LETTERS: Editorial correspondence with Ray Roberts.
Editorial Correspondence
Stephens, Martha. Editorial Correspondence. 1976-84.
A collection of letters from Martha Stephens to her editor Ray Roberts. The papers, which span 1976-1984, primarily address Stephens’s fiction and the process of publishing her novels Cast a Wistful Eye (1977) and Children of the World (1980).
Martha Stephens (ca. 1937-) was an English professor at the University of Cincinnati while she wrote Cast a Wistful Eye and Children of The World, both depictions of working-class life in the South, inspired by her own upbringing in Waycross, Georgia. Stephens is also the author of The Question of Flannery O’Connor (1973), a critical examination of O’Connor’s work; The Treatment (2002), a journalistic examination of radiation exposure caused by a research project carried out in the Cincinnati General Hospital; and Women and Men and the Spaces In Between, a limited-release book of short stories published in 2009.
In sum:
20 letters Stephens to Roberts (10 TLS + 9 ALS + 1 APS) 1976-1984.
Six leaves of typescript promotional book synopses: the first a draft of a Cast a Wistful Eye press release, with autograph annotations; the second a later draft, including a brief biography of Stephen (three pages each). Ca.1976-77.
24 typescript pages of Children of the World, plus two leaves of autograph notes. Ca. 1984
Three letters to Roberts from requested advance readers of Cast a Wistful Eye (Calvin S. Brown, Frank Baldanza, James H. Justus), with their positive reviews for potential jacket blurbs, 1977.
Six letters to Stephens from her colleagues and friends, complimenting her on Cast a Wistful Eye, 1976-77.
One typed letter carbon Roberts to Stephens, 1980.
Cast a Wistful Eye: 1976-1977
Stephens’s first novel, the concise, 114-page Cast a Wistful Eye, was published first in condensed format in Redbook, later in wide release by Macmillan in 1977, and at the time seemingly poised Stephens for a successful writing career. The first letters in her correspondence track her initial queries to Roberts after she mails him her manuscript in February 1976. Further letters on CWE include Stephens’s comments and suggestions on editorial details (arranging dates to send back revisions; proposing promotional ideas and suggestions for people to who might write blurbs; discussing early reviews). She also entertains ideas of changing character names and adding more to the novel to bulk up its size. She suggests, “…I might be able to fill it out a little if that were the only way it could be published. I wonder whether twenty-twenty-five pages, in so small a book, would be enough to make any difference in your calculations” (March 26, [1976]). Later, she expresses gratitude to Roberts at how far he has brought her book, writing, “I know you had to strain every nerve to get such a queer-sized book accepted at all, and I am full of gratitude and admiration” (April 3, 1976).
Stephens’s letters go on to track the CWE through its publication, as its success surprises both Stephens and Roberts. She writes, “I tell you this: I feel pretty sure CWE is best-selling book at the moment in Cincinnati. How many people have called me, wanting to know where to get it, or sent me copies to be signed” (“Friday”). She writes Roberts again at the foot of a photocopied letter from her mother, drawing an arrow to lines reading, “I never did tell you what Latrelle Swain said about [CWE]. She is the librarian, you know, and she said it was her opinion that you were going to be one of the world’s greatest writers.” Next to her arrow, Stephens added her own note: “And you think I am not ‘special’” (Ca. 1976).
Children of the World: 1980
Conversation between Stephens and Roberts picks up again in 1980, when Stephens writes to tell him she has written another novel entitled Children of the World, “the story of my mother’s life, which has awed and fascinated and perturbed me all my life.” She goes on, “When we me
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