THE LETTERS OF GERTRUDE STEIN AND CARL VAN VECHTEN
1913-1946
THE LETTERS OF GERTRUDE STEIN AND CARL VAN VECHTEN 1913-1946
EDITED BY
EDWARD BURNS
NEW YORK
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
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Copyright 2013 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-51901-4
Materials in this book are published with permission from the following copyright holders:
Letters of Gertrude Stein 1986 the Estate of Gertrude Stein
Letters of Alice B. Toklas 1986 Edward Burns
Letters of Carl Van Vechten 1986 the Estate of Carl Van Vechten (by permission of Donald Gallup, literary trustee for Carl Van Vechten)
Letters of Fania Marinoff Van Vechten 1986 the Estate of Fania Marinoff Van Vechten (by Joseph Solomon, executor)
Gertrude Steins And too. Van Vechten a sequel to One 1986 the Estate of Gertrude Stein
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burns, Edward, 1944.
The letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 19131946 / edited by Edward Burns.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9780-231063098 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 9780-231519014 (e-book)
Library of Congress Subject Data and Holding Information can be found in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.
LCCN: 2013933742
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FRONTISPIECE (TOP): Carl Van Vechten, 1938. Photograph by Mark Lutz. Courtesy of Bruce Kellner.
FRONTISPIECE (BOTTOM): Gertrude Stein in the studio, 27 rue de Fleurus, circa 1905. Private collection.
COVER IMAGE: Gertrude Stein waving Bettman/Corbis
COVER DESIGN: Jordan Wannemacher
Contents
This edition collects all of the extant correspondence between Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten. For the sake of completeness I have included those letters written to or from both Alice Toklas and Fania Marinoff Van Vechten during the years covered by this correspondence, 19131946.
The primary manuscript location for these letters is the Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Unless otherwise identified, the SteinVan Vechten letters are from this collection. The Toklas and Marinoff letters are also from this collection.
From his gift to Yale University Library, of Steins letters to him Van Vechten selected a few that dealt specifically with his writings and his silver wedding anniversary; these letters he presented to the New York Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division. Letters from this source are so identified in the heading for each letter.
In preparing this edition I have benefited from the transcriptions of Steins letters prepared by Dr. Donald Gallup for the Yale Collection of American Literature. While his work has proved helpful as a reference, all the letters collected here were transcribed anew from the holograph letters. The transcriptions of the Van Vechten, Toklas, and Marino letters were made from photocopies of the originals.
The goal in transcribing these letters has been to remain as faithful as possible to Steins and Van Vechtens texts. The transcriptions, therefore, retain the original punctuation (including Van Vechtens ever-present dots and dashes, which should not be construed as ellipses) or lack of punctuation; inconsistencies in the titles of books, newspapers, and articles; such compoundings as alright and to-day; Steins idiosyncratic x instead of ex, as in xcited; and her use of inclosed for enclosed.
Misspellings, grammatical errors, repetitions, typos, and other unintended oddities that appear in the letters have been left uncorrected. Misspellings of proper names, however, are corrected in the text in brackets. Van Vechtens initial misspelling of Toklas name has been noted and left uncorrected. I have silently added apostrophes in contractions since their absence did not follow any particular pattern. For the sake of clarity I have supplied given or family names in brackets. In instances where minor lapses prevent a clear reading of the text, I have supplied the necessary word or words in brackets. In cases where the text is nearly indecipherable, my interpretation, in brackets, is followed by a query.
I have standardized all return addresses and dates and placed them in fixed positions at the head of the letter. No distinction has been made between printed and written addresses. Interpolated addresses and parts of addresses are bracketed. Signatures appear as they appear in the letters; they have, however, been placed in a fixed position. Salutations have been separated from the body of the letter and also placed in a fixed position. All postscripts, regardless of where they appear in the letter, are placed after the closing. Van Vechten often used signs in the text to indicate a postscript and when there was more than one postscript he used numbers. To avoid confusion with my annotations, I have placed these numbers in parentheses.
Stein seldom dated her letters. Fortunately, Van Vechten kept the envelopes. The dating of almost all of Steins letters, therefore, derives from the postmarks. Where it was possible, I corroborated the dating from internal evidence. Van Vechten was remarkably orderly, and I have not found any instance where a letter has strayed into a wrong envelope. Van Vechten sometimes only partially dated his letters, often leaving out the year. Where I have supplied a date or a part of the date, I have placed the date in brackets. Doubdul dates or those that are difficult to read are preceded by a query.
I have placed the printed descriptions of a postcard in brackets in order to distinguish it from Van Vechtens written identification of those postcards made from his own photographs.
Before Van Vechten gave Steins letters to him to the Yale Collection of American Literature, he annotated many of them. These annotations appear in my notes except for simple identifications like Picabia, the painter, when such information is contained in a fuller annotation that I have prepared.
In my notes I have not documented information acquired through conventional reference sources. Where I have used newspaper or magazine articles from the Yale Collection of American Literature and I cannot cite page numbers, I have cited YCAL as the source.
Bibliographical information on Steins and Van Vechtens principal writings is given in separate selected bibliographies. Works which appear in newspapers or reviews are fully documented in the citation. The selected bibliography contains those works that are referred to with frequency in my notes.
