Fables of La Fontaine: annotated typescript errata, and related correspondence.
Annotated Typescript Errata List
with related correspondence
Moore, Marianne. Typescript errata list for Fables of La Fontaine, two leaves, two pages; annotated in graphite and red pencil; March 27, 1954.
Together with:
Typed letter signed “Harry Levin” to Pascal Covici, October 14, 1953; one leaf of Harvard University/Comparative Literature letterhead, one page; together with two typed letter carbons from Covici to Levin (October 9 and 26, 1953). All regarding a preface for Moore’s Fables of La Fontaine.
Moore’s annotated typescript errata list, which mostly correct spelling and punctuation errors, with her note: “Misprints are marked with red,” and her comment that she is “Very grateful for re-spacing of the signature to La Fontaine’s prose dedication and for the other changes the many other changes.” She sources many of the fables to their original publication in periodicals such as The New Republic and Harper’s Bazaar. Moore notes the page, stanza and the fable’s title before each correction. For example, “50, II-17 (Peacock’s Complaint), ‘Then Juno retorted angrily’ ‘Juno retorted angrily.’” Next to the correction changing “tumblebug nest” to “tumblebug-nest,” Moore writes, “rather important.” Toward the bottom of the page, she puts red brackets around a stanza and notes, “I lost the rhyme.”
In the letters between Covici and Levin, Covici asks Levin if he will write a Preface to Moore’s book. Levin declines, explaining that while he is willing to let unspecified bygones be bygones with the Viking Press, and while he has great admiration for Moore, he is not too familiar with La Fontaine’s work and that he “should feel like an intruder, if room were made for me where there wasn’t any room for La Fontaine.” Levin is referring to the fact that none of La Fontaine’s original fables in French would accompany Moore’s translations in English. Covici writes back, disappointed that Levin would not write a Preface but respecting and understanding his reasons.
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