LETTERS: Viking Correspondence.
Marianne Moore – Viking Correspondence
1948 – 1969
Moore, Marianne. Viking Correspondence, 1948-1969.
Over 300 items.
Editorial correspondence between Marianne Moore and various editors at the Viking Press, including Pascal Covici, Malcolm Cowley, Monroe Engel, and Catharine Carver.
The majority of Moore’s letters regard the publication of her translation of The Fables of La Fontaine (New York, 1954). Fables was acquired by Viking in 1948 following a letter from former Reynal & Hitchcock editor Monroe Engel to Moore in which he expressed admiration for her work and volunteered to publish the Fables if her current arrangement with his previous employer should fall through. It did, and in June 1948 Moore wrote to Engel with hope of taking him up on his offer.
The balance of the incoming and outgoing correspondence regards Viking’s efforts to publish Moore’s Like a Bulwark, O to Be a Dragon, and Predilections, as well as The Marianne Moore Reader, The Complete Poems, and other works.
From Moore to various Viking editors:
Ca. 125 TLS, generally one to two pages, many on half leaves of her personal stationery showing her 260 Cumberland Avenue, Brooklyn, address.
Ca. 15 ALS, one to two pages.
Ca. 15 APS and TPS.
11 pp. typescript of emendations to The Fables.
I. Correspondence 1948 – 1954: The Fables
The letters cover all stages of the publication, from Engel’s initial contact with Moore in March 1948 to the particulars of contracts and the editing of each of the twelve books that comprise The Fables. Engel and Moore have an extremely good rapport; she frequently – almost effusively – thanks him for his time and editorial efforts and he appears thrilled to be working with her. In fact, he writes that it was “one of his great sorrows” when he left Reynal & Hitchcock and thought he had missed his opportunity to work with her on the La Fontaine translation. In addition to Engel’s work, Moore refers to receiving editorial help from Ezra Pound and Professor Harry Levin. Overall, the letters frequently discuss editorial queries on behalf of both Moore and her publisher and contain numerous revisions.
Following Engel’s departure from Viking in 1951, correspondence is largely between Covici, Cowley, and Moore. Content includes discussion of a British edition with T.S. Eliot at Faber in London, commissioning illustrations by Dudley Huppler, and assignments of copyright and permissions for selections published in journals and magazines.
Representative examples:
TLS, “Marianne Moore” to Engel, June 4, 1948, one page. In full:
The past two months, your letter of March 23rd has been a help to me.
Mr. Putnam of the Macmillan Company has been kindly “trying to work out an arrangement whereby the Company could plan to use my La Fontaine fables” but when I chanced to meet him recently, he seemed relieved to have me suggest that they be returned to me and I should offer them to The Viking Press.
Depressed by Mr. Putnam’s tentativeness, I have asked Ezra Pound’s opinion about certain fables. His enthusiasm and energetic kindness enhearten me; also Professor Levin’s affirming my soundness of treatment when I sent him several fables after the material had been returned to me by Reynal & Hitchcock.
I find, in working on, that much of what I had done needs correcting and it is with diffidence that I ask if The Viking Press might feel justified in undertaking the material. If the versions I enclose seem auspicious, I could correct and offer others. In any case, Mr. Engel, I cannot forget your fearless kindness and your encouragement.
.
TLS, “Marianne Moore” to Monroe Engel, January 13, 1950, one page. In part: “I am now returning you Book VIII – the pages corrected by you and a version embodying attempted improvements. It seems to me unmistakable that the more the lines are worked at the better they become and my gratitude to you is unbounded.”
TLC, Engel t
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