.. ·. • • ·/ , · , I ... IU 1-iY YOUTH I WAS A "TIRELESS ·· READER • • . • et • ~· • Ted Wi 1 en t z• ( wi th a po 1 cg i ~ s to Ed 0 or n ) • .. • •. I was born March 14, 1915. By my teens I was a tireless reacier. Ey the ena of my teens. the devotio ~ to books had .led to a oedication to· write.rs. My feelings about authl rs were pure and ahst.rac·t since · ( ~ FBe&i.J?-S ~ ) • • . • I_ did not · kno\'I any. This made th"fm no .less real as is made clear by their continuing, indeed increas~ ~ g stren~th after years of acquaintance and frequently - ~lcse iri~ndships with many writers. - My reading was without direction though it took shape gradually because of my tastes, the times~ . friends, teachers and studies. I read Frank Merriwell, T~e Hardy Boys, Sherwood Anderson ~ Dos Passes, Dostoievsky, Dreiser, Joyce, _ Marx, Freud,· Veblen and many long forgotten·. Often ·but not a:lways I read through authors. This was true when I ~eached Tern Swift and - Jeffr~y . Farnol. It was true with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Knut Hamsun. Still I have 11.ot forgctt~n The Crock · of · Gol~ but did -not look for other James Stephens' books. Nor did William · Graham Sumner's Folkways, a seminal bock for me, lead ~e to his ether work. Duri~g my college ~ays, I spent more time in "idle" reading in the librar parti~ularly the periodical and reference rooms than . I did on an, of my courses •. ·1 read olG and new literary magazines and curren,t \"' . ) social and political journals. I dipped into many bocks en the open · · \ ~tacks and, .by gracuation, had read 'or skimmed through most of the ·\ ·, .. ,. .. ,. entries in the fascina.tiog Encyclopedia· of Social . Sciences. It wa-s in colle·ge I . began readi ng The New York Times, an ongoing p1easurable occupation to which I am still committed with cumulative results th~t lead me to call the Times my Eki other Alma Mater. .. My sch o o l re a d i n g , a s s i g n e d . an d v o 1 u n ta r y , wa s s u p p 1 ~ me n t e d by b o o ks t o re b rows i n g • I rem em be r mos t th e · wo ·;i de r f ti 1 ma g a z i n e smorg~sbord in Brentano's basement, the absorbing collection in S t e 1 off ' s Goth am .E o o k M~_rt whe re I f e 1 t 1. i k e a y c u n g o u ts i de r · heaciy hoping one day to b~ among the initiates, the ~axiR~ and rebellious writings in The Rand School Bookstore and the marvellous affordable bargains in the Concord Bookshop, the most important remainder store of the time though today it would take up only a small se~tion of a Barnes & Noble sales annex. ) After school I t_ri ed unscuccessfully to get along ~" i th my father in ~he fur busioess. Then putting ray love of bocks together with the busines~ k.nowlec:!ge I J1ad breathed in as the son of a rtt~iler, I joined w~th f~icnds to start a bookstore in the Bronx. I t was not a 1 i t er a r y shop but the exp e r i enc e there a nJi n o the r places we opened helped in my _later professional career. World War $1 changed everything. I spent almost five years in the army entering as a private and leaving ~s a captain. The • army is a hard master but I willingly serve.din the fight against a modern barbarism. In those ye~rs the shock of realizing em~tionally as well as intellectually that progress is sot inevitable, that the 'ay of the Beast is always imminent led ~· ·. _? : . .• .K&tiERxfs me t~ .a re-examinatton. of my thoughts and beliefs and affected my social, moral and literary attitude~. This did not change my read i n g ch o i c es to ·o much pa rt 1y be ca us e I h ad rl e a r n e d not -to equate great writing . with my own beliefs and paitly because my selection wa~ often limited by what.was avail~ble on army posts. -~ I s ti 11 tilank the Armed Forces _Service Edi ti or1s, ·Yank, the lively army paper that. in_t~oduc~_ci the Sad Sac~, and , peC?ple like Eleanor Roosevelt who helped see to it t~«x that service clubs and libraries b13ooraed in many arid places. Hot too long afterf left the ~rmy, I was back in the book business this time with my brother in the 8th Street Bookshop which soon became a li~erary center. In the years before we started Corinth, I read much less hi.story and politics ~han before, more plays and much more poetry. Fiction then and always has been sta,le fare. xxibR$e,wex~xtiQ~$XQf,~i~,MQ~~~~M~x Existentialism and psychoanalysis . i..JJ'f"\. f'+J ~7-: U ,'ll~--- "5-,"'1. G -:" 1:;, . ~ "" : flo~rished. O~borne's Look Back In Anger moved me while Amis' Lucky J~m moved me tkx~ to and through laughter. For someone used to the ~ ~o~ p o 1 i ti ca l s ta t em en ts of .the th i rt i es , h c \·1 e ve r , i t '/'/ ~- took some understanding of England's social structure to realize why Amis, Osborne & Company were called The Angry Young Men. +,-;~"-"- / Dylan Thomas ~ias visiting America his sonorous \LO-l-€e adding to ,....t~ his ro~antic image. Allen Ginsberg's voice began to be heard in the land. the New York School, th~ Black Mountain group, the Beats were emerging. Little mags and small presses came alive with a '-J ; -1 ;....__ . vitality and new visions sometimes startljng and shocking. All this time James LaugRin and his New Directions remained faithful ,, .. I• • • . - ~. J.-. 1· . uJ Q<( to Moderns and was a scarce of pleasure, excitement and comfort to us all. .. By tne time Corinth· gegan, I was involved personally, emotfuonally and to a degree, 'ideologically with what Don Allen called I The New American Poetry and The New American Writing. It. · included a great range of social thought, mostly_imp~icit, ranging rom the philosophical anarchism of the Beats to what seems. Art for Art's sake. Even for those to whom the value of art seemed preminent, there was a concern for and emphasis on the individual. Frank O Hara's love of art synthesises with his I and You approach as expressed in his "personism". dtti I The wide variety of the books Corinth pub.l-.ished xm indicate.S the editorial policies did not stem from a worked out statement ©vZi- c.i f / 1 ;;'f, . of principles. I like to think the~fiction, non-fiction and poetry ~does reflect our personal tastes and beliefs k and that Corinth may be counted among the voices I that sing "the simple «e:w separate person, yet utter the :'1t word. Democratic,.the word En-Masse." ':j . ij;' . _. "~ I I,. f · t I / : _) • '. })~,in_ . h l}-<L.'/ ,'" h'/ ('-/ fct.J(lr 7r_;_ ((__ IS fn(T ~ r- 'I C- T!DrJ - I /-!-0(11--- ff-- ,A/f) Tffi;- C8<1,.JZ_£-~7fcJJJ1 o~ r-1'/ ('ncna1/l / I .f... 1c-:: [£=-G/6{ E ! I GD cJ i ~ c!lf 'T 2-- Co-tv170[(_1 L.cJ - Puc>u.SifZrL u i(L l/1Jr1+ 1Sc-'z,-/CJ' M1-N+C-j5/c_ Dc1~ l7..rr;e:/v T 1 Y1fLG ce>---o r B<>o1<- ~ S5 o c..1+7 CF Ft:Lt.c l t1.1) Sill I t1 ,1;J w Ll.EC-E 'l 1 c.E lrr.,1/ I /crL S. 1 7 f J ) / Co- Gv) t 7 ri a_ 11/ It 7 l .( :1&J- t fl01 cE~ J ) a/V' /1-lll 11-/-c- Le 6 y' v F· lt/C---r..J IJ. L+cJ< Po tr't1-'f ncnf>C-(L p_ 2. µ , /!-.~ Ert.t C-1~ c_ E,,.J ?/k - - {\ 'I . I it&- l'16tzot a._ -LJ11-s Do,,J0 ~ r l'lfJrt. rt- 01/>C-t> · 1:.J zotuf!Ci't-t..i lJ L"7lf fl>t L-L-- · Z-{Vi'frJ (<... 7/_ .4.S A- W(J~ r 776/~ P/ E-cc·1 1,T ;J tt-~J J" Gorr rt1/ C- (Yv.._ 7 I !hf f c:· IT f/l+.J Sorr e:r oF 7!f-t7 V'l-&4-L! r:j o,r- /f,1-L-(.(_ ft- .J () 7tw ScA/ ..( 6- o /- lf-.'1/ /A/F()fJ11_f L {7._,[;-f.-tl-L-6 C-7(:;•,;/ £/LL- I J S'GUO 111/t::_ YP7t1 / l'i/{=c//2/VH 7/.v-~ (}-lj,rv1, { H- rrz .1 6_ c. r- ~ ifrJ' pl< fJ LI tA- 7( o/ ~_/_( KG·· v.-/11-A'!) I . / _.,. } -------; ;/ . I . ,J ./.., M '1tV/ - - -.-~~~' . ~ --- _, BEHIND THE WRITER, AHEAD OF THE READER: A SP.ORT HISTORY OF CORr.lTH ROOKS iU;f1 I'\ I\) l,.v1&Ll11 f"i,J W I 'r rt <3t l-L Z1- U 7 S (C7 . by TED WIL~TZ,~ Za.vats-k-Y ' s e v-c.'i'\,'t-e en.