Alexandra Johnson - The Hidden Writer

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, MARCH 1998

Copyright 1997 by Alexandra Johnson

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday in 1997. The Anchor Books edition is published by arrangement with Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

A NCHOR B OOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:

Johnson, Alexandra.
The hidden writer : diaries and the creative life /
Alexandra Johnson.
p. cm.
Includes biblographical references ().
1. American diariesWomen authorsHistory and criticism. 2. English diariesWomen authorsHistory and criticism. 3. Women and literature. 4. WomenAuthorship. 5. Creative ability. 6. Women Biography. I. Title. PS409.J64 1997

818.03dc20 9634066

eISBN: 978-0-307-75598-8

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FOR My mother AND FOR Askold

Creation often
needs two hearts
one to root
and one to flower

M ARILOU A WIAKTA ,
Abiding Appalachia

I n 1908 Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary that she wanted to show all the traces of the minds passage through the world; & achieve in the end, some kind of whole made of shivering fragments; to me this seems the natural process; the flight of the mind. In many ways, its the perfect description of writing a book, especially one about diaries and creativity. If it was the shivering fragments of diaries that first drew me to this project, then showing how a creative mind makes its passage into and through the world was always my larger aim. The Hidden Writers own passageits being unified into a wholeowes many acknowledgments. The first is to the writers of diaries themselves, both those discussed here and the scores of others Ive read over the years. Diaries and journals (terms the writers Ive chosen often used interchangeably, as do I) are great working records of creative life. They have sustained me in the long process of writing this book. And I want to thank the judges of the PEN/Jerard Fund Award for their vote of confidence when The Hidden Writer was still a work-in-progress. That public encouragement was an invaluable spur to helping me finish it.

No book featuring portraits of writers lives can be written without the earlier, full-scale biographies that precede it. It is my hope that readers of my book will add the superb biographies listed in the Select Bibliography to their shelves, if theyre not there already. But certain ones need special mention here. Quentin Bells Virginia Woolf: A Biography remains, in my mind, a model of its kind, a brilliant weaving of narrative and historical exposition, as is Phyllis Roses Parallel Lives. Antony Alperss and Claire Tomalins biographies of Katherine Mansfield are both incomparable; Jean Strouses Alice James is a model of original scholarship and penetrating psychological insight. So too Ernest Simmons and Henri Troyat on the Tolstoys; Deirdre Bair on Anas Nin. On diaries themselves, essential books range from Thomas Mallons A Book of Ones Own to the more scholarly work pioneered by both Harriet Blodgett and Robert Fothergill.

I want to thank Donald Fanger at Harvard not only for his invaluable help withand translation ofmaterial on the Tolstoys but for his inspired discussions over the years on literature in general; Linda Simon at Harvard for her guidance in researching aspects of the James family; Kirkcaldy historian David Galloway for his generosity and time during my stay in Scotland and for his help with Marjory Fleming. Research staff at the following collections and archives were invariably helpful in gaining access to original diaries and photographs, as well as other material: the National Library of Scotland for Marjory Flemings journals and Isabella Keiths letters; the Edinburgh Room of the Edinburgh Public Library for its material on nineteenth-century cultural history; the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library for Virginia Woolfs diaries and May Sarton journals, respectively; the Alexander Turnbull Library in New Zealand for help with Katherine Mansfield; Houghton Library, Harvard University, not only for material relating to Alice James and the James family but also for early diaries by unknown writers; UCLAs University Research Library for Anas Nins diaries. My gratitude to the estate of Anas Nin, especially to Gunther Stuhlmann, and to Rupert Pole for his kindness in granting me access to still-private material. Special thanks also to Alice Vaux, owner of Alice Jamess diary, for her help and kindness in letting me work with it; Ruth Yeazell of Yale for her scholarship on Alice Jamess letters; Gavin Grant, curator of the Kirkcaldy Museum, for original artwork on Marjory Fleming; Alison Samuel of the Hogarth Press, London, for tracking down material on Virginia Woolf; the Society of Authors, London, for material pertaining to the estate of Katherine Mansfield.

All that research would have remained raw material were it not for the sustained feedback of Sally Brady and the Tuesday writers group. This book owes much to their careful reading. I also want to thank Maxine Rodburg, friend and invaluable reader; so too Suzanne Berne, Jessica Treadway, Terri Cader. My aunt, Betty Sanders, inspired my earliest love of books and writing. My gratitude, too, to colleagues and students at both Harvard and Wellesley for their interest in and discussion of diaries over the years.

To my agent, Elaine Markson, a special thanks. My editor, Betsy Lerner, has been a wonderful and steady presence from the start. My thanks also to Pari Berk for her careful reading of the manuscript; and to Bob Daniels for his impeccable copyediting. My husband, Askold Melnyczuk, is owed the greatest debt for his unfailing encouragement, support and patience.

The author has made every attempt possible to trace ownership and copyrights.

It is the great quantity of what is not done that lies with all its weight on what wants to come out of the soil.

R AINER M ARIA R ILKE

I m standing under a spastic fluorescent light at Osco Drug, stranded in aisle one in the stationery section. I am nine years old. I know just where to find themnext to each other on the bottom shelf. Theyre often vinyl, with a thin gold key Scotch-taped to the front. I open the diary closest to me, its pages blank, the margins stenciled with flowers like limp medieval illuminations. Stacked next to the diaries are reams of lined composition paper. On such paper I first practiced penmanship, patiently coaxing vowels and consonants, shaping my name from a hesitant into a sturdy diagonal. On this paper Ill soon write essays about Hamlet, brooding. Later still: college applications, love letters, resumes. These will be my passports to a larger world. My eye moves from the composition paper back to the stack of diaries, each with its individual metal key. Staring at the diaries, I wonder why I need the lock in the first place.