Cathy Curtis - A Splendid Intelligence: The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick

A
SPLENDID
INTELLIGENCE

The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick

CATHY CURTIS

W.W. NORTON & COMPANY

Independent Publishers Since 1923

To T.R.M., with love and gratitude

ALSO BY CATHY CURTIS

Alive Still: Nell Blaine, American Painter

A Generous Vision: The Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning

Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Painter

This biography of Elizabeth Hardwick includes only as much information about her famous husband, the poet Robert Lowell, as is necessary to tell the story of her life. Anyone looking for additional details can consult the three full-scale Lowell biographies by Ian Hamilton (1982), Paul Mariani (1994), and Kay Redfield Jamison (2017).

In response to my letters, Elizabeths daughter, Harriet Lowell, wrote that she is a very private person and declined to be interviewed. After Harriet came of age and lived independently, Elizabeth rarely mentioned her in letters to friends. For these reasons, she appears more frequently in this biography during her early years.

A SPLENDID INTELLIGENCE

I am deeply grateful to the staffs of libraries and archives without whose patient assistance this biography could not have been written: Boston University, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center; British Library Sound Archive; Castine Historical Society: Paige Lilly, curator; Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library: Tara Craig, head of public services; Folger Shakespeare Library: Sara Butterfass Schiep, project archivist and cataloguer; Glendale [California] Central Library: Bryan Griest, interlibrary loan; University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Center, Reference & Research Services: Mariah Wahl, graduate research associate; Harvard University, Houghton Library; Lexington [Kentucky] Central Library, Kentucky Room: Wayne Johnson, librarian; New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations, Berg Collection and Manuscripts and Archives Division: Meredith Mann, librarian; Princeton University: Brianna Cregle, Special Collections assistant; Skidmore College, Scribner Library, Special Collections: Jane Kjaer, curator; Smith College Library: Roxanne Daniel, reference assistant; Sonoma State University Library: Laura Krier, systems and metadata librarian; University of Kentucky Libraries, Louis B. Nunn Center for Oral History and Special Collections Research Center; University of California Los Angeles, Charles E. Young Research Library, Special Collections; University of Minnesota Libraries: Kathryn Hujda, assistant curator, Upper Midwest Literary Archives, Archives and Special Collections; University of WisconsinMadison Memorial Library, Department of Special Collections: Lisa Wettleson, public services coordinator; Vanderbilt University, Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Special Collections and University Archives: Teresa Gray, public services archivist; Washington University in St. Louis, Olin Library, Modern Literature Collection /Manuscripts, Special Collections: Joel Minor, curator; Vassar College, Archives and Special Collections Library: Ronald Patkus, associate director of libraries, and Dean Rogers, Special Collections assistant.

A much-appreciated grant from Vassar College Special Collections enabled me to receive copies of McCarthys correspondence. Among the various rights holders who granted permission to quote from unpublished materials, I especially would like to thank Harriet Lowell, Sophia Wilson Niehaus, the Adrienne Rich Estate, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Special thanks go to Leslie Jean-Bart for allowing me to publish his lovely photo of Elizabeth without charging a fee.

Most of Elizabeth Hardwicks closest friends during the prime of her life were no longer alive when I began researching this book, though they do make an appearance in these pages via correspondence and published writing. But I would like to thank the writers, academics, and others who spoke or wrote to me, providing invaluable information, pointing me toward further sources, or offering encouragement and advice. They include (in alphabetical order): the late James Atlas, Steven Axelrod, Ann Beattie, Elizabeth Benedict, Michael Blumenthal, Rilla Bray, Frances Connell, Peter Davis, Terence Diggory, Helen Epstein, Barbara Fisher, Stephen Fitz-Gerald, Ginny Foote, Linda Hall, Saskia Hamilton, Kay Redfield Jamison, Jon R. Jewett, Elizabeth Kendall, David Laskin, Nancy Lemann, Paul Levy, Ada Long, Daphne Merkin, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, Alison West, and someone who provided invaluable guidance in Lexington, Kentucky, but wishes to be anonymous.

I am also indebted to my patient, steadfast agent, Emily Forland, at Brandt & Hochman; to my editor, Jill Bialosky, who saw the promise in my proposal; to Jills assistant, Drew Elizabeth Weitman, for help with procedural details; and to my expert copyeditor, Janet Biehl. Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to T.R.M. for many thoughtful comments and suggestions as I wrote and rewrote this book.

AUTHORS NOTE: Elizabeth Hardwicks archive at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin contains just one single-page, undated rsum, blurry with swaths of correction fluid. Some drafts of lectures she gave provide no date and no venue; conversely, she gave lectures for which no corresponding manuscripts appear to exist. There is no omnibus listing of her essays and short stories. For this reason, I cite not only the journal or magazine where each piece first appeared but also books in which many of them were subsequently published.

WORKS BY ELIZABETH HARDWICK

Books (in chronological order)

The Ghostly Lover. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1945. Reprinted by Ecco Press, 1989.

The Simple Truth. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1955. Other editions: Ecco Press, 1982; Virago Press, 1987.

A View of My Own: Essays on Literature and Society. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1962.

Seduction and Betrayal. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974. Reprinted by New York Review Books, 2001.

Sleepless Nights. New York: Random House, 1979. Reprinted by New York Review Books, 2001.

Bartleby in Manhattan and Other Essays. New York: Random House, 1983.

Sight Readings: American Fictions. New York: Random House, 1998.

American Fictions. New York: Modern Library, 1999. Includes Sight Readings and selected essays from Seduction and Betrayal, Bartleby in Manhattan, and A View of My Own. Introduction reprinted in Collected Essays.

Herman Melville. New York: Penguin, 2000.

The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick. New York: New York Review Books, 2010.

The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick. New York: New York Review Books, 2017.

Essays, Reviews, and Op-eds (in chronological order)

Artist and Spokesman. PR 12 (Summer 1945): 4067.

Poor Little Rich Girls. PR 12 (Summer 1945): 42022.

Fiction Chronicle. PR 15 (June 1947): 70511.

Ten Years Experiment. NYTBR, December 7, 1947, 26.