by Edward Burns
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: “A wise little owl,” Arizona]
[postmark: 10 May 1938] [5 rue Christine Paris]
I have just finished the first Act of Faust, I think you will like it, when I get some more done I will be sending it along,1 I do wish you were here it is such a lovely spring, and we adore our new home and want to show it to Papa Woojums and Fania always
B. W.
1. Stein’s Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights. Stein had first mentioned this work to Van Vechten in her letter of [4 February 1938].
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 25? May 1938] Bilignin par Belley Ain
Dearest papa Woojums
We have here a charming neighbor Daniel Rops, a french writer who is editing for the edition Plon a book about how other races feel about the white and he wants desperately that you should do the little piece about how American Negroes feel about the whites, he enormously admires your writing and he wants this a lot, he says it would be as short or as long as you like, I could hold out no hopes but I told him I would do my best to persuade you, anyway he is writing to you himself to tell you all about it, you would like both him and his wife, very natural charming people, I told him perhaps you would send him some photos of Negroes including the Four Saints that of course for himself the book is not illustrated, and give him advice but he hopes and we hope that it will be Papa Woojums who will say what the colored in America thinks of the white all our love1
B. W.
1. Daniel-Rops wrote to Van Vechten, 20 August [1938] (YCAL), expressing his admiration for Van Vechten’s novel Nigger Heaven. He asked Van Vechten for a contribution to a volume of essays in a series called Presences published by the French publisher Plon. Van Vechten declined to write the essay, and on 17 September 1938 (YCAL) Daniel-Rops wrote Van Vechten expressing regret and asking him to suggest another writer familiar with the race question in America. Whether Van Vechten replied cannot be determined. The volume of essays did not appear.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Statue of Abraham de Peyster—New York. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
20 June 1938 [101 Central Park West New York]
Dear Gertrude! and Baby Woojums!
So excited about 4 Sts in London.1 We’ll all have to go to that. Why is it that N.Y. Chicago & Hartford are so far ahead of the TIMES?—and I’m dying to know about Faust. Are you going to the country prochainement? Fania is going on a cruise on the ‘Paris” and will be in Paris for a week about July 27. But you are sure to be in Bilignin by then.
Love to you both,
Papa W!
1. Van Vechten had learned from Virgil Thomson that there was again interest in mounting a production of Four Saints in Three Acts in London. Stein had been telephoned on 1 June, just as she was preparing to leave for Bilignin the next morning, by a Mrs. Harry Kaufman, who was acting for Mrs. Dolores Harding in London. Mrs. Harding, a London producer, went so far as to discuss financial terms with Stein and to suggest that Paul Robeson be invited to sing the role of Saint Ignatius (see Stein to Thomson, postmark 1 June 1938 and postmark 4 June 1938, YCAL). Stein waited for word from either Mrs. Harding or Mrs. Kaufman throughout the summer. The planned production never materialized.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Belley—La vieille porte]
[postmark: 20 June 1938] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
Dear Papa Woojums,
The opera1 is finished and Alice will be tapping it now and sending, the theology and the drama will I hope be to you[r] likeing had a funny theological discussion about it with the Haut[e]combe fathers I wish you were here dear papa Woojums, we all do now and always,
B. W.
1. Stein’s Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Ralph Earl—Portrait of William Carpenter—Worcester Art Museum]
3 July [1938] [Boston, Massachusetts]
Dearest Baby Woojums,
Wandering around the Back Bay for a few days. So excited about your play & the prospect of 4 Saints in London. How does Bilignin seem after Rue Christine?
love to Baby & Mama W.
Papa W.
To Gertrude Stein
17 July [1938] 101 Central Park West New York City
Dear Baby Woojums!
I loved Dr Faustus Lights the Lights and I am sure it would be sensationally amusing on the stage. The dog and Goethe’s last words and the confusion of Helen of Troy and Margarethe and especially the DOG and the viper. Who is writing the music for this? I shall read it again tonight. It seems to me to be written in a new style, a new manner, a new vein, a new Gertrude. Is this true?
It is VERY VERY HOT here and getting hotter every minute and sometimes I love it but most times I don’t. Fania will be in Paris in a minute but she will miss seeing you and the rue Christine, hélas. I wish I MIGHT SEE the rue Christine. and I guess I will soon and photograph it TOO.
James Weldon Johnson was killed and he was one of my best friends and a great man but I don’t think you met him.1 We have new stamps every hour now and I will always put new ones on your envelope and and and you will have an excuse to go see that nice priest. How wonderful to argue about ecclesiastical subjects with him. .2
Lots of love to you both,
Papa Woojums
Dr Faustus is too marvellous!
1. Johnson was killed in a grade crossing accident on 26 June 1938 while vacationing in Maine.
2. Père Bernardet of the Abbaye d’Hautecombe in Saint Pierre de Curtille, not far from Belley, collected stamps.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: American Eagle—iron relief sculpture over entry way to Arsenal, 830 Fifth Avenue, New York. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
[postmark: 19 July 1938] [101 Central Park West New York]
Love to Baby & Mama Woojums because here is a new american Eagle & a new stamp!1
Papa Woojums
I love Dr. Faustus, I can’t wait to hear it performed!
1. A three-cent Northwest Territory Sesquicentennial stamp (1788–1938).
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 26 July 1938] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest papa Woojums,
I am so happy that you liked the Faust, I have been struggling with this problem of dramatic narrative and in that I think I got it and I am so pleased that you like it. We are awfully upset that we are not seeing Fania but we do believe and seeing will be believing that dearest Papa Woojums will be in Paris and in 5 rue Christine this winter. There has been a complication of Bennett [Cerf] and Batsford did not come to an agreement about the English edition of Picasso and now Scribners is doing it in America instead of Random House, of course I had nothing to with the negotiations which ended so but I am awfully upset about it.1 I wrote to Bennett suggesting that they print the Faust in a little book, I think it might be popular, what do you think and it might be illustrated by some very clever drawings that a young Turk Abidin Dina made for it just before we left, he only illustrated the first act, if you think this is a good idea and I have referred Bennett to you well we will, dearest Papa Woojums, and it’s hot here too, lots hot, and I garden and I have started a novel that Mama Woojums says is early American2 and we love you oh so much and the stamps are lovely
B. W.
Gerald Berners is to do the music.
1. Donald S. Klopfer wrote to Stein on 24 February 1938 (YCAL) that Random House would be interested in Stein’s Picasso as a joint venture with Heinemann, the English publisher with whom they had published Stein’s Everybody’s Autobiography. In early May 1938 Cerf had received the French edition of the book and a typescript of the English translation. In the meantime Stein had made an agreement with B. T. Batsford of London to publish the book in England. Cerf wrote to Stein, 17 May 1938 (YCAL), that he thought he could work out an agreement for a joint venture with Batsford. On 13 July 1938 (YCAL) Cerf wrote to Stein that Batsford has m
ade “such an absurd quotation for sheets of your Picasso book that we were forced to turn them down.” Cerf also informed Stein that Batsford had cabled him that another publisher, Scribner’s, had agreed to meet Batsford’s price.
Stein wrote a long letter to Cerf (? July 1938, Columbia-Random House) in which she carefully recounted the events from her first letter to Cerf about the Picasso and her desire to have Cerf publish it. In a letter to Stein of 4 August 1938 (see Gallup, The Flowers of Friendship, pp. 330–31) Cerf acknowledged that what had occurred was not her fault. He also declined to publish Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights unless there was a Broadway production to stimulate sales.
In a letter to Stein on 24 August 1938 (YCAL) Cerf admitted that in the handling of the Picasso situation, “Random House acted with all the speed and dexterity of a senile hippopotamus. I vote that we forget all about the incident.”
2. Stein’s Ida A Novel.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 4 August 1938] [Chambery, France]
My dearest Papa Woojums,
Here I am in a garage waiting for the oil to change into other oil and as it is so hot I just went out and bought what they call a pochette which is this paper and this envelope to write to dear Papa Woojums,1 I am so pleased you like Dr. Faustus, I am now writing a novel Alice says it is early American2 anyway I am writing it and it’s hot golly it is hot and Alice and the dogs sit still and I sit in the garage, god bless you papa Woojums, and please come and see us soon, so much love
Gtrde.
1. The paper is a lined paper 8 × 6 inches in size.
2. Stein’s Ida A Novel.
To Gertrude Stein
6 August 1938 101 Central Park West New York City
Dear Baby Woojums,
I think it would be a good idea to publish the Faust but Bennett [Cerf] thinks it would be better to wait till it is produced and maybe he is right.1 He seems very hurt about the Picasso.2 Scribner’s of course will do you very well and this should sell. However, I am VERY SORRY the thing happened and don’t understand it even when he explains it to me. . As he is your own publisher who has published everything you have asked him to, he should undoubtedly [have] had the first say before an English publisher and if there were an English publisher he should have been instructed that no one else but Bennett could publish it here, but maybe all this happened and yet things went wrong. I am sorry if they have gone wrong because I think they were going so RIGHT. But I guess it will all get cleared up.
There is no news here except it is incredibly hot, hotter than I’ve ever known it to be for four solid weeks and no relief yet. Besides it rains all the time. You have forgotten American hot weather. That is something!
Fania is in Paris this minute, I think, but goes on to London in a day or so (American Express, Haymarket, London) and will sail on the Paris on August 16.
Lots of love to you both,
Papa Woojums
1. In an effort to protect Stein’s feelings and her relationship with Cerf, Van Vechten did not tell Stein Cerf’s true reaction to her Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights. Here, Van Vechten offers substantially the same reasoning that Cerf offered to Stein (see Stein to Van Vechten [26 July 1938], note 1). In a letter to Van Vechten, 4 August 1938 (YCAL), Cerf thanked him for telling him about Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights but confessed that he was only “able to stomach” about four pages of the play.
2. Stein’s Picasso was first published in English by B. T. Batsford, London, in October 1938. The American edition, identical with the English edition, was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons on 6 February 1939. The translation from the French text was made by Alice Toklas. Toklas made some alterations in the text while translating it. The manuscript of the translation (YCAL) contains occasional corrections of the translation as well as substitutions of individual words in Stein’s hand. A corrected English language edition of this text is printed in Gertrude Stein on Picasso, ed. Edward Burns (New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 1970).
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 15 August 1938] Bilignin par Belley Ain
Dearest Papa Woojums
They have just asked me the William R. Scott publishers to write them a childrens book and I am starting it and I think you’ll like it, but will you tell me if it is an all right publisher, it would be rather fun to do, it is called The world is round, do you like the title. But will you tell me if it is a publishing house that is all right. They wrote me a very nice letter about it, the editor is a John G. McCullo[u]gh, he is the one that wrote.1 Then I am going on writing a long novel so I am busy,2 and Virgil [Thomson] and the English producer are still communicating, we have now gotten so far as to be discussing an option, so it looks as if something might really happen, and you would come over for it if it did.3 We have been having a peaceful summer and I have been working a lot, nobody in the house just lots of friends around, and that makes everything peaceful, Gerald Berners is coming next month and that’s all, on the other hand I am having wonderful fan letters from all kinds of new and earnest youn[g] men they write very long ones and very interesting ones, some day at 5 rue Christine, I will show you a lot of them, the only thing that bothers me is that Bennett [Cerf] seems upset because they are not doing the Picasso,4 but they refused the french edition and said they did not want to do the edition and then they refused the conditions of the English edition, I am awfully upset about it, but I had had the impression that they had been a little discouraged at the lack of financial success of Everybody’s [Autobiography], by the way they are doing 500 words of it in the Christian Science Monitor, they have just asked permission,5 I am awfully upset because I am fond of Bennett and I wanted him to be my only publisher and I had nothing at all to do with it it was done through Bennett’s London Agent, well anyway you remember the Hockaday school in Texas, well Miss [Ela] Hockaday stayed with us a couple of days, a charming woman and she asked me would Mr. Van Vechten photograph her, I said I could not tell but I could tell him and he would tell her, I think she would love to have you go down and photograph her there in Dallas Texas, and the children are charming, and it would be lovely, her address is Miss Ela Hockaday, Hockaday School, Dallas Texas, and she has just gone home she says they are the only photographs she has ever loved and you are the only Papa Woojums
B. W.
1. John McCullough, an editor at William R. Scott Publishers, wrote to Stein on 2 August 1938 (Columbia-Random House) informing her that his firm was venturing forth for the first time with a juvenile list. He inquired whether Stein would be interested in writing a story for them and what her financial terms would be. Stein consented and wrote The World is Round.
2. Stein’s Ida A Novel.
3. See Van Vechten to Stein, 20 June 1938, note 1.
4. Cerfs letter of 4 August 1938 is in Gallup, The Flowers of Friendship, pp. 330–31. See Stein to Van Vechten [26 July 1938], note 1.
5. The Christian Science Monitor had asked for permission to print five hundred words from Everybody’s Autobiography. The excerpts, however, were not printed.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Portrait of W. G. Rogers. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
22 August [1938] [101 Central Park West New York]
Dear Baby Woojums—
Your sweet little note from the garage while they were changing oil entranced me!—F[ania] M[arinoff] got back last week, very tired, poor devil. She has been everywhere. She found the most Divine Venetian candlesticks in Paris. . I am glad you are writing an early american novel and I’m sure it will be extraordinary.
Lots of love to you both.
Carlo. Papa W.
has your villa a name? Why not Villa de la Pierre Rose?!!!1
1. The house has no particular name and is called the Manoir de Bilignin. As part of the address Van Vechten wrote “Villa de la Pierre Rose. “
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Self-portrait in Top Hat. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
[p
ostmark: 26 August 1938] [101 Central Park West New York]
Angelic Baby Woojums,
Here is another new stamp (& IOWA this time).1 A letter from Bennett [Cerf] this morning & he is very loving about you. So I guess that is all right.2 I never heard of Wm. R. Scott & I’ve enquired of 2 members of the Publishers Ass. & they never did either. But everybody has to begin & look what Donald Evans did! He became a publisher for the sole purpose of doing Tender Buttons!3 Ο I do hope 4 Sts is done in London & I’m crazy to see what you will do with a children’s book.
Love to you both,
Carlo
Fania is back with some Venetian candelabra that are killer-dillers.
1. A three-cent Iowa Territorial Centennial stamp (1838–1938). Van Vechten was born in Iowa.
2. Cerf wrote to Van Vechten, 24 August 1938 (YCAL), that he hoped to see him before sailing for Europe on the Normandie on 14 September. Cerf also expressed hope that he would see Stein while he was in Paris.
3. Evans had published a number of books of his own and by Louise Norton and Allen Norton under the imprint Claire Marie Publishers before he printed Stein’s Tender Buttons. See Evans to Stein, 18 February 1914, YCAL.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Portrait of Robert Hunt. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]1
28 August [1938] [101 Central Park West New York]
Dear Baby Woojums!
Why didn’t you send Madame [Ela] Hockaday to me on her way through? I would love to photograph anyone by that name. BUT of course I’ll NEVER be going to Texas. So write her to come BACK.
Love to you both
Papa Woojums!
1. Hunt was a friend of the poet Witter Bynner.
