Gould was physically enormous - weighing two hundred pounds which his six feet one carried with ease. He was by nature a voluptuary - oriental even in his worship of luxury and food - was an excellent cook and often cooked elaborate meals after work at night, sharing this of course with friends - the cooking itself being the chief delight. He was handsome with olive skin suffused with warm red glowing eyes, and dark hair - and was he said some sort of cousin to Holman Day who has written many local ballads .. Gould lived with and supported a foster mother and the lifelong grind at the piano earning twenty-five a week was an exhausting self-imposed duty - but he stayed until things took a turn, then left the white house with the green blinds and never returned. No one has heard of him for years though rumour has it he went South, married eventually, and scorned all chance of publicity either as a poet or as a person.. Wallace Gould was cynical for natural reasons - he had been crucified by the pressure of duty. He could not leave the woman who had rescued him from the fate of orphanage - he loved her - called her his mother all his life." [Quoted from "Somehow a Past: The Autobiography of Marsden Hartley"].
In a chapter of his Autobiography "The Baroness", William Carlos Williams writes "At about this time Wallace Gould arrived in New York from his Maine hide-out and almost immediately found that it would be impossible to support himself here. Some woman who admired his work had loaned Wally an apartment. When I found him he had on a black stock, a black suit with great white cuffs, and if he wasn't trembling with fright, he wasn't far from it. That day, in fact within the hour, he had been standing at the bottom of the stairs, his hand on the newel post, when his hostess had come downstairs and had pressed her breast upon the back of his hand, pinning it there, so to speak. He had been too frightened to withdraw the hand, and there she had him.. 'I'm up shit creek' .. 'I'm broke,' he said in terror. 'What am I to do?' It was around Christmas. 'Look,' I said, 'get your stuff and come out to Rutherford with me. I've got the car at the door.' He stayed with us all winter, giving little Bill piano lessons for his board, though I hadn't asked for it. But when March arrived the Indian blood in his veins-- he was quarter Abnaki Indian on his mother's side---asserted itself and he packed his kit. I gave him twenty dollars or so to start him off. He went by train to Washington, D.C. thence to start walking, which he did, to end up after a few days at Farmville, Virginia, where he spent the remainder of his life." .
Keywords: LITERATURE; POETRY; POET; WALLACE GOULD; TYPED LETTERS SIGNED; AUTOGRAPH; SIGNATURES; MAINE; FARMVILLE, VIRGINIA; PIANO; PIANIST; AUTHOR; JOHN HYDE PRESTON; MAD ANTHONY WAYNE; APHRODITE; TWENTIETH CENTURY; 20TH CENTURY; POVERTY; CORRECTIONS; REVISIONS.
- Book number: 34467
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