A Portrait of Ford Madox Ford: Unpublished Letters from the Ford-Foster Friendship

^<ι] A Portrait of Ford Madox Ford: Unpublished Letters from the Ford-Foster Friendship JANIS AND RICHARD LONDRAVILLE Potsdam College, SUNY WHEN JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER was helping me with research on W. B. Yeats, she gave me ten letters written to her by Ford Madox Ford.1 Mrs. Foster suggested that I might be interested in Ford, a great friend of hers and editor with her on the Transatlantic Review. Ford was a particular favorite of hers, and she felt that he had not gotten a fair hearing in some of the controversy surrounding the question of his collaboration with Joseph Conrad. It was her contention that disagreement between the writers was largely an invention of Jessie Conrad, whose antipathy toward Ford is well known. Mrs. Foster maintained that the personal and professional relationship between the two men was always amicable, and that Ford was disappointed that Mrs. Conrad described it otherwise. Whatever the merit of Mrs. Foster's claim, her relationship with Ford was successful both on a professional and personal level. New details of Ford's life are still being discovered. Cornell University's Olin Library recently acquired 250 letters of Ford from the estate of Mrs. Julia Loewe, and though the focus should remain on Ford's works, letters such as these to Mrs. Foster offer fresh insights into his development as an artist. Ford writes to her about how he handled the publication of some of his novels—to his disadvantage—in order to promote periodicals with which he was connected, such as the English Review and the Transatlantic Review. He writes about his work habits, about how he is driven to "eyestrains and headaches and depressions" because of his occupation, and he complains of his financial difficulties. Although the letters to Mrs. Foster generally corroborate established views of Ford, they show perhaps more clearly than some of his previously published letters the problems and the fortunes which directly affected his work, its subject matter, its production, and its publicity. 181 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 Ford first met Mrs. Foster in France while he was arranging finances for the Transatlantic Review with American lawyer John Quinn, and Ford was immediately charmed: Mrs. Foster was the ravishingly beautiful lady who bought Mr. Quinn's pictures for him [Although Pierre Roche bought most of Quinn's European pictures, Mrs. Foster had purchased some for him on her trips to France. Quinn, of course, had final approval of all purchases]. She was an admirable business woman and, as far as they were susceptible of management, she managed the American side of the Transatlantic Review to perfection.2 Ford and Mrs. Foster were fast friends from that first meeting, and he was most appreciative, as these letters demonstrate, of her efforts on his behalf. When Joseph Conrad died in 1924, Mrs. Conrad returned several of Ford's autographed books to him, a gesture that could be interpreted as thoughtfulness or rancor, but Mrs. Foster told me that Ford thought it to be the latter. He decided to show Mrs. Foster his appreciation of what she had done for him by giving her one of these books, The Soul of London (1905), which he had originally inscribed "Joseph Conrad from Ford Madox Heuffer 5th May, 1905." Twenty-one years later, on 15 December 1926, he presented this book to Mrs. Foster and reinscribed it "Jeanne Foster from Ford Madox Ford 15th Dec, 1926. Habant sua fata libelli" (Books have their own lives). Almost exactly a year later, on 1 December 1927, he autographed for her a copy of New York Is Not America, which he had dedicated to her: My Dear Jeanne: Here I am back after all, just in time to dedicate this New York edition to the kindest of New Yorkers. Yours gratefully and with affection, F. M. F.3 When Quinn died in 1924 Mrs. Foster was faced with the task of preparing his correspondence for the New York Public Library, and for a full year she had little time for other tasks. She became, as Ford's letters show, an indifferent correspondent, and he was often worried about her. He thought that she would be better off in Europe with him and Stella Bowen, and offered their hospitality, but Mrs. Foster never accepted Ford's offer. Quinn had made no provision for her in his will, and when the task of preparing Quinn's correspondence was finished, Mrs. Foster was recalled to her home in Schenectady to care 182 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship for invalid members of her family. It was four or five years before she was finished with her nursing duties, and by this time the Depression had made publishing jobs in New York very difficult to come by. Mrs. Foster accepted a position with the Schenectady Housing Authority, where she worked until 1959. Her name, which had been well known among the New York City literati because of her editorial positions on The Review of Reviews and the Transatlantic Review, faded from memory, and she decided to accept what fate had given her and work as hard as she could at her new job. There were times when the old days seemed very close, and she was delighted to help scholars such as Aline Saarinen and Ben Reid with their work on John Quinn, a man whose impact on history and the arts, she believed, had not been fully understood. But although she was in the main self-deprecating about her contributions, there was one particular aspect of her work that she felt had been misunderstood. When Ford, Quinn, and Pound founded the Transatlantic Review in 1923, Mrs. Foster, by then a combination secretary, art buyer, and literary liaison for Quinn, was chosen to be the American editor. It was assumed by many that her position was an honorary one, and that she was included in the group as a way to appease Quinn. Although it is true that Quinn, who was suffering from the cancer which would kill him in July 1924, had little other than money to give to the Review, the appointment of Mrs. Foster as American editor was anything but an honorary position. Quinn, Ford, and Pound knew that Mrs. Foster's contacts in the world of publishing would be very helpful for such an ambitious journal. As these letters from Ford show, Mrs. Foster was the editor who winnowed out the wheat from the chaff on this side of the Atlantic, sending Ford those manuscripts which she considered worthy. She also often served as a buffer between Ford and Quinn. Sometimes Quinn was understandably irascible, and Mrs. Foster would explain to Ford that it was illness and not lack of respect that made Quinn irritable.4 After the failure of the magazine and the death of Quinn, Mrs. Foster and Ford continued their friendship. In fact, she wrote in a letter to Ezra Pound6 that she continued her correspondence until Ford died. The letters she showed me, however, conclude in 1929, and there were no others in her collection. We can only speculate that she may not have preserved the later letters. Ford, though sometimes emotionally profusive in his letters to Mrs. Foster, apparently had no intimate relationship with her beyond 183 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 that of close friend and confidant. He often mentions Stella Bowen to Mrs. Foster, who once gave Ms. Bowen a pair of earrings for a gift. When Ford switched liaisons from Ms. Bowen to Renee Wright, he included Mrs. Wright in greetings to Mrs. Foster. The letters suggest that Mrs. Foster was more an extended family member than an amorous possibility for Ford. She was aware that she and John Quinn had been linked romantically, and she told me adamantly that they had never been physical lovers. She regarded Ford as a dear friend, and never felt it necessary to defend the relationship as anything but platonic. In a letter to Pound, reprinted here, Mrs. Foster humorously mentions that "any number of women are mad about [Ford]," who was enjoying playing the part of a Don Juan. The affection Ford felt for Mrs. Foster, documented in these letters, would appear to be well deserved. She used her position in the New York literary world to advance his fortunes, and, encouraged by the example that John Quinn had shown by arranging and promoting the lecture tours of W B. Yeats, tried to do the same for her friend. Mrs. Foster told me that Ford's habit of changing women from time to time kept him chronically in need of funds, and she was happy to promote his fortunes if that would ease his financial burdens. She wrote in a letter to Heywood Broun, "Mr. Ford is in this country on a lecture tour. I want that lecture tour to be a successful one," and urged Broun to do what he could to promote Ford's engagements. Jeanne Robert Foster's place in early twentieth century literature is certainly not central, but her work and friendship with several of the important artists of the time, including J. B. and W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Vachel Lindsay, Gwen John, and of course Ford Madox Ford, make her life and letters worthy of attention.6 (R.L.) Letters [Handwritten letter addressed to JRF at 10 rue Ponthieu, Paris.] Three Mountains Press Office: 19, Rue D'Antin, Paris.1 Transatlantic Review 65 [13d?] Arago2 Paris XIII. Nov. 18th 1923 184 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship Dear Mrs. Foster: Thanks very much. The Paris Letter will do very well indeed and I'm obliged for the speed you put into writing it. Of course you are a wicked woman to butt into the art criticism of the T.R. : but, you being a weak and clinging woman Ezra may not break your neck: and anyhow, he is responsible in having brought us together. Come and see us soon. Yours, Ford Ford. [Handwritten letter addressed to JRF at 10 rue de Ponthieu, Paris VIII.] 65 Boulevard Arago (13 EME) 20/1/23 3 [1924] Dear Mrs. Foster: That money has not arrived from Quinn4 and I rather need it for the circulars and dummies printer's bill. Should I wire him again or would that rattle him?5 Otherwise I think we have things pretty well in hand. Yours Ford Ford [Handwritten letter to JRF. Printed here by permission of The New York Public Library.] 19, rue d'Antin PARIS Please answer to 29, Quai D'Anjou, Paris-4 22/1/24 Dear Mrs. Foster: Yours of the 7th inst. just received. Of course you are the Associate Editor and no one else: yr. functions being to give a first reading to mss. and forward a selection to myself and to settle any editorial questions for the decision of wh. there wo. not be time to refer to me—such as refusing advertisements and the like. (I wd. not for instance take the advts of nude photos that the Dial rejoices in.)6 185 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 As for taking share subscriptions: You are fully authorised to take these and on receipt of cheque from you to the S.A. des Editions de la Transatlantic Review. I will forward you (the unit of shares being five hundred francs paper) share certificates to the amounts in francs as per the exchange on the day of receipt of cheque. Yr. faithfully FM Ford. Administrateur Delegue S.A. des Editions de la Transatlantic Review [Typed letter, autographed, addressed to JRF c/o Thomas Seltzer Inc., 3 West 50th Street, New York, U.S.A. Forwarded to 1762 Albany St., Schenectady, N. Y. Printed here by permission of The New York Public Library.] 19, Rue d'Antin PARIS 29 Quai d'Anjou Paris 4 22/2/24 Dear Mrs. Foster; I have sent No iii off to-day to America with consular invoices all complete. Would you please be so very kind as to let me know either yourself or through Seltzer, whether it reaches your shores in time? I have not yet heard whether the second number has reached you yet. The affair of the reproductions is very unfortunate. They are completely ruined by the haste with which they had to be printed whereas if either you or Mr Quinn had answered my first telegram at once—or even by letter—we should have had time enough to get them all right. However it cannot be helped. I used your second communication in this number. It did not reach me until No ii had been three days on the sea. I should be glad of notes on last season's books for No iv which will contain a sort of Literary Supplement—but please keep them in tone with the spirit of the Review—which is that there is a great deal of good work being done in America. I had to add a footnote to the remark from a distinguished American—the great Mr Nathaniel Parker Willis,71 suppose, or is he dead? I suppose your present notes have been long on the way. You must remember that we begin to print seven weeks before the Review reaches you—so copy to be in time should be posted at least two months before the number for which it is intended. I had to cut your letter unmercifully to get 186 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship it in—but I had to cut everyone else in the same way, so we are all in the same boat. I am glad you liked my article in the Criterion;8 I am a great but neglected writer! Ref Mrs Untermeyer9 and shares. The process of issue is much complicated by the preposterous nature of French Company law. Before you can raise new capital you have to advertise in the papers your proposed amount. You cannot, I mean, go to the public with a proposal to sell them shares; you must have the actual money in hand. Then the Notaire has to advertise in the official organs that he actually has the money in hand; then you can issue the shares, but not before—and then you have to pay the Notaire from three to four thousand francs, exactly as if you were founding a new company all over again. So it would be folly to issue new shares every time anyone finds any capital; the only way to do it is to have the money in hand in bunches and issue from fifty to a hundred thousand shares at a time so that the notarial and advertising expenses are spread over as many shares as possible. Why this should be so I cannot imagine because there seems to be no earthly purpose served. But there it is. The only way that Mrs Untermeyer or anyone else who wishes can set about subscribing is to make out a cheque to me as Administrateur Delegue of the Société and to wait for her share certificates until enough has been got together to warrant a new issue. Of course she would have to chance my going off with the money. But that seems to be a possibility of which the French law refuses to take account. I hope you still like your room at Seltzer's. Are any mss. coming in? I should be quite glad of some good stuff as, with all the business managing I have to do here I have absolutely no time to do any editing and the review gets just thrown together which is bad for it. I find that the mail is just going off, so I shall have to close with kind regards. Yours sincerely FM Ford [Typed letter, autographed, addressed to JRF c/o The National Arts Club, 300 West 49 Street, New York, U.S.A. Printed here by permission of The New York Public Library.] 19, rue d'Antin PARIS 14/3/24 Please Address to Editorial Office Transatlantic Review 29, Quai D'Anjou, Paris-4 187 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 Dear Mrs. Foster; I have just dispatched a letter to you when yours of the 27th arrived. I just scramble off this note to say that I don't attach any blame to you at all in the matter of the illustrations—far from it! Yours cordially but in frantic haste FM Ford [Typed letter to JRF, autographed. Printed here by permission of The New York Public Library.] 19, rue d'Antin PARIS TRANSATLANTIC REVIEW 29, Quai D'Anjou, Paris-4 8th April 1924 PRIVATE Dear Mrs. Foster, I have not had time to answer Mr. Seltzer's letter of the 7th ult—and indeed I don't see in it anything in particular to answer. He had better answer mine of the 13th March.10 Will you please put the following points to him, speaking as representing me: The continual lateness of delivery from here and the delay in New York seem to make it impossible to publish in New York before the 10th of each month. So I think it would be better if Seltzer published the 5th number on or about the 15th May and called it the May-June number, then he would publish the 6th number on the 15th or so of June and call it the July number. He would have to send a circular letter to subscribers explaining that they will not be cheated of a number but that their subscriptions will include the number for January 1925 which will be published on the 15th December. If you think this is a good plan decide for it yourself and tell Seltzer to do it. He may as well in that case print the cover himself, so I shall not send over covers with this number. It is really exasperating that Seltzer will not let me have an estimate of the number of copies he will need each month. There is no need for me to go to the expense of printing and the freight on 2000 copies if he does not expect to sell more than 1000. So I shall not forward more than 1000 of No V. If he wants more he must cable for them. 188 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship A small syndicate here is negotiating taking over the Review and putting more money into it. As to this I am writing to Mr. Quinn.11 If they do, the organizers of the syndicate—a rich man who wants occupation—will take over the New York management and I hope you will get on with him. He is quite pleasant. No IV is selling remarkably well here. I hope it is in New York, too. With all sorts of good wishes, FM Ford [Typed letter to JRF, autographed.] Please answer to GUERMANTES près Lagny S & M Dear Mrs Foster, 16 Rue Denfert-Rochereau. V E1 26th March 1925 I was very glad to get your letter of the 26th the last half year, but not getting any answer was afraid you were ill. I am glad to see that you seem in better spirits. I have had your letter about ten days, but have been atrociously busy correcting the last draft of my new novel which I sent to the publishers yesterday, so you see the first thing I do after it is to write to you.13 Yes, it was a pity that I had to suspend the T.R.,14 but Mrs Ford and I had spent frs 120,000 on it—and are indeed still paying its bills, and as my principal source of income comes from my writing and it left me no time to write I had no other course open to me. The money actually spent on it was frs 40,000 of Mr Quinn's, just under frs 40,000 of Friend's15 and others and as I have said frs 120,000 of ours or a little over—making almost exactly frs 2000,000 of ours or say £2,000 or $10,000. It was not a very large sum and if Seltzer18 had shewn any likelihood of paying up I might have carried on, but the constant bothers of the business management completely stopped my working and, naturally, my work has a certain importance for me. If anyone else would turn up another couple of thousand pounds and, which is much more important, take over the business management, I should re-start it, but of course the financial loss to me was much more serious than the money we put into it, for I was offered very large sums for the serial rights of Some Do Not and the Conrad book17 which I lost by serialising them in the review. However, that does not matter. The point is: could not Quinn, Kieffer & Woodward sue Seltzer18 for what is owing to the Review. They must hold the copy of the agreement 189 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 with him and it will become perfectly plain to them, if they read the last few clauses, that Seltzer is liable in a relatively large sum. Seltzer maintains that he is not because he lost money over the review. But that, as the saying is, is his funeral. All that he had the right to deduct from the gross sales was his commission and the sum stipulated for in the agreement. I think he ought to be pursued for the sake of public morality and I wish you would talk seriously to Messrs Quinn about it. No, the original T.R. Company is not defunct: it still exists as it were beneath the snow, so that the company is perfectly competent to sue Mr Seltzer. I am glad you have got so interesting an occupation as reading Mr Quinn's correspondence; it must give you sidelights on all sorts of things. When are you coming over here? A number of your friends have asked us that question and we could only answer that we expected you last autumn. There is a certain amount of news here, but I have been so buried in my book that I have missed most of it.19 My young American friends say that it—the book—is one of the world's masterpieces, to be compared only with the Divine Comedy of Dante. They probably exaggerate. As soon as I have finished an immense amount of belated correspondence I am going to resume turning my Good Soldier into French,20 a job that ought to have been finished by now. We have taken, just beside ours at Guermantes, a house said to be fourteenth century but not of course so old, and are violently occupied with that and with the garden. We shall have quite a nice little place when it is finished, so I expect we shall be down here—Guermantes whence I am writing—most of the spring and summer. But this winter has been so terrible for cold and inclemencies of every sort that I am determined never to spend another winter in the North of France .... That is my sort of news. It is not very thrilling. Come and give us yours soon. Stella21 asks to be remembered to you very cordially and I'm always your humble, obedient and obliged servant Ford Ford [Typed letter to JRF, autographed.] F.M. Ford 84, Rue Notre-Dame Des Champs22 Paris Vl e Tel. Littre 90-45 [1925] My dear Jeanne, Why is it impossible to have a letter from you? I have written to you again and again—and now Mrs Dransfield23 says she has had a very sad 190 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship letter from you, which dreadfully upsets me. You say you are too hard up to come to Europe—but you know we wanted you to stay with us, so that it might have been ever so inexpensive—and I am sure that if you had spent a quiet month with us in Avignon it would have done you ever so much good. As it is we got back from there yesterday; we had really glorious weather and sun baths but the Rhone was practically all the time too high to be swum in, the current being so terribly swift. I leave Liverpool next Thursday week for Montreal which I expect to reach on the 24th, so I may anticipate striking New York on about the 26th or next day. I have been having a really terrible time of anxiety with publishers and shall have no end of trouble to put things straight when I get to N.Y.—but I will tell you all about that when we meet. Do wire me to the boat when and where I may expect to find you. Perhaps you will be in Maine and I might stop off there between trains if I am alone. But in any case, my very dear Jeanne, do arrange that we meet soon, for I am by no means certain how long I can stay in the U.S.A. I have had no news from Lee Keedick24 about lecturing, so I suppose he has done nothing. I would not mind giving a few lectures, but don't dreadfully want to. I have got on rather slowly, owing to bothers and depressions with my novel, so I expect I shall finish it in New York. But, in any case, too, do believe that there have been very few days on which I have not thought of you and wished your happiness. Do, do, do let me have news of you. And may God bless you! Always your Ford M F. [Handwritten letter addressed to JRF at 300 W. 49th Street, New York City, N.Y.] Guermantes Pres Lagny 84, Rue Notre-Dame-Des-Champs. VIE (Seine & Marne) 29th July 1926 Paris Dear Mrs. Foster: What in the world has become of you! It must be over a year now since we have heard anything at all and that is not nice of you—for I have written to you several times. Do let us hear! Since I saw you your country has been doing me rather proud—at any rate in the matter of sales and reviews and, upon the whole we are finishing. 191 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 Stella is also doing very well with her portraits and Esther Julia25 is a regular little French woman. We are just starting out for Avignon on a holiday. Are you never coming to Europe? Or must we come to the United States to see you? In any case I am coming at the beginning of November, for three months to lecture under the auspices of Mr. Pond,28 so we will meet then if I have to go to Seattle to find you. But before then do let us hear. We often talk of you—and you would be astonished to hear how many people ask us after you. Stella asks to be very kindly remembered to you and as for me I'm Always yours to command Ford Madox Ford [Handwritten letter to JRF] 84, Rue Notre-Dame-Des-Champs. Wed. 22 Sept. 26 Dear Mrs. Foster: I have delayed answering yr. very nice letter of the 12th because we have been in London for the last ten days, looking after my mother who is getting very old. Anyhow it is very jolly to hear from you again and you are very kind to offer to play fairy godmother and more in Gotham! Well then: of course I'd love to lecture to anyone you are interested in: I am in the hands of Pond so I suppose you shd write to him: and presumably soon, as I believe my dates are filling up. I fancy the Pond Lecture Agency N.Y. wd. find him. And equally of course I'd love you to give me a dinner. I shd. naturally prefer a tete a tete one: but if it has to be ten . . . well they say there is safety in numbers. Anyhow perhaps we cd. manage better! In any case we shall meet soon as we expect to be here [delayed?] till I sail—about the 20th as far as I know. So a transit Always yours FM Ford I sail about the 20th. 192 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship [Handwritten letter addressed to JRF at 1762 Albany Street, Schenectady, New York. Enveloped postmarked December 26, 1926.] Xtmas Day in the morning My Dear: I have just come in from Mass. N.Y. is very lonely without you: I wish we'd have gone to Mass together. I had quite—oh quite dreadfully!—a touch of nostalgia when they sang the adeste . . . not really for England or Paris—but I believe it was truly to live amongst Papists. I think they are, really, the only people one understands, au fond. They are one's real family as you and I are more kin than if we were related by blood. Perhaps what I really need is to be reconciled to the Church.27 I was looking at a plaster of paris statue of the Virgin and she said: "This is the last Xtmas [Mass?] you will ever attend ." .. . just like that. . . I meant to stop in bed all day—but I thought I had better get up and go to Mass: Naturally I am taking the Germans to lunch at the N.A.C. opening to the Bullitt's28 for their Xtmas tree and supper. And afterwards to the Van Dorens!29 Tomorrow however I won't go out. I won't. I won't. I won't. I hope you are not being too worried by your blood kin! It is a shame and it infuriates me that you cannot have a life of yr. own . . .30 But I suppose you never could. You immolate what you have of an outside life, as it is, on the altar of my imbecile worries. God bless you my dear: I think of you very much and write with true affection! And I prayed for you—like Hell—just now. Come back soon, soon to Yr [Typed letter, autographed, addressed to JRF at 300 West 49th Street, New York City, U.S.A. Year not given; postmark unreadable.] GRAND HOTEL VICTORIA TOULON, LE ...........192 RESTAURANT DERNIER CONFORT 29, Boulevard de Strasbourg, 29 March 24th TOULON R.C. Toulon 13154 a 13156 [1927] Telephone 2.70 193 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 My very dear Jeanne: When I look at the appalling date above and recognise that it is over a month since I saw you and that I have not had the decency to write I am really more than ashamed of myself. Do forgive me. It is not indeed because I have forgotten. I have meant to write every day but I have been writing very hard at New York Is Not America31 and, having naturally mislaid my spectacles have been suffering from all sorts of eyestrains and headaches and depressions. So that if I had started to write to you at the end of a day I might have cried. However, now I have had some new glasses made and can more courageously confront the world. Before I say anything else, lest I forget it: I duly saw Greenslet32 in town and he said that he had jobs in his office that might both be fillable by the Allen Tait's [sic]—one being secretarial and the other of the Literary Adviser type. I have naturally lost Miss Gordon's address. Would you very kindly advise her of those facts and suggest that she write to Greenslet on his return?33 I do hope your family is troubling you much less and that you are having a little life of your own. I do so often worry about your worries. America seems to have dropped out of the world except for that—and except that I keep on writing and writing about it with such intensity that I am quite dizzy when I look up and see from my window the plane trees and the sunlight...... Curiously, just as I was writing the above arrived your letter from Mount Clemens. It seems an eccentric place to which to go in March, but I hope the salt may be doing you good. I suppose, seeing that it is dated the 17th that you may be still there; for goodness' sake stop there ever so long if it is really resting you. As you see, I am using your machine all the time.34 It is an admirable instrument—but I am a pretty dull performer. Still I continue, faint yet pursuing. But I am a rotten letter writer at all times. I have a hundred things to say which I shall think of when I am in bed or on the sea. The Tribune cheque seems exiguous; there should be another for something I wrote about Chicago. I have no news of Irita's35 coming over here. I suppose I shall have in time, nor indeed have I any news of Ezra. I hope to get to Rapallo36 before returning to Paris but don't know whether I shall. If Kedick [sic]37 is really writing in April I shall put it off till then so as to be able to discuss the matter of his tour with some knowledge. I do hope to see you here in July; do just make a bolt of it and come. I would much rather you did that than that you went West and made engagements for me—for I do not in the least want to go to West; but of course engagements for Ezra are another matter.38 In any case do keep in touch with me. I expect—indeed I am sworn to Boni's—to be in New York 194 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship about the 20th September;39 we shall probably go to Paris in May and then to Avignon with us and swim in the Rhone. That would be great fun. But Stella is writing about that. God bless you, my dear; keep very well and very cheerful and sometimes pray for the being who inscribes himself Yours very affectionately FMF40 [Typed letter, autographed, addressed to JRF at 300 West 49th Street, New York City, but forwarded to 1762 Albany St., Schenectady, N.Y.] FABRE LINE MARSEILLE on board S.S. PATRIA41 July 27th 1928 Somewhere off coast of Massachusetts. My very dear Jeanne, What in the world has become of you? I rang and rang and rang you up but never could find you home—and now here I am on the way to Europe again. I really have worried about you for such a prolonged silence can only mean that you are ill or nervously troubled. Pray, pray, pray let us have some news of you that will calm these apprehensions. All the while I was in New York I just wrote and wrote hardly going out at all. I think I must have written at least 90,000 words in sixty days and I finished my book exactly a fortnight ago. I daresay I should not have achieved this if my sprained ankle had not kept me indoors for that three weeks. So a Quelque chose malhour est bon. God bless you, my dear: I will put up a candle for your happiness in the church of Batalha in Portugal where there is a very famous Virgin M. She might help you. Renee42 sends her love. She is very much recovered by now—and do believe that I never forget you. Yours always FMF. 195 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 [Typed letter to JRF, autographed.] Ford Madox Ford 30 West 9th Street New York City Telephone: Stuyvesant 7737 Apr. 14, 192943 My dear Jeanne: I do wish you would let me know how to get in touch with you, for I can't even get in touch with Mr. Foster44 now, but the last thing he said was that you were going to be in Schenectady some time this week. Jane,45 on the other hand, says she heard from you that you were stopping in Boston, so I just don't know what to make of things. I do hope you are ever so much better. It seemed perfect madness for you to be going to Boston when you did, but I suppose you had to. Do drop me a note. Yours always, Ford M. F.48 Addenda [Typed letter, autographed, from JRF to Ezra Pound. Printed here by permission of The New York Public Library.] 300 West 49th Street January 7th, 1927. Dear Ezra: Your letter in reply to my cable came in yesterday. The cable was funny, that is, as you received it. F.M.F. and I were so happy over your book that we decided to send you a cable. This was the wording agreed upon: "Your book just out. Lovely-lovely inside and externally". Signed "Jeanne and Ford". Now when I sent the cable at Grand Central station, the lady clerk objected to the two "lovelys." I insisted and paid for the word. I see that she thriftily removed the extra "lovely" also and "and". Perhaps that is the way they pick up small change. If you clipped off fifty to one hundred words on cables a day, why you would have a tidy little extra change by night. WELL, the book is lovely-lovely and Ford read from it to the Poetry Society to their great surprise and disgust and delight, the three being 196 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship distributed among your haters, lovers and those to whom you are unknown. Today, Ford is sending you his article about you which will appear in the Tribune next Sunday. If you don't like the earring episode, put the blame on my shoulders, [?] coaxed to have that tale included. We might as well make you as [?] as you are. The times are right for your appearance here. I want you to come. Your literary stock is high where you are known and I believe you would have an amusing tour and make some cash. Pond, the agent, has done little for Ford. He really doesn't like Ford. And he, Pond, believes all this Conrad Blah that Mrs Conrad put out.47 Or these statements are my opinion. At any rate, he Pond does not think Ford can lecture because he told me so. It seems that Ford's first engagement was to speak for 800 women headed by Anne Morgan,48 at the Plaza Hotel. Ford did not realize just how to key his voice and was not heard. Now, at two engagements that I made for him, he spoke exceedingly well, movingly, seriously and made a hit with the audience and even with such bored individuals as Cosmo Hamilton49 and Robert McBride (publisher).50 So I would advise you not to have Pond. I do recommend Lee Keedick. Ford is with him at this moment (I have just had a telephone message booming your stock and probably trying to arrange a western tour for himself). Ford has told me that he would take an apartment and ask you to live with him if you cared to do so, if you would come over next year. Ford intends coming over as he has now such a large personal following in New York among amusing people of all kinds that he finds life vastly entertaining. He is called don Juan at present and any number of women are mad about him. Truly—truly! And don't forget that you and Dorothy are to be my guests at the N.A. Club until you look around and find out what you want to do. Now to go back a bit to your letters. You asked me about Dr Barnes.51 So far as I know he is a personable and industrious gentleman with a taste for art. I met him once and had the great pleasure of seeing his collection. He is six feet tall, rather handsome, talks well, is very rich, has a magnificent country estate and gallery and permits the University of Pennsylvania to use his collection in connection with their course in aesthetics. His address is: Dr Albert Barnes, Merion Pa, The Barnes Foundation. But if he ever fancies that you knew John Quinn, all is over. He has after several years of courtesy to me, apparently discovered that I knew Quinn, therefore I have been refused permission to bring Ford to see the collection. I am now writing to take myself out of it. I dare say Ford will then be admitted. Also, after Roche's52 visit, he received a letter from Barnes that was unprintable because Barnes had discovered that Roche knew Quinn. The gentleman hath a red eye like a brown bear. One 197 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 notices the red eye at once. The collection is superb and superbly housed. There is nothing like it in the world. And he wrote his book. You know that if you hear him talk two minutes. He is amazingly intelligent and much in earnest. I don't quite understand the Berserker streak in him. Not even Quinn could fly into such rages and J.Q.'s efforts at cussing on paper paled beside those of Dr Barnes. But you like him when you see him; he might be a nice man at a party, even that. [?] Barnes Foundation Journal that prints good art stuff and [?] very well. If you have anything lying around particular [?] or too strong for Amurrica, why try it on his journal. Now about your review. The field is not so [?] successors to Joyce, Elliot [sic], Lewis and yourself. [Eliot?] is writing beautiful prose. We have Cummings of [? ] Dos Passos and Bill Carlos Williams and Djuna Barnes.53 [?] I like very much, Issa [sic] Glenn,54 41 Fifth Ave. Ford liked her new novel. Elinor Wylie does beautiful stuff in eighteenth century style.55 But who to recommend to level up with you? And compared with yours, all the poetry is fuzzy. Some negro boys in Harlem are doing good work but it is not sufficiently mature for your project. A young Alabama girl has written a sensational book called "The Hard-Boiled Virgin".58 They say she is good. I haven't even seen the book yet. Halantiere has Joyce's new manuscript over here.57 I think it is in Charles Boni's office just now. Ford told Boni that it was a history of Ireland and Boni believed it as he, Boni, can't read the manuscript and thinks nobody else can. The title has spread over town by this time and it may appear as a history of Erin. Ford has just called me up to say that if I am writing to you to "say all the nice things he wants to say". Well, he is happy and spoiled and neglects no opportunity to tell the great Amurrican public that Ezra Pound is the greatest living poet. He gave a wonderful New Years party—twenty-four people—and after his party had gone on a while everybody went over to Elinor Wylie's party58 where Ernest Boyd59 sang cockney songs after he was very drunk and Melba Melsing,60 who is better than Raquel Meiler,61 sang Spanish songs. About midway Ford got the idea that the party was too strong for his lady and snatched her home. The lady did not want to go and there were ructions. Both of them were sorry they did not stay. I was escorted home by Wullium Aspenwall Bradley.62 He is quite different in French. I had heard him speak English before. But now I know what it is to have all gallantries murmured into my ear by a French? gentleman, a very badly intoxicated French? gentleman, who of course didn't remember a word of it the next morning. Now Ford always remembers what he says. But he is English. We have had some other parties. They were great fun, a good deal of singing and good talk and some good wine—from the French ships—and all the gay people. 198 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship Dear J.Q.'s paintings, etc. go on sale the week of the 22nd of February. I will mail a catalogue as soon as I can get one. Miss Thompson63 has been helping the Art Gallery—the American—but now she is not there and the last link is broken. FIl bid in everything I can afford.64 Roche has just written for some African sculpture he likes. The executors have paid the "wicked lady"66 but her suit is not settled. Perhaps she is waiting for the result of this sale. I have been doing a little work and a little publicity for Ford. Let me know as soon as you decide to come over for I want to arrange some social things. You'll have to play that game a little. And I can do quite a lot that will see your books. And not altogether unendurable. Ford has come through smiling. My family register about the same amount of invalidism but I am used to captivity. How is the young O. Pound?66 I swear to you that I think of him every day of my life—a baby I've never seen. I know you don't like to write about him but sacrifice yourself when you write again. All love to you and Dorothy Jeanne R. Foster Ford's address is 51 West 16th Street, New York. Lee Kedick is at 437 Fifth Ave. And it is Keedick. I always [spell] him with one e. [Typed letter, unsigned, written by JRF] January 10,1927. Mr. Heywood Broun,87 333 W. 85th St., New York City. Dear Mr. Broun: I was very sorry not to be able to keep my appointment with you today. I was called out of town on account of the funeral of a very dear friend of mine, Mrs. Waldo Richards. I do not know whether I made myself clear when I talked with you at Elinor Wylie's party.68 We find that a general misunderstanding exists throughout the country in regard to the friendship of Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford. This misunderstanding seems to be due to the widespread attention given to Mrs. Conrad's letter published in the New 199 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 York Times which followed the publication of Ford's life of Conrad, or Reminiscences of Conrad.69 The result of this misunderstanding is evidenced by the refusal of certain librarians to buy Ford's books, by the refusal of various committees in certain cities to consider a lecture engagement. Now Mr. Ford is in this country on a lecture tour. I want that lecture tour to be a successful one.70 I thought if a writer of such widespread popularity as yourself, Mr. Broun, could undertake to discuss the imaginary differences, that is, imaginary in the minds of various individuals throughout the United States, we could straighten out this Conrad matter once for all. Mr. Ford has Conrad's letters to him and other material in contradiction of Mrs. Conrad's claim that no close friendship existed between the two men in recent years. There is also a good deal of material in contradiction in Violet Hunt's book "My Flurried Years".71 Perhaps if it could be managed by way of a discussion or a review of Miss Hunt's book, it might be the most effective and least obvious way to get the truth before the public. Mr. Ford is leaving New York January 16th. He is anxious to see you about the matter and will ask you to luncheon or make other arrangements if you can do the thing at all. He is at 51 W. 16th Street and his telephone number is Chelsea 0113. If you can consider the matter, won't you give him a ring. I regret that I cannot return to New York until Thursday afternoon. Mr. William Aspinwall Bradley72 joins me in making this request, Mr. Broun. I sincerely hope you can see your way to setting this matter straight. Sincerely yours, P.S. Even Brentano does not carry Ford's Book on Conrad but does carry and put forward Jessie Conrad's book. [Typed review by JRF of Some Do Not.] Some Do Not By Ford Madox Ford, Thos. Seltzer. SOME DO NOT By Ford Madox Ford. Women did not like Christopher Tietjens, not as a rule; his looks and silences alarmed them. Or they hated him........or they liked him very much indeed.73 200 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship Mr Ford's novel, "Some Do Not" will probably meet with the same conflicting opinions from readers that his hero, Tietjens met with from women. Christopher Tietjens is a character that will appeal principally to those that have been disciplined by life; he is for the few and the discerning; and "Some Do Not" is for the exceptional reader who is willing to read lovingly and at leisure. Those who give themselves up unreservedly to Mr Ford's narrative will discover that "Some Do Not" is a very fine and courageous novel, one might say almost a great novel. A critic who read an early English edition of the book said to a woman friend: "You won't like the book; the girl doesn't get her man." He went on to say that "Some Do Not" was bound to be unpopular with women readers of fiction because most women want their novels to have happy endings, such as completed the guileless romances of the late, and sincerely lamented, Laura Jean Libby.74 Valentine Wannop missed her one chance for happiness with Christopher Tietjens because on the evening that he is ordered back to the front, she had to leave him and run home to look after a drunken brother. Christopher caught a transport lorry that gave him a lift to Holborn, and Valentine went away up a cockle-shelled path between ankle-high railings weeping bitterly. "An old tramp with red weeping eyes and a thin white beard regarded her curiously from where he lay on the grass. He imagined himself the monarch of the landscape. "That's women" he said with the apparently imbecile enigmaticality of the old and the hardened. "Some do" he spat into the grass; said "Ah" then added: "Some do not".75 Christopher Tietjens and Valentine Wannop have very little choice in the matter of destiny. They are handicapped, the one by a certain perverse honesty, the other by circumstances. They haven't a fighting chance of winning out in their particular game. And against their lives foreordained to failure, the novelist has placed contrasting Uves that because of birth or fortunate circumstance, or fortuitous accident, are destined to win more or less personal happiness and a full measure of the material lavishness of the gods. Mr Ford's effort to extract the heroism out of the lives of failures could not result in a popular novel; the theme is too difficult and there is still too much barnyard ethics in average human nature. Even the incomparable "Lord Jim" has his detractors. Macmaster, Tietjen's friend is a wholly admirable and successful person. It is Macmaster who quotes; "The gods to each ascribe a differing lot; Some enter at the portal, some do not" and it is he who quietly plucks honors from the world as one plucks plums from a tree. Tietjens goes to the front, and one is sure that on whatever terrain in France he found himself at the end of the journey that commenced 201 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 with a motor lorry to Holborn, that on that particular terrain, the end of Christopher Tietjens could be epitomized in the line that tolls the end of Hamlet: "The rest is silence". Macmaster, the man predestined to success was a "smallish Whig with a trimmed, pointed black beard, such as a smallish man might wear to enhance his already germinated distinction; black hair of a stubborn fibre, drilled down by hard metal brushes; a sharp nose, strong level teeth; a white butterfly collar of the smoothness of porcelain, a tie confined by a gold ring, steel-blue speckled with black to match his eyes."76 Macmaster had always known what he wanted; he made choices always with the end in view of peace, dignity, security and the satisfaction of an earned knighthood at fifty. He knew the kind of woman he wanted. She would be "tall, graceful, dark, loose-gowned, passionate yet circumspect, oval-featured, deliberative, gracious to everyone around her."77 * Tietjens, the man who had to run straight, a fellow who had never told a lie or done a dishonorable thing in his life, was large and clumsy; "blond, highly-colored, vacant apparently; you couldn't tell what in the world he was thinking of.....half of Tietjen's forelock and a roundish patch behind was silver white."78 On a journey he sat in large, brown hugely-welted and nailed golf boots because he disliked changing his clothes. About the lives of Macmaster and Tietjens weave the lives of some of the most remarkable characters since Vanity Fair. They have the fault of being scarcely embedded in the narrative; they come on the scene and do their hits and retire to the darkness of the wings. The novel is too much like a play to be read easily by those who have not acquired the delightful habit of reading plays. Here is your "heavy", the beautiful and velvety Edith Ethel Duchemin, who divorces her mad husband to marry Macmaster, and squashes little Valentine in due time. Here is the "lead", the brilliant and imperturbable Sylvia, Tietjen's wife, expert at killing hopes, illusions and ideals; and the "ingenue" is Valentine Wannop who keeps things alive, Valentine with her short Tweed skirts and otter skin cap, the girl who loves Christopher Tietjens and loses him. The best chapter in the novel is the one that describes a ride taken by Christopher and Valentine on a June night through a fog that gradually becomes luminous and spreads out over the EngUsh meadows in a lake of silver mist. In this chapter, so largely poetic in its feeling and style, there is much of the old incurable ache for the unattainable, the nostalgia for dimly remembered lovely things; and there is also the grimness of the knowledge that beauty fades and that only for a brief space, we may look upon the moon and ride through the mists of June nights. Tietjens made a mess of his life because this planet was not made for men of his kind. He was over-sensitive and he had to run straight. He felt that perhaps "our very existence is in the nature of things a perpetual harming of somebody if only because every mouthful of food that we eat is a 202 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Fioendship mouthful taken from somebody else." There was a heroic quality in him; his life was an ineffectual protest, he could not conform to the standards set by the measuring rods of average humanity because he saw life as the Galilean saw it. Jeanne Robert Foster. Acknowledgements Editor's Note: The photograph of Jeanne Foster, published for the first time, is from the Londravilles' private collection. We thank them for permission to reprint it. We are also grateful to the National Portrait Gallery of London (and Judith Prendergast in particular) for permission to reprint the pen and ink of Ford. It is by Alfred Wolmark, signed and dated 1927, and autographed by Ford. Mr. Donald Änderte and his staff at the New York Public Library's Manuscripts and Archives Division were very helpful, and we thank the New York Public for permission to print here four additional letters from Ford to Mrs. Foster, the only other correspondence between the two that we have found. In addition, the New York Public has granted permission to print the letter from Mrs. Foster to Ezra Pound and various excerpts of letters from Mrs. Foster and John Quinn—all of which have provided valuable additions to the annotations. The citations from John Quinn's letters are located in the John Quinn Memorial Collection, and the Foster mss., including the letters from Ford, are housed in the Foster-Murphy Collection. Both collections are part of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division of the New York Public Library: Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. The material reprinted by permission of the New York Public Library is noted in the text. We are also grateful for permission to publish from Ford Madox Ford's executrix, Janice Biala Brustlein; Mrs. Foster's executor, Professor William Murphy; and John Quinn's executor, Mr. Thomas Conroy. Each letter is introduced with a brief editorial note listing relevant information. In instances where Ford's penmanship is difficult to read, I have included the probable word in brackets with a question mark [?]. If a word is illegible or missing, I have again used the editorial [?]. Some passages in Mrs. Foster's letter to Pound have completely disappeared because of the ravages of time. They too have been noted with [?]. It is not always possible to include the address to which Ford wrote because some envelopes have been lost, but, whenever possible, the information is given in the note which begins each letter. Mrs. Foster's review of Some Do Not, included here, was one she intended to publish but never did. She did not want her name to appear on the review because it might be assumed that she was trying to promote a friend instead of reviewing a novel she felt was truly meritorious. We have made few editorial amendments. Misspelled names have been retained and are indicated by [sic]. In other instances we have silently corrected minor spelling errors. Two other items we own, a postcard from Ford and Stella Bowen and a New Year's telegram from Ford and Renee Wright, are brief greetings to Mrs. Foster and have not been included in this essay. (J.L.) Notes to Introduction 1. In addition to the Ford letters, Mrs. Foster's collection, which I cataloged in 1968, numbered over three thousand letters and manuscripts from most of the important literary and artistic figures of the early twentieth century, including such diverse people as J. B. and W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and Constantin Brancusi. Most of that collection is in the New York Public Library as the FosterMurphy Collection. 2. It Was the Nightingale (London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1933), 298. 3. Ford Madox Ford, New York Is Not America (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1927). 4. It Was the Nightingale, 308-309. 203 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 5. The letter is dated June 26, 1939, and is in the Foster-Murphy Collection at the New York Public. 6. See Noel Riedinger-Johnson, Adirondack Portraits: A Piece of Time (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986); Richard Londraville, "The Many Careers of Jeanne Robert Foster," Biblion (Winter 1968); "The Irish Collection of Jean Robert Foster," Eire-Ireland (Spring 1970); and "An Evening in New York with W. B. Yeats," Yeats Annual (1988). Annotations 1. The address for the press was l'Encrier, quai d'Anjou (Ile Saint-Louis); however, William Bird, the founder of the press and the man to whom Ford dedicated No More Parades, had an office at 19 rue d'Antin (Bernard Poli, Ford Madox Ford and the TransafZaniic Review [Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1967], 14-15). From this address, Ford held the tea-parties which became an attraction for the expatriate writers of Paris. 2. The house at 65 Boulevard Arago was owned by Ford's brother, Oliver. Arthur Mizener, in The Saddest Story, says that the house was behind "a row of crumbling studies . . . and was picturesque, style rustique, with a little walled garden and Virginia creeper growing around the French windows of the living room. It was also damp, shabby, and without gas or electricity" (The Saddest Story: A Biography of Ford Madox Ford [New York: The World Publishing Company, 1971], 326). Ford lived there with Stella Bowen and their daughter, Esther-Julia. 3. The reference to Quinn and the address from which the letter was written indicate that Ford misdated the note and had actually meant to write 20/1/24. B.L. Reid says that Ford met with John Quinn and Mrs. Foster in the fall of 1923 and that "Mrs. Foster tried to prepare Ford for Quinn's overbearing ways" (The Man From New York [New York: Oxford University Press, 1968], 569), caused at least in part by the pain Quinn suffered from cancer. In Ford's own biography, It was the Nightingale, Ford speaks of meeting Quinn for the first time in autumn of 1923 (London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1933, 42). Quinn pledged money for the Review at that time. Biographical information and the content of Ford's note, then, indicate the error in date. 4. John Quinn (1870-1924), American lawyer and patron of the arts. See B. L. Reid's biography, The Man From New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. 5. Ford sought Mrs. Foster's advice because he had not known Quinn for long. The first mention of Quinn's knowledge of Ford is in a letter Quinn wrote to Pound on 3 May 1917, when he expresses concern that Hueffer [Ford] is in a hospital: "I don't think that physically he was the man to go to the front" (NYPL). However, Quinn did not meet Ford until autumn, 1923. See above, note 3. 6. In a letter to Bernard Poli dated 2/26/64, Mrs. Foster explains her duties: "Ford placed me in charge of the editorial end in New York. I had an office with the Thomas Seltzer Co. for two years. I carried on for Ford until the magazine could no longer be published, receiving mss. and mail, answering letters, interviewing would-be contributors, reading all manuscripts submitted, etc. The manuscripts—all except those that were hopeless, were immediately mailed to Ford with commentary, biographical material, etc" (NYPL). 7. Probably Nathaniel Parker Willis: 1806 - 1867. Poet and Journalist (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography v. 3, [Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1967], 108-109). 8. See "From the Grey Stone" in The Criterion, v. II, #V (Oct 1923), 57-76. Published by R. Cobden-Sanderson, 17 Thavies Inn, London. 9. Jean Starr married Louis Untermeyer on 23 Jan 1907. She wrote two books of poems, Growing Pains (1919) and Dreams Out Of Darkness (1922) (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography v. A, 381). 10. Thomas Seltzer was the Review'e agent in New York. Several letters from Quinn to Ford characterize the Seltzer-Ford relationship. On 7 March 1924, Quinn wrote to Ford that Mrs. Foster had told him that Seltzer had "some difference with you [Ford], . . . and that hence he [Seltzer] was not writing to you" (NYPL). On 23 May 1924, Quinn, in response to Ford's desires to place the Review with another publisher, wrote that Seltzer felt it was unfair to take the Review away from him at that time (NYPL). 11. By this time in March, Quinn was very ill. In a letter dated two months later, June, 1924, Thomas Curtin, Quinn's office manager, reprimands Ford for not keeping an appointment he had made with Quinn and tells Ford not to write to Quinn again (NYPL). John Quinn died several weeks later, at the end of July. 12. Ford and Stella Bowen moved to Rue Denfert-Rochereau in the spring of 1924. Because it was so small, they were also glad to have an "old stone laborer's cottage with four rooms" that Stella had found with the help of Gertrude Stein, whom Ford had known for years (Mizener, 333-34). 204 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship 13. The novel is No More Parades. Mizener suggests that the novel, which Ford had begun on 31 October 1924, was finished in May "in the cottage at Guermantes" (Mizener, 345, 347), but Ford's letter to Mrs. Foster indicates that No More Parades was finished in March. 14. The Review ended in 1924. Poli says that Ford placed the blame for the financial failure of it "on John Quinn and on Thomas Seltzer for the inadequate business arrangements they made, on the United States at large for reading the magazine without paying for it, on England for its apathy, on his staff for not being more helpful, on the French for not being more reliable. ..." (Poli, 163). 15. Krebs Friend, an acquaintance of Hemingway, agreed to back the Review in the middle of 1924. Frank MacShane explains: "Unfortunately this new arrangement only lasted another six months because the division of authority between Ford and Friend was never made clear, and a certain amount of ill feeling therefore arose between them. In December of 1924, Friend withdrew his support and the review ceased publication" (The Life and Work of Ford Madox Ford [New York: Horizon Press, 1965], 155). 16. Ford did not like Seltzer, understandably so. Mizener says that "there was something wrong on the copyright on Some Do Not . . . (London: Duckworth and Company, 1924), and Seltzer went on publishing it without paying Ford royalties" (Mizener, 352). Poli says that Seltzer was "an idealistic publisher who liked good books but did not have enough money or readers to make his firm a going concern" (Poli, 93). See also the letter to Monroe Wheeler from Ford dated 24/11/24 (Richard M. Ludwig, Letters of Ford Madox Ford [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965], 163-64). 17. See below Jeanne Robert Foster's letter to Heywood Broun, 10 Jan 1927, reprinted in this essay. Conrad died on 3 August 1924. Mizener says that "the reception o{ Joseph Conrad was excellent" (Mizener, 341). However, on 7 December 1924, the New York Times reviewed Ford's book with some skepticism. 18. Quinn had warned Ford about Seltzer in a letter dated 5 Feb 1924: "Seltzer is a reader and seems to have somewhat a flare for literature, but as a business man I think he is lacking in energy, in ideas, in enterprise . . ." (NYPL). In another letter, dated 7 March 1924, Quinn wrote to Ford that he had not "had time to jack this little skinned cat [Seltzer] up" (NYPL). 19. Probably A Man Could Stand Up, published in 1926. 20. I have found no evidence that Ford ever finished his translation of The Good Soldier. However, in 1953, a translation was done in Paris by Jacques Papy entitled Quelque Chose Au Coeur. 21. Stella Bowen, a young Australian painter whom Ford met in 1918. In December, 1927, Ford told Stella that he had formed "a sentimental attachment to an American Lady [Renee Wright] whom he proposed to visit every year." Stella and Ford separated, although they remained friends (MacShane, 200-201). See Stella Bowen's book, Drawn from life (London: n.d. [1940]). 22. Rue Notre-Dame Des Champs, where Ford and Stella lived in 1925. Here, they were neighbors of Ezra Pound (MacShane, 193). 23. Jane Dranesfield: poet, playwright, critic. She wrote The Lost Pleiad and The Romance of Melrose Hall, among others (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography v. 19, 84). See below, p. 16. 24. Lee Keedick, manager of a lecture agency. See below, p. 14. 25. Esther-Julia, daughter of Ford Madox Ford and Stella Bowen, was born on 29 November 1920. (Mizener, 313). 26. James Pond, the American lecture agent. MacShane says that Pond "asked [Ford] to go to the United States under his auspices" for a ten week tour. Ford sailed for New York in October 1926. He lectured in St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, and at Harvard, among other places (MacShane, 196). 27. Ford converted to Catholicism when he was staying in Paris with his uncle Leopold. MacShane says that although Ford never changed his religion after that, "Friends of later years remarked that he was more attracted by the stained glass and music of the Church than by its doctrines . . . ." He thought Protestantism gloomy and illogical (MacShane, 14). 28. Probably William Christian Bullitt, diplomat, author, b. 1891. He published a novel in 1926, It's Not Done, and was editor for a time of Famous Players-Lasky Corp (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, v. D, 35-36). See also MacShane, 194. 29. Carl Van Doren, b. 1885, editor, author. Brother of Mark Van Doren, he was the editor of the Nation, Century Magazine, and Cambridge History of American Literature. He and his wife, Irita, were friends of Ford (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, v. D, 47-48). 30. Mrs. Foster was continually called back to Schenectady to care for several invalid members of her family. Noel Riedinger-Johnson, in Adirondack Portraits: A Piece of Time, says that Mrs. Foster was the "financial as well as the emotional mainstay of the family" (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986, xxx). 31. Mizener says that Ford wrote New York Is Not America during his New York trip in autumn of 1926 (Mizener, 352, 584), but, according to the Foster letter, it would seem the book was not finished until at least the following March. On 28 March 1927, Ford wrote to Pound from Toulon, four days after he had written the Foster letter. In the Pound letter, Ford mentions that he is "finishing a book now" 205 ELT: Volume 33:2, 1990 and that he spoke to "Lee Keedick with empressaient of your lecturing in the U.S.A." (Ludwig, 172). This matches the information in the Foster letter, and so the date of the letter must be 1927. 32. Ferris Greenslet, publisher and literary figure from Boston (MacShane, 61) and an editor for The Atlantic Monthly and Houghton Mifflin (Mizener, 127). 33. Allen Tate and Caroline Gordon were Mr. and Mrs. Allen Tate. When Ford came to New York in 1927, Caroline Tate worked as his secretary. In the fall of 1927, he took an apartment in the same building. Ford was upset by the way the Tates lived: "They are janitors in a big apartment house . . . ." One year later, Ford helped Tate get a Guggenheim Fellowship (Mizener, 359). Caroline Gordon wrote Penhally. 34. In a conversation with me in 1968, Mrs. Foster said she had given Ford a typewriter once which Ford had very much appreciated (R. Londraville). 35. Irita Bradford Van Doren, wife of Carl Van Doren and an editor of the Sunday Literary Supplement of the New York Herald Tribune (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, v. D, 47-48). 36. Rapallo, Italy was the home of Ezra Pound at the time. 37. See above, note 24. 38. See above, note 31. 39. Publisher Albert Boni bought Some Do Not from his nephew, Thomas Seltzer, but Seltzer continued to publish it. See above, notes 10, 16. Finally, in the autumn of 1927, Some Do Not became exclusively Boni's, and Ford sold him the remainder of the tetralogy (Mizener, 352). Ford contracted with Boni to publish past and future works, but Boni, who did reissue The Good Soldier, refused, as MacShane says, "to bring out other books in the collected edition, publishing only the next two novels of the Tietjens series" (MacShane, 202). 40. By this time, Ford had already begun his liaison with Mrs. Wright in New York. See below, note 42. Mrs. Wright was there to greet Ford when he arrived in America in the autumn of 1927 (Mizener, 362). 41. Ford arrived in New York in June of 1928, after lending his house at Toulon to James Joyce. He left New York on the Patria on 27 July, alone (MacShane, 202-203, Mizener 385). 42. Renee Wright, a divorcee who wanted Ford to marry her. His first wife, Elsie Martindale, however, refused to divorce him. On the Patria, the same evening he wrote to Mrs. Foster, Ford wrote the dedication of A Little Lesser Than Gods to Mrs. Wright. She refused to be his mistress, however. MacShane says that when Ford returned to France, he found Toulon "cheerless" and moved to Carqueiranne. His "American 'sentimental attachment' had come to nothing, and he was alone" (MacShane, 202-203). Although Mrs. Wright did go to Paris that fall "to buy clothes" and had Ford return with her to New York at the end of 1928, Ford knew, as Mizener puts it, that "Mrs. Wright would not have him on the only terms he could offer her" (Mizener, 385-86). 43. MacShane says that Ford returned to New York in May of 1929, but, according to the Foster letter, he was there by 14 April. His purpose, says MacShane, was "to secure advances for his new novel and to renew acquaintances in American literary circles." At this time, Ford's personal and literary reputation was beginning to suffer for a number of reasons, his breakup with Stella Bowen and his vanity among them. He didn't like publishers and reviewers, and he was not shy about telling them so (MacShane, 204). · 44. Matlack Foster, Mrs. Foster's husband, an insurance agent from Rochester, was twenty-five years his wife's senior (Riedinger-Johnson, xxiii). 45. Jane Dranesfield. See above, note 23. 46. The correspondence continued but has been lost. In a letter to Ezra Pound, dated 10/4/56, Mrs. Foster says that "Ford wrote me until he left us" (NYPL). Ford died on 26 June 1939. 47. See below, letter from JRF to Heywood Broun. 48. Anne Morgan, b. 1873, philanthropist. She helped in reconstruction work in France after World War I and then returned to the United States in 1924, where she became Chairman of the Working Committee of the American Woman's Association (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography v. E, 333). 49. Cosmo Hamilton, British, d. 1942. Novelist, playwright, contributor to American magazines. Among the plays he wrote were Scandal, Parisites, and The Silver Fox. Among the novels were Brummel, The Blindness of Virtue, and Caste (New York Times, 15 Oct 1942, 23:3). 50. Robert McBride, b. 1877. Publisher and author. He took over House and Garden, Travel, and Lippincott's, respectively. In 1912, he began to publish books (Who's Who in New York: 1924 [New York: Who's Who Publishing, 1924], 824). 51. Albert Barnes, chemist, art connoisseur. In 1923, he decided to build a $300,000 art museum to house his three million dollar collection. He and Quinn were in competition for some of the same art work (New York Times, 13 Jan 1923,13:4). 52. Henri-Pierre Roche, French painter, journalist, and novelist. Roche, as Quinn's agent, bought art work for him. See B.L. Reid, The Man From New York. 206 LONDRAVILLE: The Ford-Foster Friendship 53. Djuna Barnes, author. She wrote Nightwood, for which T. S. Eliot wrote an introduction. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1937 (New York Times, 7 March 1937, VII 6: 1). 54. Isa Glenn, novelist, author of Little Pitchers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927 (New York Times, 16 Jan 1927, III 9: 3). 55. Elinor Morton Hoyt Wylie: 9/7/1885 - 12/1671928, author. She was an editor of Vanity Fair and wrote novels, among which are The Venetian Glass Nephew (1925) and The Orphan Angel (1927). She devoted her time primarily to poetry at the end of her life (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography v. 21,14-15). See below, p. 19. 56. Newman, Frances. The Hard-Boiled Virgin. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926. 57. Joyce's manuscript was Anna Livia Plurabelle, the opening chapter of Finnegans Wake, and was published in New York by C. Gaige in 1928. 58. See below, letter to Heywood Broun from JRF. 59. Ernest Boyd: Irish writer, British Vice-Consul in Baltimore (Reid, 267). 60. Melba Melsing was the great granddaughter of Col. John J. McKenzie, first Military Governor of San Francisco. In December, 1928, she married the former Secretary to Governor Nathan Miller of New York State, Ward W. Smith (New York Times, 8 Dec 1928, 14:8). 61. Raquel Meiler, Spanish singer between world wars, d. 1962. She won fame with songs like El Relicario and La Violetera and appeared in many films (New York Times, 27 July 1962, 25:1). 62. William Aspinwall Bradley, who became a good friend and agent of Ford's, had established a literary agency in Paris in the 1920s (MacShane, 61). See below, p. 20 63. Florence Thompson was one of Quinn's favorite secretaries. She worked with Mrs. Foster after Quinn died, helping her to collect Quinn's letters (Reid, 166, 650). 64. Mrs. Foster used every effort to prevent the Quinn material from going on the block. She told me that at the auction she bought a portrait of W. B. Yeats by J. B. Yeats and some George Russell paintings (R. Londraville). 65. The wicked lady to whom Mrs. Foster is referring is Dorothy Coates, Quinn's companion for nearly twenty years, from approximately 1903 until 1923, at which time Jeanne Foster became indispensable to Quinn. See Reid, pp. 21, 474. Reid says that "One of Jeanne Robert Foster's unofficial functions . . . was to try to fend off Dorothy Coatee's calls . . . ." Later, after Quinn's death, "Dorothy Coates showed herself quite unwilling to accept Quinn's provision for her in his will." Ms. Coates took her case to court but lost (Reid, 643, 645). 66. Omar Pound, son of Ezra and Dorothy Pound. 67. Heywood Broun, b. 1888. Journalist, author. Broun worked for Morning Telegraph, New York Tribune, World, Nation, and others. He wrote The Sun Field (1921) and Candle Follows His Nose (1924), among others (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, v. E, 21). 68. Elinor Wylie. See above, note 55. 69. Jessie Conrad's letter appeared in the New York Times Literary Supplement on 4 December 1924. 70. In a letter to her sister, Cara, dated only 1927, Mrs. Foster indicates that she placed a lecture with Harvard for Mr. Ford (NYPL). 71. In / Have This To Say: The Story of My Flurried Years (p. 273), Violet Hunt says "Conrad is gone and his widow is occupied in fending off the consequent fusillade of Lives . . . and now, I suppose, she will have to set about correcting me. "More than once, she is thankful to say, she was successful in 'hoofing out Hueffer." [Jessie Conrad says that] 'After 1919 Conrad never sought a meeting.' Why, surely, to call at our house which he frequently did implied rather more effort for Conrad than to receive us at Ham Street." 72. W.A. Bradley. See above, note 62. 73. In Chapter 1 of Some Do Not, Ford writes "All the same, Macmaster imagined, the lady wouldn't like Tietjens. Women didn't as a rule. His looks and his silences alarmed them. Or they hated him. ... Or they liked him very much indeed" (Ford, Some Do Not, 28-29). 74. Laura Jean Libby, prolific novelist and playwright. She wrote When His Loue Grew Cold and about 68 other novels (New York Times, 2 August 1910, 7:2). 75. Some Do Not, 342. 76. Ibid., 9-10. 77. Ibid., 21. 78. Ibid., 23, 24. 207 ...