NYRB material.
Shirley Hazzard - New York Review of Books
Typescript and Letters
Hazzard, Shirley. Letter to the Editors. New York, March 8, 1990.
Typescript photocopy, 7 pp.
(Together with)
Typed letter signed, “Shirley” to Amanda [Vaill], March 11, 1990, one page; on her 200 East 66th Street stationery.
(Together with)
Typed letter copy, “Shirley Hazzard” to Robert B. Silvers, March 8, 1998, one page.
(Together with)
Autograph postcard signed, “Shirley” to Scott, October 21, 1989.
Advance extracts from Hazzard’s forthcoming book, Countenance of Truth (New York: Viking, 1990), received a scathing review from Brian Urquhart in the March 15th issue of New York Review of Books, and this is her reply to his attack. Accompanying it is her letter to NYRB editor Robert Silvers, in which she explains the contents of her response and her attendant reservations. She writes in part,
I have confined myself to addressing Urquhart’s main assertions. However, since Urquhart’s article is in effect a review of my Countenance of Truth (which will not be published until the end of April), I wonder that it should have been assigned to a person gravely criticized by the book itself, most particularly as the reviewer brings no revelatory truth to this subject and occupies himself with defending his own position.
An additional letter to Hazzard’s editor at Viking, Amanda Vaill, mentions that her response to Urquhart will appear in mid-April and that “the few things stroked out (two of them, I believe) are the result of the phone conversation with Silvers on Friday. I mean to recur to both of them when I have time to produce hard evidence. At present I do long to be away from all these battles. I know I’ve invited battles with the book and its theme, but they do wear one down.” Despite this implication that the March 8th typescript was slightly revised, the earlier typescript, in fact, is identical to the version printed in NYRB the following month.
The postcard bears a brief note of thanks regarding the dust jacket design for Countenance of Truth.
(#13260)
Print Inquire
