LETTERS: Rachel Carson - William Shawn Correspondence
The Shawn-Carson Correspondence
1958-1962
with
an Inscribed First Edition
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Drawings by Lois and Louis Darling. Boston…: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962.
8vo.; blue cloth, stamped in gilt; dust-jacket; light wear.
Boxed together with:
A collection of nine letters from Rachel Carson to her New Yorker editor William Shawn, with two of his replies. Also present are a few pieces of related correspondence between Shawn and Carson’s agent, Marie Rodell; as well as printed matter from the Rachel Carson Trust.
First edition, with related letters. The book is a presentation copy, inscribed to Shawn on the half-title: To William Shawn / with gratitude for help and encouragement over the years, and with high regard. Rachel Carson / August 19, 1962.
In these letters Carson focuses on the research, writing, editing and publication of her indictment of the chemical industry, Silent Spring, both in book form as wells as a series of three pieces edited for the New Yorker. The articles started running in June 1962; the book was published in September of the same year. By the end of July, Carson was receiving “several hundred” letters from readers. On July 26 she sent fifty such letters (not present) to Shawn, who responded, “It’s fascinating, and a great deserved tribute to you.” An understatement, if there ever was any, regarding this groundbreaking look into the pesticide problem and its effect on humans. Carson’s work sparked reform and saved lives.
A full paragraph from the three page letter of February 14, 1959 represents the complexity of Carson’s undertaking, as well as the character and content of these letters. In this letter she establishes her goals and summarizes her research and recent developments. From the outset, she wanted to study the effects of chemicals on humans, particularly their “slow, cumulative and hard-to-identify long term effects”; she notes that babies are now born with poisons in their systems that have been passed through the placenta, and continues,
Besides the effects on liver and the nervous system, which are generally recognized by professional men if not by the public, I think I shall be able to support a claim to even more serious and insidious effects, which include the most basic functions of every living cell. This has been an extremely interesting line of research, and, to me, a terrifying one. One of its aspects has led me to the fundamental recent research of Otto Warburg, of the Max Planck Institute for Cell Physiology in Germany, on the physiological changes that may lead cells into the wild proliferation of cancer. Besides and beyond this vitally important fact, I shall be able to show that the chemicals used as insecticides interfere with many of the enzymes that control the most basic functions of the body. There is also scattered evidence, needing additional research, indicating that some of these chemicals interfere with normal cell division and may actually disturb hereditary pattern.
Further paragraphs sketch the results of other research, cite interviews, and cautiously offer optimism regarding “many new lines of theory,” proving her a balanced journalist.
Each letter is summarized below. Most are one full page, typed, single-spaced.
1. TLS, “Rachel Carson,” to WS; April 20, 1958; one leaf of Carson’s personal stationary; creased. Updating him on her preparations for a presentation and promising to be in touch.
2. TLS, “Rachel Carson,” to WS; February 14, 1959; three leaves of her personal stationary; with her manuscript additions in ink. Updating him on her extensive research for her article on the effect of chemicals on humans.
3. TLS, “Rachel Carson,” to WS; March 4, 1959; two leaves of her personal stationary; creased. Explaining why Dr. Vincent Schaefer would be a good subject for a New Yorker profile.
4. TLS, “Rachel Carson,” to WS; July 20, 1961; one leaf of her personal stationary; crea
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