Correspondence and Printed Material regarding Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson
Correspondence and Printed Material
Regarding Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson
[Dickinson, Emily]. Bianchi, Martha Dickinson et al., Correspondence and Printed Material regarding Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson, 1929-1938.
Letters, typescripts and printed material from Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Alfred L. Hampson to Herbert F. Jenkins, the publisher at Little, Brown; 1929-1938. Bianchi was Emily Dickinson’s niece, who also wrote two Dickinson biographies, edited collections of her work, and published her own poetry. Hampson co-edited, with Bianchi, Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson (1935). There are 14 letters (8 TLS Bianchi, and 4 TLS and 2 TLS Hampson) to Jenkins.
Together with:
Corrected typescript draft, 6pp., of Bianchi’s Introduction to Unpublished Poems; docketed at the top of the first page, “duplicate text May 22/35,” and corrected in pencil (these are apparently Jenkins’s corrections). The final three pages are divided into two columns; the left side is noted as being “Statement sent Madame Bianchi,” and the right side, “Madame Bianchi’s letter” (the former, apparently, an early draft of the latter). See description of Bianchi’s May 31, 1935 letter, below.
Typed list, 1p., titled, “Unpublished Poems”; containing 13 corrections by Hampson.
Typed index card; 1p., titled, “Typographical errors in Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson”; and notes three errors (apparently by Bianchi; clipped to her September 4, 1935 letter).
8pp., two leaves; proofs of the “Introduction”; docketed at the top of the first page, “Set new Introduction exactly like this.” Together with a typed letter carbon to Bianchi from Hampson; November 30, 1936. Regarding the proofs.
Typescript draft of press release; 1p., titled, “A Literary Discovery,” September 27, 1935; one leaf of plain paper. Regarding Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson.
Typed press release; 1p., for Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson; November 15, 1935; one leaf of Little, Brown & Company letterhead (“News and Notes about Books and Authors”). Notes that the book is limited to 500 copies, and will be published on November 22.
Typed letter signed, “Maxwell Perkins for Charles Scribner’s Sons,” to Charles B. Blanchard; August 27, 1937; 2pp., one leaf of Charles Scribner’s Sons letterhead, folded. Apologizes for using two Dickinson poems without permission, in an essay by Allen Tate.
Typed letter unsigned (F.M. Clouter), unaddressed; March 6, 1929; 1p., one leaf of Little, Brown & Company letterhead. Regarding a review copy of Further Poems of Emily Dickinson. Together with typescript carbon, 1p., of a Dickinson poem that begins, “I got so I could hear his name.”
Photocopy, 4pp., of a biography of Dickinson.
Hunt, Percival, H.W. Schoenberger and Frederick P. Mayer. A Series of Eight Radio Talks on Some Writers of Older New England. Radio Publication No. 36 University of Pittsburgh. Broadcast from the University of Pittsburgh Studio of KDKA Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1928.
8vo.; blue wrappers, printed in black and gilt; stapled; covers faintly soiled; edgeworn; with Little, Brown & Company stamp on the upper cover and a docket in blue crayon, “Biog./Dickinson.”
First edition, of this pamphlet in the University of Pittsburgh’s radio talks series. The Dickinson talk was broadcast by Percival Hunt on February 28, 1928.
Description:
In their letters, Bianchi and Hampson reveal themselves to be discerning editors; they field queries from Jenkins, make decisions regarding Unpublished Poems, and correct errors. Bianchi’s work on the book was especially valuable, as she was the one who discovered hundreds of unpublished Dickinson poems in 1927 when going through a trunk at The Evergreens that had belonged to her father; in fact, she asserts in one letter that, “all the hitherto omitted poems worthy of book publication have been included in the present
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