LETTER: ALS to Dick Seaver.
On Bid Me to Live
[Doolittle, Hilda]. H.D. Autograph letter signed “H.D. Aldington” to “Mr. Seaver.” January 13, 1960; two half-leaves of plain paper, rectos only. Together with original envelope.
H.D. writes to her publisher, Dick Seaver, at The Grove Press, regarding proofs, the title of her new book, Bid Me to Live (1960), and a photograph to use for the book’s dust-jacket.
H.D. discusses her thoughts on the title, and mentions that she had spoken to poet—and fellow Grove author—Horace Gregory about it: “I [wrote to] Horace Gregory about the title of the book. Mr. Gregory thought that we might still retain the Madrigal by making it the subtitle. Bid Me to Live (A Madrigal). This is very important to me.” She then suggests a photograph she might use for the dust-jacket, “I also heard from Mrs. Gregory that Mr. Rossett had seen a picture of H.D. of the 1917 period that she had & spoke of wanting it for the dust-jacket….I would send you another, but I have only one left & the negative has disappeared.”
Bid Me to Live was written between 1933 and 1950, and is a fictional account of H.D’s real-life affair with D.H. Lawrence while she was married to Richard Aldington, and which caused the dissolution of her marriage. As explained in the Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States,
Bid Me to Live was part of a “madrigal cycle,” including also Paint it To-Day and Asphodel (neither yet fully published). All of these works intertwined the painful demands of war and love relationships, as does the brilliant long poem, Trilogy (written 1944-1946), with its images of rebirth taken from classical, Egyptian and Christian sources. (p. 380)
When the book was published, Gregory’s subtitle was included.
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