Authors: William Gaddis
First, I want to thank Sarah and Matthew Gaddis for the opportunity to edit this collection, a dream I’ve had for the last thirty years. Gaddis’s second wife Judith gave her blessings and was enormously helpful with both letters and information. Thanks also to the Andrew Wylie Agency’s Adam Eaglin, Scott Moyers, and especially Carrie Smith for facilitating the project, and Jeremy M. Davies of Dalkey Archive.
Second, my thanks to all the individuals, like Julia Murphy, who generously shared their letters, and especially those—like James Cappio and David Madden—who took the trouble to supply contextual material. And to Anne Posega and especially Sarah Schnuriger of Olin Library’s Special Collections department at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, where Gaddis’s archives are held. I am especially grateful for a travel grant from the library that allowed me to spend an eye-opening week there in May 2011.
I also wish to thank the staffs of the following libraries for supplying letters: The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Library; Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan; the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta; Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin; Stanford University Library, Stanford, CA; Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries; Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester; and Vassar College Library. I would also like to thank the rare-book dealers Lame Duck Books, Ralph Sipper Books, and Chandler Gordon (The Captain’s Bookshelf) for sharing their merchandise.
Particular thanks go to Julian Schnabel for allowing us to reproduce his portrait of Gaddis on the cover, a painting that figures in some of the letters, and to professional photographers Miriam Berkley and Mellon Tytell.
And for help with various details, I am indebted to Crystal Alberts (who performed valuable preservation work on the Gaddis letters when they arrived at Washington University), Stephen Burn, Nicholas Fargnoli, Gerry Fenge, Mike Gladstone, Mark Hale, Victoria Harding, Odile Hellier, Brian Lamere, Mark Lewis, Bernard Looks, James M. Morris, Allen Peacock, Julián Ríos, Richard Scaramelli, Michael Silverblatt, Emmett Stinson, Joseph Tabbi, A. Robert Towbin, Edward Tudor Pole, Alexander Waugh, and Greg Werge.
A., Nancy, 114, 119, 120-21
Abad, Davey, 21-22, 77-78
Abádi-Nagy, Zoltán, 420-21, 439
Abish, Walter, 402, 445, 478
Adair, Robert K., 523
Adams, Alice, 60, 65, 426
Adams, Joseph Quincey, 40
Adams, Mrs., 23, 28, 29
Adler, Ellen, 407
Afternoon of a Faun
(Debussy), 38, 44, 45
Alain-Fournier, 473
Alamo Bay
, 373, 412-13
Alberts, Crystal, 137, 158
Albin Michel, Éditions, 419-20, 449-50
Aldridge, John W., 304-5, 307, 386-87, 402, 417, 440, 474-75, 498
Alexander, Clare, 494, 499
Alexander, William V., 399-400
Alfaguara, 405-6, 419-20
Allen, Fred, 242, 282
Altizer, Thomas J. J., 279-80
Altman, Robert, 346
American Academy (Rome), 408-10
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 382, 406, 413, 415, 462, 465, 479-80, 486, 528
American Jurisprudence
, 422, 432, 447, 459, 469, 481, 490
American Magazine
, 168-69, 172
Anaxagoras, 212
“Anchored!” 189-90
Anders, Jaroslaw, 368, 375
Anderson, Bob, 295-96
Anderson, Charles, 417
Anderson, Sherwood, 109
Andrews, Anthony, 406-7
Anselm, Saint, 73
Ansen, Alan, 80, 211-12, 390-92, 405
Ant
æ
us
, 286, 290
Antheil, George, 122-23
Anthony, Saint, 146-47
Arias, Arnulfo, 77-78
Arias, Roberto, 77-78
Arias, Tony, 78
Aristotle, 159
Arnold, Matthew, 144, 146
Arthur Murray Dance Studios, 41
“As Time Goes By,” 42, 52
Asher, Aaron, 240-41, 244, 272, 281, 284, 285, 289, 314, 318, 371, 383, 446
Asher, Linda, 432, 441-42
Atlantic Monthly
, 44, 84, 148, 166, 168-69, 171, 176, 186, 188, 234
Auchinloss, Louis, 435-37, 440-41, 446, 472, 498-99, 528
Auden, W. H., 48-49, 94, 97, 137, 140, 211, 322
Augustine, Saint, 233-34
Averill, Mary, 283, 285
Avon Books, 286, 291, 303, 371, 377, 383, 385, 394-95, 399
B., G. S., 83, 146
Babbage, Charles, 454
Bach, Dr., 37
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 122, 202
Baedeker’s Spain and Portugal
, 112-13, 115, 133, 205
Ba
ł
azy, Teresa, 352-53, 367, 404-5
Ballantine Books, 303-4
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 44, 45
Balzac, Honoré de, 74, 76
Bantam Books, 303
Bard College, 311, 317, 320, 325, 340, 341-43, 347-50, 352, 363, 411, 415-16, 429, 440
Barile, Susan, 465, 475
Barish, Keith, 460-61
Barnes, Djuna, 254-55, 263
Barth, John, 319, 349, 366
Barthelme, Donald, 298, 310, 319, 445
Bartholomew, Saint, 172
Baryshnikov, Mikhail, 456
Baudelaire, Charles, 142-43
Bauer, Jerry, 291
Baumgarten, Bernice, 199, 208, 274
Bayerlein, Fritz, 253-54
Bazelon, Irwin, 513-14
BBD&O, 162-63
Beame, Abraham, 291-92
Bean, Jacob, 57, 79, 82, 86, 114, 120, 124, 125, 133, 135, 140, 141, 142-43, 144-45, 146, 155, 178, 502
Beardsley, Aubrey, 267
Beckett, Samuel, 362, 518-19
Beebe, William, 63, 65
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 142
Begos, Kevin, 370
Bell, Clive, 395
Belloc, Hilaire, 135-36, 181
Bellow, Saul, 310, 326, 479-80
Benjamin, Walter, 442-43, 453, 454, 477
Bennington College, 341
Benny Goodman Story
, 290
Benstock, Bernard, 255, 262-63, 278, 291, 339
Bentley, E. C., 177
Bergson, Henri, 118, 121
Berkeley, George, 201
Berkeley Gazette
, 232, 245, 247
Berkley, Miriam, 415, 520-21
Berne, Eric, 482
Bernhard, Thomas, 510
Bernhardt, Sarah, 487-88
Bible, 66, 70, 96, 392; New Testament, 91, 93, 95-96, 101, 104, 132, 134, 293, 306, 447, 474, 488, 520
Black, Katie Sue, 223
Black, Patricia Thompson.
See
Gaddis, Pat
Blackmur, R. P., 108-9
Bloom, Claire, 482
Blowup
, 263, 265
Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation
, 432-33, 437
Blumentritt, Günther, 253-54
Bolero
(Ravel), 38
Bond, Emma, 49, 155, 181
Boni, Wim, 189
Book of Fate
,
The
, 91
Book-of-the-Month Club, 304, 384-85
Boomsma, Graa, 419
Borchardt, Georges and Anne, 358-59
Borchgrasse, Baroness, 128
Borrow, George, 301
Bosch, Hieronymus, 122-23, 279, 339, 394, 494
Boston Globe
, 434-35, 498-99
Botsford, Keith, 231
Botstein, Leon, 311, 429
Bourgois, Christian, 420, 430
Bourjaily, Vance, 319
Brace, Donald, 372
Bradley, William L., 274
Brandel, Marc, 308-9, 376
Breslin, Jimmy, 260
Brideshead Revisited
(series), 407
Brieant, Charles L., 447-48, 460
Britton, Burt, 374, 387-88, 397
Britton, Miss, 221
Broadwater, Bowden, 310
Brontë, Charlotte, 404, 411, 525
Brossard, Chandler, 69, 82, 101, 102, 169, 391, 401-2, 527
Brown, Andreas, 475-76
Brown, Arthur Kerr, 434
Brown, Brad, 23, 25
Brown, Harry Joe, Jr., 258, 458
Browning, Robert, 144, 146, 178, 213, 215, 216, 517
Brownson, Robert Charles, 338-39
Broyard, Anatole, 44, 364, 366, 387-88, 391
Buchanan, Cynthia, 323, 330, 334, 349, 355
Buchwald v. Paramount
, 460-61, 517
“Buddy Bolton’s Blues,” 487
Bülow, Claus and Sunny von, 377
Bunyan, John, 107, 109
Burroughs, William S., 248, 342, 438-39, 439, 505-6
Bursey, Jeff, 514
Burton, Isabel and Sir Richard, 481
Burton, Richard, 350
Burton, Robert, 239-40
Butler, Joseph, 103-4, 107
Butler, Samuel, 347, 354, 358, 422, 431-32, 481, 502
Butterfield, Isabel and John, 508
Byrne, J. Ross, 21-23, 28, 29, 31, 32
Cahill Gordon & Reindel, 460-61, 469, 471
Cain, James M., 109
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 118, 121, 401
Calisher, Hortense, 310, 319
Calkins, Mary, 201-2
Callahan (Harvard classmate), 44, 45-46
Campbell, Jean, 51, 54, 55, 56, 60
Campbell, Jeanne, 51
Campbell, Mathilda, Duchess of Argyll, 171-72, 342-43
Campbell, Roy, 475
Camus, Albert, 248
Caponegro, Mary, 320
Capote, Truman, 137, 140, 272
Cappio, James, 447-48, 450, 458, 460, 471, 488
Cardozo, Benjamin, 422-23, 447, 484, 490
Carlyle, Thomas, 205
Carmen
(Bizet), 41
Carnahan, William, 496
Carnegie, Dale, 157-58, 203-4
Carney, William, 393, 399
Carter, W. Hodding, 426
Carver, Catharine, 206, 208, 266, 282, 386, 411
Carver, Raymond, 475
Casablanca
, 52
Castor, George, 26, 31, 33, 44, 47
Cervantes, Miguel de, 309
Chambers, Judith, 453, 477-78, 527-28
Chandler, David, 386
Chandler, Raymond,
Charles V, 130, 131
Chaplin, Charlie, 163, 165
Chase, Carlton, 170
Chase, James Hadley, 157-58
“Chasin’ with Chase,” 44
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 464
Chekhov, Anton, 46, 500
Chénetier, Marc, 463
Cherney, Marvin, 467-68
Cholodenko, Marc, 420, 479
Chopin, Frédéric, 317
Christophe, Henri, 17
Chryssipus, 213
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 68, 511
City Lights
, 165-66
Claiborne, Cornelia P., 83
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, 300-301, 365
Clancy, Tom, 514
Cliff, Henry, 31, 33, 39
Close, Robert S., 167, 169, 171-72
Clough, Arthur Hugh, 502
Cohen, Hy, 281, 289
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 46
Collyer, Langley and Homer, 251
Coming to America
, 461, 517
Commentary
, 246, 273, 424
Commonweal
, 231-32, 353
Comnes, Gregory, 442-43, 453, 477-79, 501-2, 521, 526, 527-28
Comnes, Judith.
See
Chambers, Judith
Compton Burnett, Ivy, 378
Comrade X
, 69
Confucius, 121
Congdon, Don, 95, 98, 119-20, 125, 168-69, 171, 175, 178
Conley, Peter, 298, 301, 308-9, 349, 359, 373
Connolly, Cyril, 104, 121, 247-48, 328
Conrad, Joseph, 221, 329, 397, 490-91
Contemporary Literature
, 262-63
Contratto, Andrew W., 19-20
Coover, Robert, 488-89
Cornell Daily Sun
, 301
Cornell Review
, 332
Corpus Juris Secumdum
, 422-23, 481
Cortázar, Julio, 265, 454
Costello, Kathleen, 155, 198
Cottle, Thomas J., 487
Cowley, Malcolm, 250, 386-87
Cox, June R., 388
Cozzens, James Gould, 208, 273
Creeley, Robert, 283, 285, 494-95
Crews, Mary, 227, 268
Cronin, A. J., 386-87
Cross, Hartley, 101
Crowley, Aleister, 239-40
Cry “Havoc
,
”
47
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 486-87
Culhane, John, 412-13
cummings, e. e., 323, 414
“Cumparsita, La,” 184-85
Cunningham, Rodger, 454-55
Cuomo, Mario, 456, 494
D
æ
dalus
, 486
Daily Express
, 421
Daily Mail
, 132, 421
Dalai Lama, 350-51
Dalkey Archive Press, 455, 478, 528
Dallas
, 440
Dalton, Jack, 251, 262-63
D’Amato, Al, 393, 396, 399
Damon, Mrs., 119, 121
Dante Alighieri, 118, 208, 210
Darwin, Charles, 263
Davis, Elmer, 196, 203-4
Davis, L. J., 321-22
Davis, Miles, 456
Davison, Robert Ten Broeck (Bill), 59, 60-61, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70-72, 74, 502
de Kay, Ormonde, 13, 75, 122, 166-67, 168, 171, 519-20
de la Guardia, Arturo, 77, 180-81
De Mills, Dr., 31
de Vree, Freddy, 367
Dead End
, 42-43
Decter, Midge, 424
Degas, Edgar, 237
Degnan, June Oppen, 246-47
Dekker, Thomas, 262
DeLillo, Don, 451-52, 523
Denham, Alice, 258, 267
Deutsch, Andre, Ltd, 419-20, 433
Deval, Jacques, 39
Devlin, John, 383, 385
Dewey, John, 343
Dewey, Thomas, 166, 503
Díaz, Juan (Juancho), 77-78, 80, 91, 99, 116, 124, 125, 129, 161, 163, 169
Dibdin, Charles, 171-72
Dick, C. Matthews, 50
Dickens, Charles, 50
Dickstein, Morris, 279
Didion, Joan, 320, 331, 404, 414, 508-9
Doctorow, E. L., 310
Doctorow, Helen, 472
Dolbier, Maurice, 245-46, 310-11, 386-87
Domien, Maria Eugenia, 100, 102
Donadio, Candida, 248, 281, 284, 285-86, 295, 299, 303-4, 310-11, 313-14, 317-19, 380, 399, 410, 411, 446, 473, 500, 511, 513, 515
Dos Passos, John, 139
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 36-37, 40, 90-92, 107, 109, 119, 297, 475, 477-78, 489-90
Douglas, Ann, 369-70
Douglas, Norman, 120, 122, 130, 395
Doyle, Charles Hugo, 205
Drayton, Michael, 140-41
Dreiser, Theodore, 342, 452
Dryden, John, 147
Dulles, Allen, 293
Dulles, John Foster, 293
Duncan, Isadora, 443
Dunne, J. W., 210
Dunne, John Gregory, 404
Durante, Jimmy, 93, 97
Dutton Review
, 274-75, 278, 341
Dworkin, Martin, 203-4, 291, 311, 359, 407, 441, 515, 531
Dwyer, Miko, 486-87
Dyslexia
, 271
Eagan, Charles, 198
Earthquake
, 346
Eastman Kodak, 267-69, 275, 311, 322, 359, 440
Eckley, Grace, 297
Eddington, Sir Arthur, 464
Eddy, Mary Baker, 306-7
Eder, Richard, 499
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 253-54, 293
Eliot, T. S., 10, 62, 94, 97, 98, 109, 113, 115, 117, 119, 121, 124, 133, 135, 139, 140, 144, 178, 180-81, 186, 196, 209, 214-15, 245-46, 272, 278, 283, 293, 294, 297, 310, 339, 349-50, 352, 366, 376;
Four Quartets
, 7, 10, 117-18, 121, 131, 132, 136-37, 144-46, 158-60, 165-66, 176, 184-85, 191-93, 194-95, 199, 209, 218, 260, 337, 382, 446, 469, 483, 492, 497
Elkin, Joan, 345
Elkin, Stanley, 340-41, 344-45, 348, 355-56, 358, 362, 509, 513-14, 515
Ellison, Ralph, 279, 330
Elman, Mr., 44
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 113, 405, 424, 497, 523
Emmart, A. D., 166-67
Emmart, Barney, 67, 117, 124, 128, 130, 134, 135, 137, 139, 142, 146, 150, 156, 163, 165, 180, 185-86, 199, 209-11, 213, 227, 230, 309, 458, 470, 502, 515
Encyclop
æ
dia Britannica
, 195
Enders, Thomas, 393 Epictetus, 67-68
Erickson, Steve, 476
Esquire
, 35, 169, 232, 234, 414, 441-42, 476
Europe
, 463
Evans, Walker, 119, 121, 127
Exley, Fred, 362-63, 398
Express
,
L’
, 291 Faber & Faber, 209, 240
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 371
Faulkner, Robert “BuBu,” 142
Faulkner, William, 7, 266, 464
Faust theme, 94, 297, 299
Feeney, Mark, 434-35
Félix, Brigitte, 463
Fellows, Jay, 369-70, 402
“Feste Burg ist Unser Gott, Ein,” 201-2
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 73
Figaro
(newspaper), 291
Figueres, José, 99, 100
Finlay, Mr., 44
Finney, Albert, 406
Firbank, Ronald, 438
Firestone, Harvey, 202
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 276, 291-92
Fitzpatrick, Mr., 178
Flaubert, Gustave, 89, 493, 496, 502