End Notes
All notes were written by the editors.
Quoted text without annotation from Barney Rosset’s personal or business correspondence is from the Barney Rosset papers, 1841–2011, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Butler Library, Columbia University (hereafter, BRP) and/or the Grove Press Records, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries (hereafter, GPR).
http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_7953908/summary
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/7953908
http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/g/grove_press.htm
1.
Barney Rosset’s (BR) extensive historical research on the Tansey murder trials, including contemporary newspaper reportage, court transcripts and prison photographs, in addition to genealogical research on the Tansey family, is collected at BRP.
2.
Burton Holmes, The Olympian Games in Athens (New York: Grove Press, 1984).
3.
Sono Osato (born 1919) became a noted dancer with the American Ballet Theatre and a Broadway actress.
4.
Adler and BR corresponded regularly during Rosset’s school and war years. Grove published Adler’s short fiction collection Souvenirs Fresh and Rancid, which focuses on his career as an educator, in 1983. Their letters and de Grazia’s interview are collected at BRP.
5.
This report is in BR’s FOIA file at BRP.
6.
BR’s FOIA file at BRP details the exhaustive FBI investigation of his early life. His school archive includes yearbooks, school newspapers, report cards and even Greenebaum’s version of Robinson Crusoe.
7.
This FBI interview is among BR’s papers at BRP.
8.
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (New York: Grove Press, 1961), 12. Rosset’s essay is at BRP.
9.
Adler’s comment is from an unpublished interview with Edward de Grazia. This and BR’s Haskell Wexler correspondence are at BRP.
10.
White House usher during the FDR and Truman years, Claunch (1899–1978) was appointed Government Secretary to the United States Virgin Islands by Eisenhower.
11.
Produced by BR and completed in the summer of 1948 with documentarian Leo Hurwitz (1909–91, Native Land, The Plow that Broke the Plains) as director, the didactic and unabashedly leftist Strange Victory mixes dramatic scenes with newsreel footage and equates racial politics in post–WWII USA with those of Hitler’s Germany. The film’s critical failure and commercial neglect ended BR’s intended career in film: “The Star review … was one of the few good ones. A favorable article about Leo which focused on how he got his inspiration for the film and his professional and personal life ran on the opposite page. I crawled back to my hotel room almost physically sickened by the lack of business, the bad review, and Leo’s article. In my room I broke down and cried and cried. The tensions of the whole affair had reached the breaking point. I felt isolated, a failure, and I wanted to annihilate myself. But it was the climax of my Strange Victory experience. Then I began to feel better. I stopped sobbing, dried my eyes, and staggered back over to the theater. I knew. The run was a disaster.” This excerpt, from a chapter on Strange Victory edited from the manuscript on which Rosset is based, is at BRP.
12.
This quote is from Benn’s preface to The Lucky Chance (1687).
13.
From Berryman’s Introduction to Matthew G. Lewis, The Monk (New York: Grove Press, 1952).
14.
Al Silverman, The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors and Authors (New York: Truman Talley Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 44.
15.
Leo Edelstein, Pataphysics: Pirate Issue, 2001. http://www.pataphysicsjournal.net/catalogue.html.
16.
The BR/Beckett correspondence is collected at BRP and GPR.
17.
This chapter is adapted from BR’s essay “Beginning to End: Publishing and Producing Beckett,” in S. E. Gontarski, ed., A Companion to Samuel Beckett (Wiley & Blackwell, 2010), 49. Works sourced for this chapter are Kevin Brownlow, Hollywood: The Pioneers (New York: Harper Collins, 1979); Alan Schneider, Entrances (New York: Viking Press, 1986); and Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art (New York: Random House, 1974).
18.
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (New York: Grove Press, 1954).
19.
Samuel Beckett, Endgame (New York: Grove Press, 1958).
20.
Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces (New York: Grove Press, 2009), 9.
21.
Samuel Beckett, The Collected Shorter Plays (New York: Grove Press, 1984).
22.
Portions of this section are adapted from BR’s 2001 essay “On Samuel Beckett’s Film,” Tin House 6 (3).
23.
Kevin Brownlow, “Brownlow on Beckett (On Keaton),” Film West 22. http://ireland.iol.ie/~galfilm/filmwest/22brown.htm.
24.
Schneider’s recollection of the production is also discussed at http://www.apieceofmonologue.com/2010/06/alan-schneider-samuel-beckett-film.html.
25.
Samuel Beckett, The Complete Short Prose (New York: Grove Press, 1996), 265.
26.
S. E. Gontarski, “An Interview with Michael McClure,” The Review of Contemporary Fiction: Grove Press Number, Fall 1990, 119.
27.
This was not done lightly. Jacob Brussel, who released a pirated edition of Tropic of Cancer in New York in 1940, spent three years in prison for publishing pornography.
28.
For this exchange and other BR source materials, see S. E. Gontarski, ed., The Grove Press Reader: 1951–2001 (New York: Grove Press, 2001).
29.
US Postal Service official Charles Ablard had written Barzun and MacLeish during the initial investigation, asking if they believed Chatterley was pornographic. For this background and the authoritative legal perspective on all the Grove Press trials, see Grove attorney Charles Rembar’s The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterley, Tropic of Cancer & Fanny Hill (New York: Harper & Row, 1968).
30.
Rembar, 61.
31.
Ibid., 63.
32.
From legal argument by Saul J. Mindel, general counsel for the US Post Office. Rembar, 65.
33.
Ibid., 51, quoting from Roth v. United States, 1957.
34.
Ibid., 64. Also see Raymond T. Caffrey, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover: The Grove Press Publication of the Unexpurgated Text,” The Courier 20.1 (1985): 49–79.
35.
Ibid., 69.
36.
Ibid., 75, from the record. Also see Caffrey.
37.
Ibid., 79.
38.
Ibid., 96, from the record.
39.
Ibid., 110–11, from the record.
40.
Ibid., 114.
41.
Ibid., 117.
42.
Ibid., 118.
43.
Ibid., 139.
44.
Much of this chapter was adapted by Barney Rosset from an introduction written by Ed Halter at Rosset’s suggestion, based largely on extensive interviews with, and information and files provided by, Rosset, around 2001. Their intention was to have the introduction accompany a collection of film writings he had proposed from Evergreen edited by the two of them, to be published by Rosset’s Foxrock Books; in the end Foxrock was unable to publish the collection (recently released by Seven Stories Press as From the Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader).
Writes Halter:
“We may never know how Barney got from asking me to revise that introduction numerous times to inserting large parts of it into his autobiography, without my knowledge, after we had stopped working together. He was often difficult to work with, g
iven to changing his mind and opinion, but he was also incredibly generous with his time and advice, and he and Astrid and I had some great times together. I fondly remember bringing my 16mm projector over so we could watch some ancient silent porn films he had found in his storage. While other writers might bristle at having their work recycled in such a fashion, for me it’s a strange kind of honor, and a weird souvenir of an intense but formative time in my life spent working with Barney Rosset.”
45.
A. H. Weiler, “International Projects in Prospect,” New York Times, September 8, 1963, X9. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E0DE1DF143BE033A0575BC0A96F9C946291D6CF.
46.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AzmhorISf4.
47.
Also see http://idiommag.com/2012/04/amos-vogel-life-as-a-subversive-art/.
48.
B. Greely, “‘Evergreen’ Vidmag for Cassettes Piloted, With All the No-Nos for TV,” Variety, December 2, 1970.
49.
Vincent Canby, “What Godard Hath Wrought,” New York Times, March 29, 1970, 77.
50.
See Edward de Grazia and Robert K. Newman, Banned Films: Movies, Censors and the First Amendment (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1982).
51.
Earl R. Hutchison, Tropic of Cancer on Trial: A Case History of Censorship (New York: Grove Press, 1968), 93.
52.
Also see Ibid., 57.
53.
Also see Ibid., 59.
54.
Also see Ibid., 59.
55.
“Tropic of Cancer Scores a Victory,” New York Times, June 14, 1961, 21. Also see Hutchison, 59 for complete article.
56.
Hutchison, 60.
57.
Ibid., 63.
58.
Ibid., 63–4.
59.
Ibid., 196–7.
60.
Ibid., 65.
61.
Ibid., 65.
62.
See GPR and Hutchison, 68.
63.
Hutchison, 82.
64.
Ibid., 80–2.
65.
Ibid., 82.
66.
Anthony Lewis, “The Most Recent Troubles of Tropic: A Chapter in Censorship,” New York Times, January 21, 1962, 210.
67.
Hutchison, 92.
68.
Hoke Norris, “Cancer in Chicago,” Evergreen Review, Vol. 6, No. 25, 1962.
69.
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (New York: Grove Press, 1961).
70.
William Lockhart and Robert McClure, “Literature, the Law of Obscenity, and the Constitution,” Minnesota Law Review 38 (Mar. 1954).
71.
In addition to quoted issue of Evergreen Review, see Paul Molloy, “He Questions the Merit of ‘Tropic,’” Chicago Sun-Times, March 16, 1962, 20.
72.
Hutchison, 103.
73.
378 U.S. 184, Jacobellis v. Ohio (No. 11). Argued: March 26, 1963, Decided: June 22, 1964 173 Ohio St. 22, 179 N.E.2d 777, reversed.
74.
John Calder, “The Transatlantic Connection,” The Review of Contemporary Fiction: Grove Press Number, Fall 1990, 146–9.
75.
Maurice Girodias, Une journée sur la terre (Paris: Editions de la différence, 1990). This, the second volume of Girodias’s autobiography, has not been translated into English. The quoted translation is presumably by BR. The first volume of the autobiography, The Frog Prince, was published by Random House in 1988.
76.
Jacqueline Duhême’s hand-illustrated and -colored letters to BR are among his papers at BRP.
77.
Peter Singleton-Gates, The Black Diaries: An Account of Roger Casement’s Life and Times with a Collection of his Diaries (Paris: Olympia Press, 1959 and New York: Grove Press, 1959).
78.
Mirra Alfassa (1878–1973).
79.
S. E. Gontarski, ed., “Barney Rosset Interviews Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, WNET Radio [1959]”, 3–4.
80.
Ann Charters, ed., Beat Down to Your Soul: What Was the Beat Generation? (New York: Penguin Books, 2001).
81.
Translation source of this quote is unknown. Pivano’s introduction in Italian first appeared in the 1960 Feltrinelli edition.
82.
Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans (New York: Grove Press, 1959).
83.
Jack Kerouac, “Written Address to the Italian Judge,” Evergreen Review, Volume 7, Number 31 (New York: Grove Press, 1963).
84.
Ken Jordan, “Barney Rosset: The Art of Publishing II” (an interview with Ken Jordan), The Paris Review, 145 (Winter 1997): 171–215.
85.
John Ciardi, “The Book Burners and Sweet Sixteen,” Saturday Review, June 27, 1959.
86.
186 F. Supp. 254 (1960). Big Table, Inc. v. Carl A. Schroeder, United States Postmaster for Chicago, Illinois. No. 59 C 1382. United States District Court N. D. Illinois. June 30, 1960.
87.
William Burroughs, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text, eds. James Grauerholz and Barry Miles (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 249.
88.
Thomas Parkinson, ed., A Casebook on the Beat (New York: Crowell, 1961). Also see William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin, The Third Mind (New York: Seaver Book/Viking Press, 1978). http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/burroughs-cutup.html.
89.
This correspondence is collected in the Grove papers at Syracuse University. Also see Ted Morgan, Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs (New York: Holt, 1988), 328–9.
90.
For an excerpt from the Time review, see Morgan, 349–50.
91.
Lewis Nichol, “In and Out of Books,” New York Times, May 15, 1960, BR8.
92.
http://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/25/evergreen-review-seized-in-nassau-as-being-obscene.html?_r=0.
93.
Sarasota Herald Tribune, April 20, 1970.
94.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/27/AR2006122700528.html.
95.
S. E. Gontarski, ed., “Working at Grove: An Interview with Gilbert Sorrentino,” The Review of Contemporary Fiction: Grove Press Number, Fall 1990, 104.
96.
Robin Morgan, Saturday’s Child: A Memoir [Electronic Resource] (Open Road Media, 2014). Also see print edition (W. W. Norton, 2001).
97.
smokesignalsmag.com/3/barney.html.
98.
“An Interview with Barney Rosset,” Small Press, Vol. 3, RR Bowker, 1986.
99.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/05/arts/grove-sold-to-ann-getty-and-british-publisher.html.
100.
For further details on this period see John Oakes, “The Last Days of Grove,” The Review of Contemporary Fiction: Grove Press Number, Fall 1990, 175–8.
101.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/10/arts/an-ouster-at-grove-press-raises-writers-ire.html.
102.
Samuel Beckett, Stirrings Still (New York: Foxrock, 1998).
103.
Harry Kreisler, “Art and Healing,” interview with Kenzaburō Ōe, April 16, 1999, Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Oe/oe-con1.html.
104.
Kreisler, “Art of Healing.”
105.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1994/oe-lecture.html.
106.
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-08-11/books/bk-33107_1_kenzaburo-oe.
107.
For an excellent contemporary assessment of the Eleuthéria controversy, see “You Call this ‘Freedom’? The Fight to Publish and Produce Samuel Beckett’s First Fulllength Play” by Stephen Graf, New England Theatre Journal, 25, pp 71–
92.
108.
Anthony Cronin, Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist (New York: Da Capo, 1999), 547.
109.
This letter is in the collected BR/Beckett correspondence at RBMB and at Syracuse.
110.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/24/theater/a-reading-upsets-beckett-s-estate.html.
111.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/25/books/waiting-for-eleutheria.html.
112.
As detailed in the FOIA files at BRP, during his World War II service BR was investigated by US Intelligence for his association with his childhood friends the Osato sisters, Sono and Teru, who were married to men serving in the US Armed Forces. In addition to being considered possible Japanese collaborators, the Osatos were accused of engaging in prostitution. The first charge was unfounded, and the second scurrilous. An official US Intelligence letter ending the investigation is at BRP.
Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship Page 31
