1937
Visits Munich and Paris before returning to the United States in April. Falls ill with infection caused by ovarian cysts and is hospitalized for three weeks in Brooklyn and Manhattan. (Stafford will suffer from ill health for much of her adult life, exacerbated by heavy drinking, heavy smoking, and poor eating.) Spends much of the summer on ranch in Hayden owned by Mary Lee and her husband, Harry Frichtel. Attends the University of Colorado writers’ conference, where she meets the novelists Ford Madox Ford, Evelyn Scott, and Caroline Gordon, the poet and critic Allen Tate (who is married to Gordon), and Robert Lowell (born 1917), an aspiring poet from a socially prominent Boston family. Begins teaching composition at Stephens College, a women’s college in Columbia, Missouri, in the fall, but quickly comes to dislike the college and her students. Works on novel “Which No Vicissitude” and corresponds with both Hightower, who is studying East Asian languages at Harvard, and Lowell, an undergraduate at Kenyon College.
1938
Whit Burnett of the Story Press rejects “Which No Vicissitude.” Begins writing “Neville,” novel inspired by her experiences at Stephens. College declines to renew her contract. Meets Hightower in Albany, New York, in June, and travels with him to Colorado before going to Oswego, Oregon, where her parents now live. Begins teaching composition at the University of Iowa in September. Leaves Iowa City in November and travels to Cambridge, where she moves in with Hightower. Sees Lowell when he visits Boston at Thanksgiving. Moves to rented room in house at 2 Monument Street in Concord. Atlantic Monthly Press rejects “Neville” but pays her $250 for an option on her new novel “Autumn Festival,” about an affair between an American student in Germany and a Nazi aviator. On December 21 Stafford and an intoxicated Lowell are driving through Cambridge when Lowell turns down a dead-end lane and hits a wall. Stafford suffers a smashed nose and fractures to her jaw, right cheekbone, and skull that keep her in the hospital for almost a month.
1939
Undergoes five facial operations from late winter through early spring (will have breathing problems and suffer from headaches for the rest of her life). Sues Lowell’s insurance company for $25,000. Submits “Autumn Festival” to Atlantic Monthly Press in late summer. Spends two months in fall at Mary Lee’s ranch in Hayden. Atlantic Monthly Press rejects “Autumn Festival.” Short story “And Lots of Solid Color” published in November American Prefaces magazine. Moves into Cambridge apartment with two roommates. Receives $4,000 settlement from Lowell’s insurance company, which she uses to pay debts. Writes to Hightower in December that she is engaged to Lowell.
1940
Marries Lowell at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in New York City, April 2. Spends spring at ranch in Hayden while Lowell finishes senior year at Kenyon. Hightower marries Florence (Bunny) Cole, one of Stafford’s Cambridge roommates. (After surviving Japanese internment in China, Hightower becomes a professor of Chinese literature at Harvard.) Attends Lowell’s graduation from Kenyon on June 9. Stafford and Lowell spend several weeks in Memphis at home of Lowell’s classmate, the writer Peter Taylor, who becomes her lifelong friend. In the summer they move to Baton Rouge, where Lowell has a fellowship at Louisiana State University. Stafford becomes office manager of the Southern Review, literary magazine edited by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. During trip to New Orleans in October Lowell strikes Stafford during a quarrel and breaks her nose.
1941
Lowell is received into the Roman Catholic Church in late March. Stafford also joins the Church, and at Lowell’s insistence, they are remarried in Catholic ceremony. Suffering from recurring fevers and respiratory problems, she spends most of the spring at her sister’s ranch in Hayden. Moves in the summer with Lowell to New York City, where they rent apartment at 63 West 11th Street. Becomes part-time secretary to Frank Sheed of the Catholic publishing firm Sheed & Ward. Works on new novel “The Outskirts.”
1942
Meets Robert Giroux, an editor at Harcourt, Brace and Company, after he reads manuscript of “The Outskirts.” Signs contract with Giroux on April 30 for its publication by Harcourt, Brace in return for $500 advance. In the summer Stafford and Lowell move to Monteagle, Tennessee, where they live in a large house with Allen Tate and Caroline Gordon.
1943
Sends manuscript of “The Outskirts” to Harcourt, Brace in February. Begins cutting and revising the novel in response to comments by editor Lambert Davis (Giroux is serving in the navy) as well as criticism from Tate and Gordon. Spends July and August at the Yaddo artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. Joins Lowell in New York City in early September and learns that he has decided to resist induction into the armed services. Lowell sends public letter to President Franklin Roosevelt on September 7, refusing to serve as a protest against the Allied bombing of Germany and the policy of unconditional surrender; on October 13 he is sentenced to serve one year and one day in prison. Stafford rents apartment on East 17th Street. Visits Lowell in federal prison at Danbury, Connecticut. Becomes friends with writer Delmore Schwartz.
1944
Submits revised version of manuscript to Harcourt, Brace in January (the novel is retitled Boston Adventure by the publisher). Story “The Darkening Moon” published in January Harper’s Bazaar. After Lowell is paroled in March and assigned to work as a hospital janitor in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Stafford finds apartment for them in the Black Rock district of Bridgeport. Story “The Lippia Lawn” appears in Spring Kenyon Review. Stafford is visited in July by her brother Dick, now a second lieutenant in the 95th Infantry Division. Land of Unlikeness, Lowell’s first book of poetry, is published September 18 in edition of 250 copies. Boston Adventure published September 21 in first printing of 22,000 copies. It receives favorable reviews and becomes a best seller (Harcourt, Brace edition sells 35,000 copies by May 1945, in addition to 199,000 copies sold by the Book League of America and 144,000 copies of a condensed Armed Services edition). Learns in October that Dick was killed on September 18 in a jeep accident shortly after his division landed in France. Visits parents and sisters in Oregon. Moves with Lowell to rented house on nine acres of land in rural area of Westport, Connecticut. Story “A Reunion” published in Fall Partisan Review.
1945
Commutes to New York one day a week to teach course in short story writing at Queens College. Hires Marian Ives as her literary agent. Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship in April. Works on novella that becomes novel The Mountain Lion. Story “The Home Front” published in Spring Partisan Review; “Between the Porch and the Altar” appears in June Harper’s. After Westport house is sold by its owner, Stafford uses earnings from Boston Adventure to buy house in Damariscotta Mills, Maine, and moves there with Lowell in August.
1946
Signs contract with Harcourt, Brace for publication of The Mountain Lion. Stafford and Lowell leave Damariscotta Mills in late January and stay with Delmore Schwartz in Cambridge for several weeks. Story “The Present” (later retitled “The Captain’s Gift”) published in April Sewanee Review. Completes final version of The Mountain Lion in Damariscotta Mills in late April. Hosts series of visitors, June–August, including John Berryman and Eileen Simpson, Peter Taylor, Robert Hightower, Robert Giroux, Philip and Nathalie Rahv, and the painter Frank Parker. In September Stafford and Lowell go to New York City, where they soon separate. Stafford drinks heavily. On a psychiatrist’s advice she enters a sanitarium in Detroit, but soon leaves and goes to Denver, where she sees Mary Lee for a few days before returning to New York. Stays in series of hotels in New York and Connecticut and continues to drink while rarely eating. Learns that Lowell has abandoned Catholicism and is seeking a divorce. In late November Stafford enters the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic at New York Hospital, where she is treated by Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey. Story “The Interior Castle” is published in the November–December Partisan Review.
1947
Story “The Hope Chest” is published in Jan
uary Harper’s and “A Slight Maneuver” appears in the February Mademoiselle. Stafford learns that her mother is dying of malignant melanoma and is granted emergency leave from the hospital. Arrives in Oregon after her mother’s death on February 3. The Mountain Lion is published by Harcourt, Brace on March 1; it receives enthusiastic reviews but sells poorly. Lord Weary’s Castle, Lowell’s second volume of poetry, is awarded Pulitzer Prize in May. Stafford sells house in Damariscotta Mills. “My Sleep Grew Shy of Me,” essay about her insomnia, published in Vogue, October 15. Released from Payne Whitney in November. Continues to see Dr. Sherfey (will remain in therapy with her until the late 1950s). Rents apartment at 27 West 75th Street. Delivers lecture on “The Psychological Novel” at Bard College literary conference (published in Kenyon Review, Spring 1948). Signs contract with Harcourt, Brace in late November for novel “In the Snowfall,” inspired by her friendship with Lucy McKee Cooke, and receives $4,000 advance. Fires Marian Ives as her agent (will represent herself for the next seven years).
1948
Story “Children Are Bored on Sundays” appears in the February 21 issue of The New Yorker, the first of twenty-two stories Stafford will publish in the magazine. Becomes friends with Katharine White, her fiction editor at The New Yorker. Meets President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C., when she receives National Press Club award on April 3. Awarded second Guggenheim Fellowship. Spends six weeks in U.S. Virgin Islands obtaining divorce from Lowell. Forms lasting friendship with the writers Nancy and Robert Gibney, who own a home on St. John. Stafford receives onetime payment of $6,500 when divorce becomes final on June 14. “Profiles: American Town,” article about Newport, Rhode Island, appears in August 28 issue of The New Yorker. Story “The Bleeding Heart” published in the September Partisan Review, and “A Summer Day” appears in the September 11 issue of The New Yorker.
1949
Three of her stories appear in The New Yorker during the year: “The Cavalier” (February 12), “Pax Vobiscum” (later retitled “A Modest Proposal,” July 23), and “Polite Conversation” (August 20). Learns in April that Lowell has suffered a severe mental collapse and has been hospitalized. (Stafford and Lowell will occasionally see each other until his death.) Visits Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Germany during summer. Publishes articles in The New Yorker about the Edinburgh Festival (September 17) and returning to Heidelberg (December 3). Meets Oliver Jensen (born 1914), an editor at Life, in the fall.
1950
Marries Oliver Jensen on January 28 at Christ Church Methodist in New York City. They honeymoon in Haiti and Jamaica, then move into Jensen’s apartment at 222 East 71st Street. Delivers lecture “Observations on the Use of Autobiography in Fiction” at Wellesley College on April 17 (published as “Truth and the Novelist” in Harper’s Bazaar, August 1951). Article “Enchanted Island,” written in Jamaica, appears in May Mademoiselle. Publishes three stories in The New Yorker, “A Country Love Story” (May 6), “The Maiden” (July 29), and “The Nemesis” (later retitled “The Echo and the Nemesis,” December 16), as well as “Old Flaming Youth,” which appears in the December Harper’s Bazaar. Moves with Jensen into house on Long Lots Road in Westport, Connecticut. Sets aside “In the Snowfall” in December and begins novel The Catherine Wheel.
1951
Becomes friends with the writer Peter De Vries, a neighbor in Westport. Story “The Healthiest Girl in Town” published in The New Yorker April 7. Visits Mary Lee in Colorado during summer and sees father for the last time. Completes The Catherine Wheel in the fall. Article “Home for Christmas” appears in December Mademoiselle.
1952
The Catherine Wheel is published by Harcourt, Brace on January 14 and receives mixed reviews; it sells 12,000 copies in three months. Serves on jury that gives the National Book Award for Fiction to James Jones for From Here to Eternity. Drinks heavily as marriage to Jensen becomes increasingly strained. During the year publishes articles “The Art of Accepting Oneself” (Vogue, February 1) and “It’s Good to Be Back” (Mademoiselle, July) and stories “The Violet Rock” (The New Yorker, April 26), “Life Is No Abyss” (Sewanee Review, July), “I Love Someone” (Colorado Quarterly, Summer), and “The Connoisseurs” (Harper’s Bazaar, October). Attends University of Colorado writers’ conference in Boulder, where she delivers lecture “An Etiquette for Writers” on July 22. Leaves Westport home in early November and moves to Hotel Irving on Gramercy Park South in New York City. Undergoes hysterectomy to remove fibroid tumors at New York Hospital. Travels to U.S. Virgin Islands in late December to obtain divorce.
1953
Publishes three stories in The New Yorker during the year: “The Shorn Lamb” (later retitled “Cops and Robbers,” January 24), “The Liberation” (May 30), and “In the Zoo” (September 19). Divorce from Jensen granted on February 20. Elected to the Cosmopolitan Club, New York City club for professional women. Children Are Bored on Sunday, collection of ten stories, published by Harcourt, Brace in May. Stafford breaks with Harcourt, Brace in dispute over publication of the English edition of the story collection. Signs contract with Random House on October 23, receiving $7,000 advance for a novel and volume of short stories. Moves to apartment in house at 24 Elm Street in Westport.
1954
Novella A Winter’s Tale, adapted from her unfinished novel “Autumn Festival,” is included in New Short Novels, edited by Mary Louise Aswell and published in paperback by Ballantine in February. “New England Winter” appears in February issue of travel magazine Holiday. Story “Bad Characters” published in The New Yorker, December 4.
1955
Publishes three stories in The New Yorker during the year: “Beatrice Trueblood’s Story” (February 26), “Maggie Meriwether’s Rich Experience” (June 25), and “The Warlock” (December 24). Travels to England in late summer, but cuts trip short and returns home because of financial worries.
1956
During the year Stafford publishes three stories in The New Yorker, “The End of a Career” (January 21), “A Reading Problem” (June 30), and “The Mountain Day” (August 18), as well as “The Matchmaker” (later retitled “Caveat Emptor”) in Mademoiselle (May). Hires James Oliver Brown as her new literary agent. Sails to England in June and rents flat at 20 Chesham Place in the Belgravia district of London. Begins friendship with Eve Auchincloss, an editor at Harper’s Bazaar, who will help her obtain magazine writing assignments. Meets and begins affair with A. J. (Joe) Liebling (born 1904), a writer for The New Yorker since 1935 who is separated from his second wife and living in Europe for tax reasons. Visits Belgium in September after Liebling goes to Algeria on assignment. Returns to Westport in early autumn.
1957
Sees Liebling when he visits New York City for two weeks in January. Moves to apartment at 18 East 80th Street. Publishes stories “My Blithe, Sad Bird” (April 6) and “A Reasonable Facsimile” (August 3) in The New Yorker. Travels to England in early September to see Liebling. They visit Paris together before returning in November to New York, where they move into separate rooms at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Greenwich Village.
1958
Finds it difficult to sell stories to The New Yorker after Katharine White retires as a fiction editor. Story “The Reluctant Gambler” appears in Saturday Evening Post, October 4. Publishes two articles in Harper’s Bazaar: “Divorce: Journey Through Crisis” (November) and “New York Is a Daisy” (December).
1959
Interviews Isak Dinesen for Horizon magazine (article appears in September). Liebling reaches divorce settlement with his wife, Lucille Spectorsky. Stafford and Liebling marry at New York City Hall on April 3 and move into apartment at 43 Fifth Avenue; they also spend time at house Liebling owns at 929 Fireplace Road in the Springs section of East Hampton, New York. Story “The Scarlet Letter” appears in July Mademoiselle. Travels in July to Louisiana, where Liebling covers election campaign of Governor Earl Long (Stafford had s
uggested that he write about Long). Sails to England in late August. Visits Isle of Arran off the west coast of Scotland, the ancestral home of her mother’s family, while Liebling covers British general election. In October they travel to Greece and the Aegean and then go on Mediterranean cruise before returning to New York in late November.
1960
“Souvenirs of Survival: The Thirties Revisited,” memoir of her college years, appears in Mademoiselle in February. Sent by Harper’s Bazaar to Reno, Nevada, to cover production of the film The Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe, directed by John Huston and written by Arthur Miller. Writes article that is rejected by the magazine. Publishes six film reviews in Horizon, September 1960–May 1961, including pieces on Satyajit Ray, Italian neorealism, and Akira Kurosawa.
1961
“The Ardent Quintessences,” article on whiskey and cocktails, appears in April Harper’s Bazaar. Moves with Liebling in fall to apartment at 45 West 10th Street.
1962
Serves on jury that gives National Book Award in fiction to Walker Percy for The Moviegoer. Leaves Random House and signs contract with Robert Giroux, now an editor at Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, for a novel, a collection of stories, and a book about Arran and the Greek island of Samothrace. Receives $12,000, of which $7,000 is used to repay her Random House advance. The Lion and the Carpenter and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights published by Macmillan as part of its “Marvelous Tales” series of children’s books. Elephi, the Cat with the High IQ, children’s book about one of the many cats Stafford kept during her lifetime, published in September by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy.
1963
Travels with Liebling to Normandy, the Loire Valley, and Paris in July and August. Visits American military cemetery above Omaha Beach where her brother Dick is buried, but is unable to find his grave. Visits London before returning to New York in September. Begins seeing internist Dr. Thomas Roberts, who will be her primary physician for the rest of her life. Liebling is hospitalized with viral pneumonia on December 21 and dies from heart and renal failure on December 28.
Boston Adventure Page 60
