Katherine Anne Porter and Her Publishers
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W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2001 Katherine Anne Porter and her publishers Alexandra Subramanian College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons, and the History Commons Recommended Citation Subramanian, Alexandra, "Katherine Anne Porter and her publishers" (2001). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623389. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-vzkq-gq53 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproductionFurther reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. KATHERINE ANNE PORTER AND HER PUBLISHERS A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of American Studies The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor o f Philosophy by Alexandra Subramanian 2001 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3026413 Copyright 2001 by Subramanian, Alexandra All rights reserved. ___ ® UMI UMI Microform 3026413 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Author Approved, April 2001 <zJV' • p Susan V. Donaldson ( W U ) CUJCfeJC Cam Walker McibdU------- Jacquelyn McLendon Nancy Gray ' Darlene Harbour Unrue Department of English University of Nevada, Las Vegas 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii ABSTRACT x INTRODUCTION 2 CHAPTER I. HELPMATES AND HANDMAIDENS: EDITORS, AGENTS, 24 AND THEIR AUTHORS CHAPTER n. “TANGLED TOGETHER LIKE BADLY CAST FISHING 62 LINES”: KATHERINE ANNE PORTER AND HER HARCOURT, BRACE FAMILY CHAPTER III. “THE CREATIVE MIRACLE, THE CREATIVE HORROR”: 130 KATHERINE ANNE PORTER, SEYMOUR LAWRENCE AND “THAT WHOLE EXTRAORDINARY EPISODE OF SHIP OF FOOLS” CHAPTER IV. “AN ANGEL OF ALL THE VIRTUES”: EDITOR AND 210 AGENT, CYRILLY ABELS BIBLIOGRAPHY 251 iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE This study focuses upon Katherine Anne Porter’s relationships with her literary agent, Cyrilly Abels, and with her editors, Donald Brace and Seymour Lawrence, who were associated with Harcourt, Brace and Atlantic-Little, Brown respectively. The volume of correspondence between Porter, her agent, and various employees at Harcourt, Brace, the Atlantic Monthly, Little, Brown, Alfred A. Knopf and Dell/Delacorte Press (Seymour Lawrence was affiliated with Knopf and Dell/Delacorte after his departure from Atlantic-Little, Brown) is remarkable and includes over six thousand pieces of correspondence including letters, notes, wires, and cards.1 This approximation does not include Porter’s abundant correspondence over the years with other various publishing houses, magazines, and literary agencies. In his introductory comments to Max and Marjorie: The Correspondence Between Maxwell E. Perkins and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Rodger L. Tarr helps put into perspective the extraordinary volume of Porter’s publishing correspondence. Tarr writes that the total number of correspondence between Perkins and Rawlings written between 1930 and 1947 amounts to “698 located letters, notes, and wires.”2 Perkins and Rawlings, according to Tarr’s calculations, must have 1 This number is based upon a microfilm count o f Porter’s correspondence with Cyrilly Abels and with employees at Harcourt, Brace. It also includes Porter’s correspondence with Seymour Lawrence and other employees affiliated with the Atlantic Monthly, Little, Brown, Dell/Delacorte Press, and Alfred A. Knopf. Since the Papers o f Katherine Anne Porter are on microfilm, this number is based upon the number of frames counted. I counted manually Porter’s correspondence with Lawrence while he was at Knopf, because I did not want her earlier correspondence with the house counted. The number of microfilm copies came to 5,949. This number does not include the additional correspondence between Porter and Seymour Lawrence in the Seymour Lawrence Collection. This collection is not on microfilm and so was not counted, but it contains a number of pieces o f correspondence that are not included in the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter. The Cyrilly Abels Collection closely replicates the Cyrilly Abels correspondence in the Porter Papers. I thank Beth Alvarez and her graduate assistant, Jessica Ford Cameron, for counting the microfilm and giving me a good estimation o f the volume o f Porter’s professional correspondence. ' Rodger L. Tarr, ed.. Max and Marjorie: The Correspondence Between Maxwell E. Perkins and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999), 1. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. communicated an average of once a week for seventeen and a half years. He claims that the size of the collection is “astonishing, even when compared to other Scribner writers of the period, such as Emest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Tarr’s comments make the impressive Rawlings-Perkins correspondence seem tame when compared with the mass of Porter’s business communications. It is difficult to imagine the number of hours Porter must have spent at her typewriter composing letters to agents, editors, and publishers beginning in the 1920s and continuing on until the 1970s, when the writer was in her eighties. Porter’s professional correspondence constitutes a valuable segment of the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter housed in the Hombake Library at the University of Maryland. I have also drawn upon the Seymour Lawrence Collection and the Cyrilly Abels Collection, both housed in the Hombake Library. The wealth of information about Porter’s publishing history contained in this rich archive is at the center of this biographical study. While literary biographers usually provide valuable information about an author’s professional associations with agents and publishers, the limits of time and space preclude them from focusing extensively on this subject. The bonds of friendship and loyalty that developed between Porter and those persons most intimately connected to her creative life were so vital to her creative journey and so time-consuming that an individual study of these author-editor/agent bonds is warranted. Porter’s first long-term affiliation with a major publishing house was with Harcourt, Brace. Porter signed contracts with the house in 1930, and she remained with the house until the death of her editor and publisher, Donald Brace, in 1955. Donald Brace was Porter’s main contact at the house, but when he became ill, Porter relied v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. heavily upon other employees at the firm assigned to attend to her affairs. Unfortunately, many of Porter’s letters to Harcourt, Brace employees are missing. I believe these letters are in the Harcourt, Brace archives in Orlando, Florida. On two separate occasions, I have tried to obtain these letters, but the attorneys I have communicated with at Harcourt, Inc., in Orlando claim that they find the prospect of reviewing Porter’s archive too daunting. After the death of Donald Brace, Porter sought out new publishers and signed with Seymour Lawrence and Atlantic-Little, Brown in 1955. She remained with Atlantic-Little, Brown until 1964, during which time she finished her best-selling novel, Ship of Fools (1962). When Seymour Lawrence left Atlantic-Little, Brown in 1964, Porter followed him, and the denouement of their mutually dependent alliance is vividly revealed in the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter and in the Seymour Lawrence Collection at the University of Maryland. The abundant correspondence between Cyrilly Abels and Porter is a testament to their mutual devotion to one another as much more than professional associates. Abels was the managing editor of Mademoiselle in the 1950s. She would solicit fiction and nonfiction pieces from Porter, who was willing to put aside work on her novel to write for the magazine because she always needed money to supplement the advances she received from publishers. When Abels became a literary agent in 1962, Porter retained her and they enjoyed a fruitful alliance until Abels died in 1975. Porter chose to work closely only w'ith people whom she trusted implicitly to handle her affairs; her faith in Abels never w'avered. Their alliance illustrates how important it was for Porter to develop bonds of friendship and loyalty with those persons connected with her writing. vi