Peter Taylor
Page 81
“Attendant Evils” was completed at Fort Oglethorpe in the early months of 1942 and was submitted unsuccessfully to The New Yorker on March 25 of that year. It appeared in A Vanderbilt Miscellany, 1919–1944 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1944), a hardcover anthology, edited by the English professor Richmond Croom Beatty, representing the best poetry, fiction, and essays produced by members of the Vanderbilt community between the two world wars. The text from A Vanderbilt Miscellany is used here.
“Rain in the Heart” was written in the summer of 1943, shortly after Taylor and his new wife, the former Eleanor Lilly Ross, had moved into their first apartment, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Taylor worked on the story at home and at his desk in the transportation department at Fort Oglethorpe. It was accepted by Allen Tate and Andrew Lytle for The Sewanee Review, and appeared in the number for January–March 1945. It was reprinted in A Long Fourth (1948) and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here, except for the correction of an editorial error at 111.17, where the words “September of ’63,” used in the versions of the story printed in The Sewanee Review and A Long Fourth, have been substituted for “December of ’62.”
“The Scoutmaster” was written while Taylor was stationed in Somerset, England, in the spring of 1944. Taylor’s agent, Diarmuid Russell, submitted the story for the 1944 Partisan Review–Dial Press Novelette Award, open to unpublished works of fiction of between ten thousand and twenty-five thousand words. It won Third Prize, one hundred dollars, and publication, as “The Scout Master,” in the Partisan Review for Summer 1945. It was reprinted, under the present title, in A Long Fourth (1948) and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“Allegiance,” begun in 1944, was completed at Camp Tidworth, in Wiltshire, England, in the spring of 1945, shortly after V-E Day. It was accepted by Taylor’s friend and mentor John Crowe Ransom, editor of The Kenyon Review, and appeared in the Review for Spring 1947. It was reprinted in A Long Fourth (1948), Miss Leonora When Last Seen (1963), and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“A Long Fourth,” begun in 1944, was completed at Camp Tidworth in the summer of 1945. (It was the last story for which Diarmuid Russell served as Taylor’s agent.) It appeared in The Sewanee Review for July–September 1946. It was reprinted in A Long Fourth (1948) and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“Porte Cochere” was written in Bloomington, Indiana, where Taylor taught creative writing in 1948–49, and was submitted to The New Yorker on October 13, 1948. (It was the first short story Taylor sent to Katharine S. White after her acceptance of “Cookie” and his subsequent signing of a first-refusal contract with the magazine.) It appeared, as “Porte-Cochère,” in The New Yorker for July 16, 1949. It was reprinted, as “Porte-Cochere,” in The Widows of Thornton (1954) and, as “Porte Cochere,” in The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“A Wife of Nashville,” written in Bloomington, Indiana, was submitted to The New Yorker on May 24, 1949, and appeared in the number for December 3 of that year. It was reprinted in The Widows of Thornton (1954), Miss Leonora When Last Seen (1963), and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“Their Losses” was written in Greensboro and Norwood, North Carolina, where Taylor enjoyed the summer of 1949. It was submitted to The New Yorker on August 5, 1949, and appeared in the number for March 11, 1950. It was reprinted in The Widows of Thornton (1954), Miss Leonora When Last Seen (1963), and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“Uncles” was written in Hillsborough, North Carolina, where Taylor kept a home while teaching at Woman’s College, Greensboro, in 1949–51. It was submitted to The New Yorker on October 17, 1949, and appeared in the number for December 17, 1949. The text from The New Yorker is used here.
“Two Ladies in Retirement” was submitted to The New Yorker on July 15, 1950, and appeared in the number for March 31, 1951. It was reprinted in The Widows of Thornton (1954) and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“What You Hear from ’Em?” was submitted to The New Yorker on December 10, 1950, and appeared in the number for February 10, 1951. It was reprinted in The Widows of Thornton (1954), Miss Leonora When Last Seen (1963), and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“Bad Dreams” was submitted to The New Yorker on March 20, 1951, and appeared in the number for May 19, 1951. It was reprinted in The Widows of Thornton (1954), Miss Leonora When Last Seen (1963), and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“The Dark Walk,” a nearly novella-length story, was conceived by Taylor for first publication in his collection The Widows of Thornton. It was written from February to September 1953, in Gambier, Ohio, where Taylor taught creative writing at Kenyon College from 1952 to 1957. In compliance with his first-refusal agreement with The New Yorker, he submitted it to the magazine on September 10, 1953, simultaneously with his delivery of the manuscript of The Widows of Thornton to his publisher, Harcourt, Brace & Company. The New Yorker demurred due to its length. By December 1953, the rights department at Harcourt, Brace had placed the story with Harper’s Bazaar, which published an abridgment, approved by Taylor, in the number for March 1954. The complete text of “The Dark Walk” first appeared in The Widows of Thornton, which was published on April 29, 1954. The text from The Widows of Thornton is used here.
“1939” was submitted to The New Yorker on November 15, 1954, and appeared, as “A Sentimental Journey,” in the number for March 12, 1955. It was reprinted, under the present title, in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“The Other Times” was submitted to The New Yorker on August 1, 1955, and appeared in the number for February 23, 1957. (It was the last story of Taylor’s to be edited by Katharine S. White before her retirement from the magazine.) It was reprinted in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time” was submitted to The New Yorker, as “In a Bower of Paper Flowers,” on February 28, 1957, and was rejected by Taylor’s interim editor, Robert Henderson. Taylor quickly sold the story to John Crowe Ransom and revised it through November 1957. It appeared, under the present title, in The Kenyon Review for Spring 1958. It was reprinted in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“Promise of Rain” was completed in Bexley, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, in the summer before Taylor began his tenure at The Ohio State University, where he taught from the spring of 1958 through the spring of 1962. It was submitted to The New Yorker, as “The Public School Boy,” on August 15, 1957, and appeared, as “The Unforgivable,” in the number for January 25, 1958. (It was the first of Taylor’s stories to be acquired and edited by William Maxwell, who remained his New Yorker editor through 1960.) It was reprinted, under the present title, in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“Je Suis Perdu,” inspired by the Taylor family’s eight months in Paris (September 1955 to April 1956), was completed in the summer of 1957. It was submitted to The New Yorker on September 30, 1957, and appeared, as “A Pair of Bright-Blue Eyes,” in the number for June 7, 1958. It was reprinted, under the present title, in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“A Friend and Protector” was completed while Taylor was vacationing with his family in Bonassola, Italy, during the summer of 1958, and was unsuccessfully submitted to The New Yorker on August 3 of that year. It appeared, as “Who Was Jesse’s Friend and Protector?,” in The Kenyon Review for Summer 1959. (This story was edited by Taylor’s Kenyon classmate Robie Macauley, who in 1958 succeed
ed Ransom at the Review.) It was reprinted, under the present title, in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“Guests” was completed while Taylor was vacationing with his family in Rome, Italy, during the fall of 1958. It was submitted to The New Yorker on November 14 of that year and appeared in the number for October 3, 1959. It was reprinted in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“The Little Cousins,” also completed in Rome, was submitted to The New Yorker on November 25, 1958, and appeared, as “Cousins, Family Love, Family Life, All That,” in the number for April 25, 1959. It was reprinted, under the present title, in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and The Old Forest (1985). The text from The Old Forest is used here.
“Heads of Houses” was written in Monteagle, Tennessee, and Bexley, Ohio, during the winter of 1958–59. It was submitted to The New Yorker on April 13, 1959, and appeared in the number for September 12, 1959. It was reprinted in Happy Families Are All Alike (1959) and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
“Miss Leonora When Last Seen,” written in Bexley, was submitted to The New Yorker on November 10, 1959, and appeared in the number for November 19, 1960. It was reprinted in Miss Leonora When Last Seen (1963) and Collected Stories (1969). The text from Collected Stories is used here.
Under the rubric “Undergraduate Stories” are collected three stories that Peter Taylor wrote from the summer of 1936, when he was nineteen, to the summer of 1939, when he was twenty-two. They were published in River: A Magazine in the Deep South, a short-lived literary monthly edited and published during 1937 by Dale Mullen, then a twenty-one-year-old senior at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, and in Hika, an undergraduate monthly founded in 1933 at Kenyon College.
“The Party,” Taylor’s first completed story, was written at his parents’ house, at 1583 Peabody Street, Memphis, during the summer of 1936. (In interviews, Taylor repeatedly claimed it was composed in longhand entirely on the family’s porch swing.) It was written for Allen Tate, the teacher of a summer class in creative writing offered by local Southwestern College. During the following fall, Tate unsuccessfully submitted both it and Taylor’s second story, “The Lady Is Civilized,” to The Southern Review. Taylor sent the story to River when a call for contributions was published in a number of little magazines at the end of 1936. It appeared in the premiere issue of River, dated March 1937, the source of the text used here.
“The Lady Is Civilized,” like “The Party,” was written at Taylor’s parents’ house in Memphis during the summer of 1936. It appeared in the second issue of River, dated April 1937, and was reprinted, in a slightly revised version, in Hika for October 1938. The text from Hika is used here.
“The Life Before” was written at Taylor’s parents’ house in Memphis during the summer of 1939. It appeared in Hika for November 1939, the source of the text used here.
This e-book presents the texts of the original printings chosen for inclusion but does not attempt to reproduce features of their typographical design. The texts are presented without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features, and they 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 print edition: 8.8, anixety; 73.25, “Get’s; 50.7, week end.; 64.34, stair,; 81.17, mirrow; 92.11, lot”; 93.10, week’s; 160.2, has—Then; 171.38, blonde; 182.25, near by; 216.24, Dunbar’s; 246.32, Op’rater!”; 279.1, factory town.; 335.38, landloard,; 372.6, Moore.; 377.12, Pierce; 419.1, coveralls The; 478.28 (and passim), perdu!; 535.27, second and; 537.18, was bane; 609.14, foor; 610.3 (and passim), Johnson’s; 610.26, sonorus; 610.33, that; 610.38, Hardy’s; 611.13 (and passim), Bradley’s; 612.13, parlor-funitue; 612.38, throught; 613.11 (and passim), Pilcher’s,; 613.30, farmers; 614.37, Your; 615.17, Winston’s; 615.23, Y’all; 616.36, boys.; 616.37, Susan,”; 617.32, fingerstrips.; 618.12, starting; 619.37, lounge; 620.32, roue.; 625.8, Gray’s; 626.4, ““I guess; 626.7, porch.; 627.11, harded; 627.39, “M’st; 628.8, weaping; 628.33, two color; 630.4, adultry; 631.30, colonade; 631.32, loby; 631.35, ballustrade.; 632.30, The; 633.11, aboard.; 636.14, capital; 637.24, acquaintence; 638.5, capital; 638.10, who; 640.4, went,; 640.21, heeless; 642.20, acquaintence.
Notes
In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of the print edition (line counts include headings but not section breaks). No note is made for material included in standard desk-reference books. Biblical quotations are keyed to the King James Version. For reference to other studies, and for further biographical background than is contained in the Chronology, see Hubert H. McAlexander, Peter Taylor: A Writer’s Life (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), and, as editor, Conversations with Peter Taylor (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1987). James Curry Robison, Peter Taylor: A Study of the Short Fiction (Boston: Twayne, 1988), includes memoirs of Taylor by Stephen Goodwin, Mary Jarrell, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren, and interviews with Taylor by Mr. Goodwin (1973), J. H. E. Paine (1986), and Mr. Robison (1987). C. Ralph Stephens and Lynda B. Salamon, editors, The Craft of Peter Taylor (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995), includes memoirs of Taylor by Madison Smartt Bell, Cleanth Brooks, David H. Lynn, and Robert Wilson, and “An Oracle of Mystery: A Conversation with Peter Taylor” (1993), by Christopher Metress. Ben Yagoda, “The Oracle of the South” (Washington Post Magazine, May 9, 1993), is a late profile of Taylor. For further bibliographical information than is contained in the Note on the Texts, including lists of textual variants, see Stuart Wright, Peter Taylor: A Descriptive Bibliography 1934–87 (Charlottesville: Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia/University Press of Virginia, 1988).
COMPLETE STORIES 1938–1959
6.11–14 Miss Hood and Miss Herron . . . Belmont School] On September 4, 1890, Ida E. Hood (1863–1940) and Susan L. Herron (1862–1902), two progressive-minded educators from Philadelphia, opened the Belmont School for Young Women in Nashville, Tennessee. The school, which offered high school and junior college classes “preparing girls for lives of purpose,” was located in the city’s West End, on the grounds of Belle Monte, the antebellum estate of Colonel Joseph and Adelicia Acklen. In 1913, upon the retirement of Misses Hood and Herron, Belmont College merged with the nearby Ward Seminary for Young Ladies (founded 1865), forming the Ward-Belmont School. In 1951, Ward-Belmont entered into a financial relationship with the Tennessee Baptist Convention (TBC), under which all future members of the school’s board of directors were to be members of the Southern Baptist Church. Ward-Belmont then abandoned its high school program and reorganized, in 1952, as Belmont College (now Belmont University), a private, four-year, coeducational institution. The university ended its relationship with the TBC in 2005.
7.15 drummer] Traveling salesman; one who drums up business.
14.15 Black Maria.”] Police van.
16.10–11 Tales of ol’ Virginny, by Thomas Nelson Page] Page (1853–1922), a lawyer and diplomat as well as a writer, was well-known for his local-color romances of post–Civil War plantation life, often told in what he called “the dialect of the Negroes of Eastern Virginia.” His best-selling book was In Ole Virginia; or, Marse Chan and Other Stories (1887), here remembered colloquially as Tales of ol’ Virginny.
18.28 Centennial Park] Public park in Nashville’s West End, established by the city in 1884. Originally called West Side Park, it was renamed when, in May 1896, it was designated as the site of the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition (May–October 1897). Among its notable features is a full-scale stucco replica of the Parthenon in Athens, which was built to serve as the arts pavilion of the Tennessee Expo. In 1931, the basement rooms of the Parthenon were redesigned to accommodate two art galleries, one for the James M. Cowan Coll
ection of American Painting and the other for temporary exhibits.
30.4 ‘corporosity’] Southern slang: one’s body and, by extension, one’s physical health.
55.29–30 nity, with anxiety, and with pity. . . . wild with delight.] From The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, 1881), a novel by Anatole France (1844–1924), translated from the French, and with an introduction, by Lafcadio Hearn (New York: Harper & Bros., 1890).
58.27 Dyersburg] City in northwest Tennessee, eighty miles north of Memphis.
59.36 floorwalker] Salesman who assists customers and manages junior staff in a department store.
66.30 “Louisville Lady”] Song composed in 1933 by Peter DeRose, with words by Billy Hill, and popularized by several recordings released during that same year, including sides by the orchestras of Isham Jones, Anson Weeks, and Dick Robertson. The male singer moans for his late Louisville Lady, who drowned herself after learning that he had two-timed her. (“I was her man. / Why did I do her wrong?”)
72.9 ‘If love were like a rose.’] Cf. “A Match” (1862), by English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), whose opening line is “If love were what the rose is . . .”
80.7 Miss Hood] See note 6.11–14.
81.6 Belmont at Nashville] See note 6.11–14.
84.25–28 League work . . . Chest Drive] From its founding in 1922 through World War II, the Junior League of Memphis, a young women’s volunteer group, raised money for the Memphis Community Chest Federation, the predecessor organization of today’s United Way of the Mid-South.