MANUSCRIPT: Glamour, with three letters to her editor at Cosmopolitan, William C. Lengel.
Ferber, Edna. Original Typescript of the Short Story, "Glamour" with Three Typewritten Letters.
Closely-Worked Original Typescript for a Short Story, With Three Letters to Her Editor Signed or Initialed, to Cosmopolitan Editor William C. Lengel. [New York City, [c. 1931].
Typescript and setting copy, of Edna Ferber's story "Glamour", published by COSMOPOLITAN in March, 1932, bound with three typewritten letters to the Cosmopolitan editor. Typescript: 11 x 8-1/2" sheets, 25pp; bound by a narrow strip of dark green cloth together with a title page and three typed letters. Two pages of the typescript have been spliced together and have added text on an extra-length pasted to the original sheets. Date and time stamp at reverse of last sheet, indicating receipt on Dec. 17, 1931. Housed in a custom-made dark green cloth portfolio. Light age-toning to top sheet ("title page"). Fine.
The three letters are all on the writer's personal stationery, imprinted with her address ("11 East Fifty-Sixth Street"); two are 7-1/2 x 6" and the third 10-1/4 x 7". Creases where folded to fit their envelopes, but very good.
The first, dated November 18th / 1931" reads: "Dear Will, please don't think I was trying to be magnificent when I said I'd rather not see anyone this week--even you. I'm trying to do a short story for William C. Lengel, of the COSMOPOLITAN, and I can't make it come right, and I'm having the jitters." [Initialed "E.F." "Mr. Burton" is written in pencil at the upper left].
The second, "November 25th / 1931", gives a lightning-quick synopsis of the story together with a plea for an extension: "This isn't, I should say, a name-on-the cover story. I'd have liked to see my name on the cover of the COSMO containing NO FOOLIN', simply because I was very much in earnest about that story--though it seemed to me, in spite of all I could do, to be a formless and crowded piece of work. [Para] The present story is called GLAMOUR, and it is simply one single day in the life of a brilliant and successful actress. It is the most unglamourous day you can imagine. The story is slight. One of the slightest, I should say. Better not play it up. [Para] What's your ab-so-lute dead line?" [Signed "Edna").
In the third, dated "November 30th / 1931", she writes: “Dear Will: - /I must go to Washington to dine with the Hoovers on Thursday. It is, I suppose, a royal command, and can't very well be refused unless one is unexpectedly decapitated, or something. That automatically bites the better part of two days out of my work week. [Para] The story can't, I'm afraid, be in by the 5th, which is Saturday. I think I can, however, have it in by Monday or Tuesday. I'm sorry about the illustrator, but I want the story to be right. In fact, it must be right before I send it out. [Para] Please don't be cross with me" [Initialed "E.F."; an unknown hand has penciled "Mr. Burton" at the upper left corner].
Though Ferber may have deprecated the story as "slight", the typescript shows she lavished considerable attention on the story, refining even the final draft prepared for publication. "Glamour" also required more time to finish "right" than she had anticipated; though promised for December 7th or 8th, COSMOPOLITAN clocked its receipt some ten days later. The typescript, in green ink, has numerous changes marked in pencil and in ink throughout; those in green ink, are the writer's. Those in pencil appear to be the copy editor's and generally affect punctuation, capitalization, etc.; printer's directions at upper margin of first page.
The story is a portrait of an actress whose success, as "GLAMOUR" shows, arises from a remarkable dedication and energy. It opens with Linda Fayne awakening at 7 AM, after only 4 hours sleep. At once she begins studying lines for her new play, in rehearsal and due to open the next week, though she continues to perform in her present play. The reader follows her throughout the day as she exercises, memorizes lines, is cued by her private secretary, arranges for monies to be sent to her sister, visits her young daughter, has a costume-fitting, rehearses her new play, talks with the publicist, tries out props etc. through to 3 AM the following morning when, after a final panic over whether she is equal to her new play, she drifts off to sleep. Her husband, by contrast, is an amiable man-about-town whose principal function is to soothe his wife when 'new play' jitters assail her.
Ferber's own close knowledge of the theater – she coauthored five successful plays with George Kaufman – enables her to pepper the story with insider details. She gives us a vivid glimpse, for instance, at a rehearsal of a costume drama. The actresses tie "flounced skirts of very mussed muslin and crinoline" about their waists to simulate their voluminous crinoline costumes: "The women now moved about, serious, intent on their parts, serenely oblivious to the grotesquerie of flounced crinoline below the stern severity of their workaday sweaters or wool blouses, and their modish little modern felt hats".
The story honors the professional woman whose public achievements veil the intense discipline required of her. No doubt the writer had herself in mind as well when she wrote this piece. The letters which accompany, serendipitously, echo similar issues to those of the story – the writer's concern about the quality of the story, the complicating demands of those also involved in Ferber's case, the illustrator) and balancing commitments as an artist and as a public figure.
Edna Ferber (1887-1968), "the most popular Jewish American author in history", grew up in the Midwest acutely aware of its provincial attitudes toward those of the Jewish faith. She began writing as a journalist, but in 1910 the publication of her first short story, "The Homely Heroine" marked out a different path for her. Within the next few years she published a novel and four collections of short stories and earned the wide popularity she would retain for the next five decades. From 1912 on, she lived in New York City, becoming a member of the famed Algonquin literary circle and a luminary of New York social life. Throughout her writing, as feminist scholars have emphasized, Ferber created bright, independent women and her stories often revolve around their good humor and gritty perseverance. (One critic, in 1936, described Ferber as "of towering importance to the School of Femininity"). While remembered largely for novels such as CIMARRON, GIANT, and SO BIG, critics have thought her talents more attuned to the brevity and pace of the short story. "GLAMOUR" showcases Ferber's feminism, her deft hand with the short story form, and her preference for character over story line. Its theme of rigorous professional dedication mirrors Ferber's own, a dedication strikingly documented by the typescript with its numerous careful revisions and her letters with their insistence that, deadline or no, the story be "right".
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS, Vol. I, pp. 24-27. THE FEMINIST COMPANION, pp. 365-366. JEWISH WOMEN FICTION WRITERS, pp. 16-32.
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