Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Scarlet Professor Newton Arvin A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal by Barry Werth The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal by Barry Werth. Our systems have detected unusual traffic activity from your network. Please complete this reCAPTCHA to demonstrate that it's you making the requests and not a robot. If you are having trouble seeing or completing this challenge, this page may help. If you continue to experience issues, you can contact JSTOR support. Block Reference: #683939d0-c321-11eb-8ee8-f564b3b0849f VID: #(null) IP: 188.246.226.140 Date and time: Tue, 01 Jun 2021 21:36:21 GMT. The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal by Barry Werth. Bibliographic record and links to related information available from the Library of Congress catalog. Copyrighted sample text provided by the publisher and used with permission. May be incomplete or contain other coding. SEPTEMBER 17, 1924 NORTHAMPTON It was near dusk when Arvin entered the narrow, ill-lit walk-up next to Lambie's dry goods store on Main Street. Though he was still new in town, a shy, frail twenty-four-year-old Smith instructor, he affected a jaunty contempt as he hastened past the second- floor doorway of Dr. John C. Allen, President Calvin Coolidge's dentist and closest friend. As Arvin knew, Coolidge had started his political career as Northampton's mayor, and his homestead was a wood-frame duplex a few blocks from Arvin's six-dollar-a-week room in a boarding house. Anyone with an atom of love for Dear Old Hamp proudly supported Coolidge's re-election effort. Not Arvin. Like most members of his famously Lost Generation, he reviled Cool Cal and small towns. In August, he'd offered to lead the local campaign for seventy-four-year-old "Fighting Bob" La Follette, Coolidge's third-party opponent. Now, in the lingering heat, he continued upstairs to the International Order of Hibernians' hall to preside over the opening of Northampton's La Follette Boom Club. Privately, Arvin leaned toward Bolshevism and dismissed La Follette as a relic of the trust-busting, pro-farm spirit that had exhausted itself before the Great War. Arvin's generation, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, had emerged from that war to "find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." His peers were busy thronging to the profane cities, disdaining Great Causes, and baying after pleasure and art. Yet Arvin relished the subversiveness of becoming, as he would boast in his next Harvard Class Report, "president of the La Follette Club in the President's hometown." Haunted by wanting other men, doubting his ability ever to fit in, he embraced the role of political outcast. He could champion progress but not his real self. He took the podium and, with surprising vehemence—glee, even—flayed the two major political parties. The Democrats, he said in a high-toned, punctilious Midwestern voice—a voice the critic Alfred Kazin would call "larger than the man"—stood for "sectionalism, bossism, and watchful wobbling." He reserved harsher words for Coolidge and the Republicans, whom he called "incurably identified with economic privilege of the darkest kind." As a radical with no local roots—and no desire for any—Arvin ably proved his impertinence. But as a political organizer trying to enlist a conservative, nostalgic citizenry, his instincts were—and would be—less keen. Paddle fans beat indolently overhead as seventy-five men and women fanned themselves in the hard wooden folding chairs. With his slight build, Arvin was scarcely the picture of a rabble-rouser. He had a gentle, inviting face, pale as milk. His gray-green eyes glinted anxiously behind gold wire-rim spectacles, his prim lips hid several teeth in need of removal, and, receding above a domish, lightly pocked forehead, his soft brown hair, already thinning, lay flat. Only his clothes—a sturdy three-piece suit, soft-collared shirt, and silk tie—announced greater temerity than would have been expected of the mild young clerk who inhabited them. He raised his voice and his rhetoric. Only through the independent candidacy of La Follette, he told the crowd, could the left "lay the basis for a Progressive Party with a kick in it, and put the fear of God in the hearts of the politicians." Afterward, as he returned home, Arvin was reminded how much the darkened town belonged to Coolidge and the past, not to him. Directly across Main Street, past the trolley tracks and overhead wires, stood the pinnacled, rock-faced county courthouse, the fifth on the site, where Coolidge had begun his law career. Just to its left rose the stolid beaux arts fa?ade of the Northampton Institution for Savings, where, as a young man, Coolidge, who preached hard thrift and frugality, had served as vice-president. Beyond the bank soared the ninety-foot soot-blackened brownstone spire of the First Congregational Church, on the ground where, two centuries earlier, the fiery Protestant divine Jonathan Edwards had launched the apocalyptic frontier revival known as the Great Awakening, in which the mass fervor for combating Satan rose to such a pitch that Edwards's cousin slit his own throat in an anguished attempt to cleanse an impure conscience and appease an angry God. Indeed, Northampton, a lovely if fading county seat and farm center of twenty thousand, cupped against the foothills of the Berkshires, could not have stood more proudly for the catchpenny puritanism that Coolidge promised to the country and that Arvin's generation reviled—what the Massachusetts-bred writer Robert Benchley called that "old time New England streak . . . that atavistic yearning for a bad time if a bad time is possible." To the right of the courthouse, across King Street, glittered the town's grand new vaudeville house, originally to be named the Mayflower but earlier in the year—with no intended irony for a town that, until seventy-five years earlier, banned stage plays because they fostered "immorality, impiety, and a contempt for religion"—renamed the Calvin. And yet Arvin, who came from Valparaiso, Indiana, felt flushed with a sense of purpose, of belonging. He was intoxicated by the challenge of living in the enclosed, forbidding social world around him, something that as recently as a year ago he doubted he would be able to do. All he wanted was to be a literary critic. But even the most bookish scholar had to be a man of action, a citizen. In the new world, passivity was the gravest crime, and it was necessary for those who saw the truth about America to tell it, in word and deed. Far from being discouraged by the weak turnout, Arvin relished his status as leader of the town's anti-Coolidge renegades. Not only had he got himself in the trenches; he was in back of enemy lines, pinned down by barrages, his position hopeless. A few days earlier he had written to his best boyhood friend, a young Chicago labor lawyer named David Lilienthal, about his decision to stump for La Follette: "I think it will possibly save me from the kindnesses of a lot of respectable (and very dull) people who rather enjoy a literary radical but gag at a political one." Now, the day after the rally, he wrote to Lilienthal again, boasting—and joking—about his newest success. Coolidge, famously parsimonious, was known, even during Prohibition, to like bourbon, pouring shots for himself and visitors from a bottle he kept in the lower compartment of his washstand. There was a famous story about him, which Arvin must have known, that on the night in 1918 when he was elected governor of Massachusetts, a guest noticed an old friend sitting on the bed in Coolidge's dollar-and-a-half room in a boarding house —without a drink. "Bill's already had hisn," Coolidge had snapped at the visitor. Writing to Lilienthal, Arvin reported; "The movement is promising well here in the seats of the sot." Whatever his intentions, they excluded staying in Northampton long enough to care whether its patriotic citizens disliked his lampooning their favorite son as a cheap drunkard. Library of Congress subject headings for this publication: Arvin, Newton, 1900-1963, Capote, Truman, 1924- Friends and associates, American literature History and criticism Theory, etc, English teachers United States Biography, Biographers United States Biography, Gay men United States Biography, Smith College Faculty Biography. Barry Werth. In The Antidote: Inside the World of New Pharma, Barry Werth revisits Vertex, the company that was the focus of his earlier book, The Billion- Dollar Molecule. Joshua Boger, its energetic and innovative founder, has turned an upstart breakaway company into a successful contender in the cutthroat field of research pharmacology. Barry Werth describes that risky world, in which the cost to develop a product is immense, but only1 out of 30 products makes it past the human testing stage. The Antidote combines the drama of scientific discovery with the rough and tumble of the marketplace, providing an absorbing and eye-opening look at what it takes to succeed in this field. Location: Street: 247 Main St City: Northampton, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 01060-3122 Country: United States (added from IndieBound) … (more) The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal. A provocative, unsettling look at the tragic consequences of America's "need to punish" is seen through the life of Newton Arvin (1900-1963), one of our great literary critics, whose world was shattered by the virulent campaigns against homosexuals in the mid-20th century. Two 8-page photo inserts. Read More. A provocative, unsettling look at the tragic consequences of America's "need to punish" is seen through the life of Newton Arvin (1900-1963), one of our great literary critics, whose world was shattered by the virulent campaigns against homosexuals in the mid-20th century. Two 8-page photo inserts. Read Less. All Copies ( 34 ) Softcover ( 12 ) Hardcover ( 21 ) Choose Edition ( 2 ) Book Details Seller Sort. 2002, Anchor Books. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Trade paperback, Fair Details: ISBN: 0385494696 ISBN-13: 9780385494694 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 03/2002 Language: English Alibris ID: 16420119041 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Fair. Noticeably used book. Text is legible but may be soiled and have binding defects. Heavy wear to covers and pages contain marginal notes, underlining, and or highlighting. Possible ex library copy, with all the markings/stickers of that library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, and dust jackets may not be included. ► Contact This Seller. 2002, Anchor Books. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Hardcover, Good Details: ISBN: 0385494688 ISBN-13: 9780385494687 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 04/2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16669223958 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. All pages and cover are intact. Possible slightly loose binding, minor highlighting and marginalia, cocked spine or torn dust jacket. Maybe an ex-library copy and not include the accompanying CDs, access codes or other supplemental materials. ► Contact This Seller. 2002, Anchor Books. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Hardcover, Good Details: ISBN: 0385494688 ISBN-13: 9780385494687 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 04/2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16665779824 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. All pages and cover are intact. Possible slightly loose binding, minor highlighting and marginalia, cocked spine or torn dust jacket. Maybe an ex-library copy and not include the accompanying CDs, access codes or other supplemental materials. ► Contact This Seller. 2002, Anchor Books. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Trade paperback, Fair Details: ISBN: 0385494696 ISBN-13: 9780385494694 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 2002 Language: English Alibris ID: 16653940226 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Fair. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. 2002, Anchor Books. Farmington Hills, MI, USA. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Hardcover, Good Details: ISBN: 0385494688 ISBN-13: 9780385494687 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 12124867366 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99 Trackable Expedited: $7.99 Two Day Air: $14.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good in good dust jacket. Ex-library. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Tight binding. Clean pages. Clean dust jacket. Library number sticker on spine of dust jacket. Clear plastic wrapping taped to insides of boards. Stamp on first page stamp on last page. Stamp on top edge. Book itself in overall very good condition. ► Contact This Seller. 2002, Anchor Books. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Hardcover, Very Good Details: ISBN: 0385494688 ISBN-13: 9780385494687 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16681472388 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Very good. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. 2002, Anchor Books. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Hardcover, Very Good Details: ISBN: 0385494688 ISBN-13: 9780385494687 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16662018163 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Very good. Missing dust jacket; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. 2002, Anchor Books. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Hardcover, Good Details: ISBN: 0385494688 ISBN-13: 9780385494687 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16580244618 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. Former library book; Missing dust jacket; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. 2002, Anchor Books. Halethorpe, MD, USA. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Hardcover, Good Details: ISBN: 0385494688 ISBN-13: 9780385494687 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16652788561 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. 2002, Anchor Books. Edition: 2002, Anchor Books Trade paperback, Good Details: ISBN: 0385494696 ISBN-13: 9780385494694 Pages: 352 Publisher: Anchor Books Published: 2002 Language: English Alibris ID: 15832750979 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99 Trackable Expedited: $7.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal by Barry Werth. Newton Arvin (1900-1963) was a guest at Yaddo in 1928 where he wrote his first biography about Nathaniel Hawthorne. Arvin thanked the trustees of Yaddo and Mrs. Elizabeth Ames in his December 1928 acknowledgement note. Ames, a Minnesotan Quaker, was Yaddo's director for forty-six years. This copy of Hawthorne was inscribed by Newton Arvin, "For Mary Ellen Chase with friendly regard." Chase and Arvin were professors in the English Department at Smith College. Arvin taught from 1922 to1960 and Chase taught from 1926 to1955. Newton Arvin, Hawthorne . Boston: Little, Brown, 1929. MORTIMER RARE BOOK ROOM. Mary Ellen Chase and Newton Arvin in front of Neilson Library, photograph, 1951. Sylvia Plath, Autograph notes for English 321b, 1954. One of Newton Arvin's students was the poet Sylvia Plath '55. She studied American fiction with Arvin in 1954 and corrected papers for the class when she was an instructor at Smith College in 1957-1958. She also taught three sections of English 11. In the first part of the course, Plath added Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James to the syllabus, following her training with Newton Arvin. Newton Arvin's biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was his last publication. It was preceded by biographies of Walt Whitman (1938) and Herman Melville (1950), which won a National Book Award for nonfiction in 1951. Arvin dedicated Longfellow to his literary mentor Van Wyck Brooks who first recommended him to Elizabeth Ames at Yaddo. Newton Arvin. Longfellow: His Life and Work , typescript (carbon), with revisions in the author's hand, 1963. CAPTION: MARY JORDAN GARRISON YEARBOOK PHOTOGRAPH. Barry Werth, The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, Literary Life Shattered by Scandal . Echoing his psychologically charged biographies, Arvin's own life was shattered when he was arrested on 2 September 1960 and convicted of trafficking in homosexual pornography. This material included the innocuous muscle magazines Grecian Guild Pictorial and Trim reproduced in The Scarlet Professor . As a result of the scandal following Arvin's arrest, Smith College retired him on half salary. However, Arvin was allowed to keep his office and privileges in Neilson Library, which enabled him to research his last biography on Longfellow. Local author Barry Werth used the correspondence of Newton Arvin in the Mortimer Rare Book Room to write his biography. "Life Visits Yaddo" in Life 21:3 (July 15, 1946): 110-113. With photographs by Lisa Larsen. Newton Arvin was elected director of the Yaddo Corporation in 1939, a position he held until he resigned in 1961. During one of his annual summer visits to Yaddo in 1946, Arvin met Truman Capote who became the love of his life. They are captured together at Yaddo in Lisa Larsen's photographs for a 1946 article in Life .