Book Read Free

Boston Adventure

Page 61

by Jean Stafford


  1964

  Collapses from heavy drinking in January and spends sixteen days recovering in New York Hospital. Begins writing book reviews for The New York Review of Books and for Vogue (will publish fifty-two reviews in the magazine from January 1964 to March 1974). Story “The Tea Time of Stouthearted Ladies” published in the Winter Kenyon Review. Suffers heart attack in early April and is hospitalized for five weeks, but does not quit smoking. Moves to Long Island country house in the Springs, which sits on thirty acres of meadowland. Maintains active social life despite not knowing how to drive. Story “The Ordeal of Conrad Pardee” appears in the July Ladies’ Home Journal. Spends 1964–65 academic year as Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University. Bad Characters, collecting nine stories and novella “A Winter’s Tale,” published by Farrar, Straus and Co., October 12. Resumes heavy drinking by the end of the year.

  1965

  Travels to Fort Worth, Texas, in May to interview Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Receives $6,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to work on her novel. Article “The Strange World of Marguerite Oswald” published in the October McCall’s.

  1966

  Father dies on January 9 in Lake Oswego, Oregon. A Mother in History, expanded version of her profile of Marguerite Oswald, published February 25 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; it receives mixed reviews and sells 10,000 copies in three months. Article “Truth in Fiction,” a revised version of “Truth and the Novelist,” published in the October 1 Library Journal.

  1967

  Accepts two-year appointment as adjunct professor in the writing program of Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Rents apartment at 11 East 87th Street and teaches class on the short story that meets once a week.

  1968

  Dislikes students and is unhappy with political turmoil on campus. Signs new contract with Farrar, Straus and Giroux on June 27 for volume of collected stories and her novel in progress, now titled “The Parliament of Women.” Story “The Philosophy Lesson” appears in The New Yorker, November 16. Resigns teaching position after fall semester.

  1969

  The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford is published February 17 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and receives favorable reviews. Stafford becomes regular contributor to the Washington Post Book World (publishes forty-four reviews in the newspaper from March 1969 through October 1976). Writes lengthy Christmas roundup of children’s books for The New Yorker (continues to write this feature annually through 1975).

  1970

  Stafford is elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in January. Serves as writer in residence for two weeks at Pennsylvania State University. Publishes articles “My (Ugh!) Sensitivity Training” in Horizon (Spring) and “Love Among the Rattlesnakes,” about Charles Manson and his followers, in McCall’s (March). The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford awarded Pulitzer Prize for Fiction on May 4.

  1971

  Delivers series of five lectures on “Tradition and Dissent” at Barnard College in March. Writes introduction for The American Coast, picture book published by Scribner’s. Publishes articles “Suffering Summering Houseguests” in Vogue (August 15) and “Intimation of Hope” in McCall’s (December).

  1972

  The Mountain Lion is reissued in hardcover by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in April with a new preface by Stafford. Awarded honorary LittD degree by the University of Colorado at Boulder on May 24. Gives talk at Norlin Library in which she pays tribute to her mentor Irene McKeehan (published as “Miss McKeehan’s Pocketbook” in Spring 1976 Colorado Quarterly). Suffers from worsening respiratory problems. Becomes regular contributor to Vogue (will publish nine feature articles in the magazine through June 1975, including profiles of newspaper publisher Katharine Graham and Representative Millicent Fenwick). Receives additional $3,000 advance for “The Parliament of Women.”

  1973–74

  Delivers commencement address at Southampton College in June. Continues to support herself through freelance journalism, publishing reviews and articles in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, McCall’s, and Esquire.

  1975

  Fires James Oliver Brown as her literary agent and replaces him with Timothy Seldes of Russell & Volkening. Serves on jury that awards Pulitzer Prize for Fiction to Michael Shaara for The Killer Angels. Diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Begins writing monthly book review column for Esquire in October (last review appears in October 1976).

  1976

  Suffers ischemic stroke on November 8, which causes severe aphasia and leaves her unable to write or speak intelligibly.

  1977

  Robert Lowell dies of heart attack on September 12. Stafford lessens her financial worries by selling her thirty acres of meadowland for $114,000 in December.

  1978

  “An Influx of Poets,” story extracted by Giroux from the manuscript for “The Parliament of Women,” published in The New Yorker on November 6. (“Woden’s Day,” another extract from “The Parliament of Women,” is published posthumously in Shenandoah in Autumn 1979.) Makes new will that leaves most of her estate to Josephine Monsell, her longtime cleaning woman in Springs.

  1979

  Admitted to New York Hospital February 20 with advanced pulmonary disease. Transferred on March 20 to Burke Rehabilitation Center in White Plains, New York, where she dies from cardiac arrest March 26. Her ashes are interred next to Liebling on April 10 after graveside service in the Green River Cemetery, East Hampton, New York.

  Note on the Text

  Jean Stafford recalled that she began writing Boston Adventure soon after she moved in the summer of 1940 to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In the spring of 1941, she wrote a 175-page outline of the novel while staying with her sister, Mary Lee Stafford Frichtel, on her ranch in Hayden, Colorado. Stafford sent the outline to the Houghton, Mifflin publishing firm, which failed to express interest in acquiring the novel. She continued to work on the manuscript after moving to New York City in the summer of 1941, using the title “The Outskirts.” In early 1942 she sent the first third of the novel to Harcourt, Brace and Company, where it was read by Frank V. Morley, the editor-in-chief of the trade division. Morley passed the manuscript on to Robert Giroux, a junior editor at the firm, with a note asking: “I found that it kept holding me; but will it keep hold of a public?” Giroux later wrote that he was so “enthralled” while reading the manuscript on a commuter train that he missed several stops. Stafford and Giroux signed a contract on April 30, 1942, for the novel’s publication by Harcourt, Brace, with Stafford receiving a $500 advance. In the summer of 1942 Stafford and her first husband, the poet Robert Lowell, moved to Monteagle, Tennessee, where they shared a house with the novelist Caroline Gordon and her husband, the poet and critic Allen Tate. On February 1, 1943, Stafford submitted a manuscript to Lambert Davis at Harcourt, Brace (Giroux was now serving in the navy). Davis responded in March, praising the novel while raising questions about its style. Stafford also received critical comments from Gordon and Tate and began making extensive revisions and cuts. She continued to revise and cut the manuscript while staying at the Yaddo artists’ colony in the summer of 1943 and submitted a final version to Harcourt, Brace in January 1944. Two excerpts from the novel, which had been retitled Boston Adventure at the suggestion of the publisher, appeared before publication: “The Wedding—Beacon Hill” in the June 1944 number of Harper’s Bazaar, and “Hotel Barstow” in the Summer 1944 number of Partisan Review.

  Boston Adventure was published in New York by Harcourt, Brace and Company on September 21, 1944, in a first printing of 22,000 copies. By May 1945 the Harcourt, Brace edition had sold a total of 35,000 copies, while another 199,000 copies had been sold through the mail by the Book League of America. (The novel was also published in a condensed paperback Armed Services Edi
tion that sold 144,000 copies.) An English edition was published in London by Faber & Faber in October 1946. Harcourt, Brace subsequently included Boston Adventure, along with The Mountain Lion and Stafford’s collection of short stories Children Are Bored on Sunday, in The Interior Castle, an omnibus volume published in 1953. Stafford did not revise the novel after its initial American publication. This volume prints the text of the 1944 Harcourt, Brace edition of Boston Adventure, but corrects a typesetting error that appeared in that edition: “Der Traum den Rote Kammer” becomes “Der Traum der Roten Kammer.”

  This volume presents the texts of the original printings chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce nontextual features of their typographic design. The texts are presented without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features and are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number of the hardcover edition: 40.16, zwansig; 136.1, gansbart; 151.37, steeds paw; 181.25, coincidence I; 212.3, intentions” had; 225.34, perigrinations; 235.37, evening.; 246.27, exigesis; 253.37, tulipes noire; 261.37, Winetka; 265.13–14, excrutiating; 273.5, up I’m; 282.30, Gardiner’s; 294.9, Happle; 324.35, them.); 350.3, sheath; 361.15, exigesis; 367.7, last; 383.25, other’s; 393.7, clam-bake; 394.29, practiticed; 401.28, mornning; 408.18, Walter; 410.6, Imensee; 413.4, perigrinations; 418.39, marveilleuse; 431.26, forbears; 441.27, it’s; 446.18, veiw; 450.37, Aggasiz; 452.38, Katherine; 463.14, Britanny; 492.27, connossieur.

  Notes

  In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of the hardcover edition. No note is made for material included in the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Biblical quotations are keyed to the King James Version. Quotations from Shakespeare are keyed to The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). For further biographical background and references to other studies, see David Roberts, Jean Stafford: A Biography (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988); Charlotte Margolis Goodman, Jean Stafford: The Savage Heart (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990); and Ann Hulbert, The Interior Castle: The Art and Life of Jean Stafford (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992).

  BOSTON ADVENTURE

  2.1 For Frank Parker] A classmate of Robert Lowell at St. Mark’s School, Parker (1916–2005) left Harvard College to study art in Paris and served as a volunteer ambulance driver during the fall of France in 1940. He returned to the United States, enlisted in the Black Watch of Canada, and was captured in the Dieppe raid in 1942. Parker was a prisoner of war at the time Boston Adventure was published and did not return to the U.S. until 1945. (His father, an American volunteer officer serving with the Royal Navy, was killed in the North Atlantic in 1941, while his younger brother was killed on Okinawa in 1945.) Parker’s art appeared on the covers of several of Lowell’s volumes of poetry. He remained friends with Jean Stafford after she and Lowell were divorced in 1948.

  6.30 pokhlyobka] Thick Russian soup, usually made with grains and cabbage or potatoes.

  8.21 mein herr] Sir.

  10.8–13 Till with age . . . a pretty girl!] From “The Troika,” a song included in the Russian chapter of A Treasury of the World’s Finest Folk Song (1942), collected and arranged by Leonhard Deutsch, explanatory text by Claude Simpson, lyrics versified by Willard Trask.

  14.1–2 Riders of the Purple Sage] Western novel (1912) by Zane Grey (1872–1939).

  14.21 ni’t wahr?] Isn’t it?

  21.5–6 Chilton Club] A Boston women’s club, founded in 1910.

  21.28 E. P. Roe] Edward Payson Roe (1838–1888), American Presbyterian minister who published seventeen popular novels, including Barriers Burned Away (1872), a story of spiritual conversion set in Chicago at the time of the 1871 fire.

  21.29 Elsie Dinsmore books] Series of twenty-eight children’s books (1867–1905) about a pious young girl in the American South, written by Martha Finley (1828–1909) under the name Martha Farquharson.

  21.36 Bob, Son of Battle] American title of Owd Bob, The Grey Dog of ­Kenmuir (1898), children’s book about a sheepdog by English novelist Alfred Ollivant (1874–1927).

  22.7–8 English Speaking Union] An international organization founded in Great Britain in 1918 for the purpose of promoting closer relations among English-speaking countries.

  31.25–26 “The Stag at Eve”] Common name for the first lines of canto I of The Lady in the Lake (1810) by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).

  31.26–27 Kipling’s “If”] The poem was first published in 1910.

  32.23 Das Gesetz der Mormonen] “The Law of the Mormons.”

  32.40 “Lieber Gott!”] “Dear God!”

  33.29–30 Monstruosum . . . activam] A monstrous state between the contem­plative and the active life.

  35.3 “Verzeihung!”] “Forgive me!”

  37.18 muchacha] Girl.

  39.24 Messbuch] Missal.

  40.16 zwei und zwanzig?] Twenty-two.

  44.31 Frances and the . . . Buena Vista Farm] Children’s book (1905) by American writer Frances Trego Montgomery (1858–1925).

  46.3–4 “Confiteor Deo . . . semper Virgini] “I confess to Almighty God, to Blessed Mary, ever Virgin”: the opening lines of the confessional prayer recited at the beginning of the traditional Latin Mass.

  46.6–7 “Gott! Gott! . . . mir verlassen?] “God! God! Why have you forsaken me?” Cf. Mathew 27:46

  48.11 Mädchen] Girl.

  48.21 “Jawohl!”] Yes!

  50.25–26 Die wunderschöne Augen! Die magische Augen!] The beautiful eyes! The magical eyes!

  56.28 lebkuchen.] Gingerbread cookies.

  67.33–34 “Comin’ through the Rye”] Scottish song from the eighteenth century, often sung with lyrics (1782) by the poet Robert Burns (1759–1796).

  68.31–32 “Bitte, sprechen Sie Deutsch, gnädiges Fräulein?”] “Please, speak German, young lady?”

  73.6 sired by Kaiser Bill] Wilhelm II (1859–1941) was rumored to have fathered several children out of wedlock in addition to the seven children he had with the Empress Augusta Victoria (1858–1921).

  73.9 “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht”] “Silent Night, Holy Night,” (1818) Austrian Christmas carol, with words by Joseph Mohr (1792–1848) and music by Franz Xaver Gruber (1787–1863).

  75.20 Liederkranz] An American version of German Limburger cheese.

  76.23 Motor Boat Boys] A series of seven adventure stories for boys published from 1912 to 1915, beginning with Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise, or The Dash for Dixie. They were written by Louis Arundel, one of many pseudonyms used by St. George Rathborne (1854–1938), a prolific writer of juvenile fiction.

  76.24 Waverley novels] Series of twenty-seven historical novels published by Sir Walter Scott from 1814 to 1831 that included Waverley (1814), Rob Roy (1817), and Ivanhoe (1819).

  76.29 Quo Vadis] Historical novel (1896) set during the reign of the Emperor Nero by the Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916).

  77.30–78.8 Far from where . . . Woman’s sad lot] From “Woman’s Sad Lot,” a song included in the Russian chapter of A Treasury of the World’s Finest Folk Song (1942), collected and arranged by Leonhard Deutsch, explanatory text by Claude Simpson, lyrics versified by Willard Trask.

  79.9–10 “Roses of Picardy,” . . . Blue Danube.”] “Roses of Picardy,” song (1916) with music by Hadyn Wood (1882–1959) and lyrics by Frederick Weatherly (1848–1929); “The Bells of Saint Mary’s,” song (1917) with music by A. Emmett Adams (1890–1938) and lyrics by Douglas Furber (1885–1961); “The Blue Danube,” waltz (1866) by the younger Johann Strauss (1825–1899).

  79.22 “the spreading chestnut tree] The “s
preading chestnut-tree” mentioned in the first line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Village Blacksmith” (1841) was chopped down in the 1870s as part of the widening of Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  79.23 that old bridge . . . the British.”] The North Bridge in Concord, where Massachusetts militia repulsed British troops on April 19, 1775.

  79.29 Lariat, West] Lariat (1925–51) and West (1926–53) were Western pulp magazines.

  81.25–26 Bebe Daniels . . . Richard Barthelmess] Bebe Daniels (1901–1971), Clara Bow (1905–1965), Ramon Navarro (1899–1968), Janet Gaynor (1906–1984), and Richard Barthelmess (1895–1963) were Hollywood film stars in the silent era.

  85.10 effroyable] Frightful.

  92.11 tsvetiki] Flowers.

  94.8 The Uffizi] An art museum in Florence, Italy.

  94.15 State Street argot] State Street was the center of the Boston financial district.

  94.31 The Awkward Age, by Henry James] The novel was first published in 1899.

  106.5 Black Beauty] Children’s novel (1877) by Anna Sewell (1820–1878) about the life of a horse in nineteenth-century England.

  112.1–2 Wilhelm Meister and Werthers Leiden] Novels by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 1795–96) and Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774).

  112.5–6 “Ach, der Abendstern!”] “Oh, the evening star!”

  112.9 Confessions of a Young Man] Novel (1888) by the Anglo-Irish writer George Moore (1852–1933).

  112.15 Nouvelle Athènes] A café in the Place Pigalle in the ninth arrondissement of Paris.

  117.25–26 Literature and Life] Literature and Life, Book Four (1924), a secondary-school textbook edited by Dudley Miles, Robert C. Pooley, and Edwin Greenlaw.

 

‹ Prev