Steinbeck (2 page)

Nearly everybody responded. Some letters were still in the possession of the original addressees, some had been disposed of to collectors or university libraries. A surprising number had been kept from the time when Steinbeck's name was unknown. People heard of the project and volunteered material or suggested further sources. Letters poured in.

Of course there were disappointments: a few flat refusals, correspondents unable to find letters they were sure they had kept, letters lost when recipients had died. A few dealers refused because, they said, publication would lower the market value of the originals. And some close members of Steinbeck's family felt that their privacy would be violated by seeing their letters in print.

But we had many more than we could use in a volume designed for the general public with no pretensions to inclusiveness. All letters were read aloud, some several times over as they survived elimination. We began by reading collections of correspondence to a single recipient, but it soon became clear that if we were to trace Steinbeck's development as man and writer, his letters must be evaluated and presented chronologically. This involved the tricky business of assigning dates where he had not done so and where envelopes with postmarks were lost. Ordinarily the year meant nothing to him. The month usually had to be learned from the contents. He frequently headed a page with something as uninformative as “Tuesday—I think.”

The tests of internal evidence were several: where was he living? Though in the early years he moved about so much, often using letterheads from previous addresses, that uncertainty was compounded. What flowers did he say were blooming? What pets were ill? What holidays was he celebrating? But because manuscripts are the milestones of a writer's life, the basic problem was to place these milestones in time: what was being published, and what was he working on? Here again we encountered difficulties because he started so many works he did not finish, or even name, and because he rewrote some of them so many times.

He himself had told a friend, “There is a difference between writing letters and answering them.” Those that were mere answers we discarded. Inevitably in such a huge output there were trivial, tedious, repetitious, or “duty” letters, and these, too, were eliminated, as were some whose impact had been dulled by the passage of time. But we still had too many and were forced to conclude that we must sacrifice almost all material that had ever been published before.

Among the letters we retained, we have abbreviated a good number. Steinbeck was an austere self-editor of works intended for publication, but by his own confession he frequently over-wrote, and he did so especially in letters to people he knew well. He neither reconsidered nor made corrections, any more than he would have in conversation. He often rambled, repeated, or mentioned matters that readers might find obscure. These passages we have cut.

There has been only one criterion throughout: is it interesting? In no case have we omitted a letter or a passage from a letter to alter or modify either meaning or intention.

In a way he left us instructions. He advised a friend who was planning to give his collection of Steinbeck letters to a library, “If you would look through these and ink out references that might hurt feelings of some living person, it might be good.” On the other hand, when he was considering the publication of a diary that was later issued posthumously as
Journal of a Novel,
he spoke of retaining “the personal things,” and added, “They do give it a bite.” We have tried to follow both precepts.

More than two years passed as our work progressed. Material piled up, gaps in time were filled, chronology sorted itself out. And it was not till we reread a nearly completed first draft that, with some astonishment, we saw the real nature of the book. It was not an anthology to be merely sampled. It was a narrative. In a way that even Steinbeck could not have foreseen as he was creating the individual jigsaw pieces of this puzzle whose final picture would be visible only at a distance and in its entirety, he had, in these letters that deal with the “many tracks” he left, written the story of his life.

E.S.
R.W.

Early in his career John Steinbeck stated a position about the technical side of his manuscripts from which he never deviated. He was writing to a friend, another writer.

“I want to speak particularly of your theory of clean manuscript and spelling as correct as a collegiate stenographer and every nasty little comma in its place and preening of itself. I have the instincts of a minstrel rather than those of a scrivener. When my sounds are all in place, I can send them to a stenographer who knows his trade and he can slip the commas about until they sit comfortably and he can spell the words so that school teachers will not raise their eyebrows when they read them. Why should I bother?”

If this was his attitude about manuscripts, his disdain for spelling and punctuation in letters may be imagined.

We have assumed the role of the collegiate stenographer only up to a point. In order to retain a characteristic wayward color, we have corrected only the most outrageous misspellings, and added punctuation only for purposes of readability.

For similar purposes of readability, we have not used ellipses or other devices to indicate internal cuts. Nor have we used footnotes. Necessary information has been placed in narrative bridges or sometimes within letters. Dates or points of origin supplied by us appear in brackets, as do certain identifications or editorial comments within the text of the letters themselves. An appendix contains facts about letters quoted—the present location of the originals and where, when, and to whom they were written. References in this appendix are by page number except in those cases where ambiguity results from there being more than one letter on a page. Such references are additionally identified by a few words from the first line of the letter.

A book like this confronts its designer with extraordinary and complicated problems. We are fortunate that it was Barbara D. Knowles of The Viking Press who solved them. We are grateful to Professor Jackson J. Benson of San Diego State College for his zeal in providing us with photocopies and microfilm transcriptions of many letters, and to the scores of Steinbeck correspondents, librarians, and curators who were kind enough to share their letters with us. They are individually listed in the appendix. Most particularly, we are grateful to Elizabeth Otis, to whom John Steinbeck bequeathed all rights in the letters written to her and who has most generously turned them over to us.

Our special thanks go to Gertrude Chase who joined us in this project at the beginning and who soon proved herself far more than a secretary. Her efficiency, enthusiasm, perseverance, and good humor made a complex task considerably lighter.

1823
to
1932
Slemluch

“...
thinking ponderously and secking ...”

John Ernst Steinbeck born February 27 in Salinas,
1902
California. His father was manager of a flour mill and treasurer of Monterey County; his mother had been a schoolteacher. He was the third of four children and the only son.

 

1919
Graduated from high school. Began intermittent attendance at Stanford University.

 

1924
First publication, two stories in the Stanford Spectator.

 

1925
Left Stanford. Went to New York City. Wrote short stories but could find no publisher.

 

1926
Returned to California and continued to write, supporting himself with a variety of jobs.

 

1929 First novel published,
Cup of Gold.

1930 Married Carol Henning and moved to the family cottage in Pacific Grove.

 

1931
Began permanent association with McIntosh and Otis, his literary agents.

Lake Tahoe
Winter 1926
Monday

Dear Toby:

Do you know, one of the things that made me come here, was, as you guessed, that I am frightfully afraid of being alone. The fear of the dark is only part of it. I wanted to break that fear in the middle, because I am afraid much of my existence is going to be more or less alone, and I might as well go into training for it. It comes on me at night mostly, in little waves of panic, that constrict something in my stomach. But don't you think it is good to fight these things? Last night, some quite large animal came and sniffed under the door. I presume it was a coyote, though I do not know. The moon had not come up, and when I ran outside there was nothing to be seen. But the main thing was that I was frightened, even though I knew it could be nothing but a coyote. Don't tell any one I am afraid. I do not like to be suspected of being afraid.

As soon as you can, get to work on the Little Lady [A Green Lady, a play Street was writing]. Keep your eye on cost of production, small and inexpensive scenes, few in the cast and lots of wise cracks, as racy as you think the populace will stand. Always crowd the limit. And also if you have time, try your hand on a melo drahmar, something wild, and mysterious and unexpected with characters turning out to be other people and some of them turning out to be nobody at all.

And if you can find a small but complete dictionary lying about anywhere send it to me. I have none, and apparently the Brighams [his employers] are so perfect in their mother tongue that they do not need one.

I shall send you some mss pretty soon if you wish. I have been working slowly but deliciously on one thing. There is something so nice about being able to put down a sentence and then look it over and then change it, sometimes taking half an hour over two lines. And it is possible here because there seems to be no reason for rush.

If, on going through Salinas, you have the time, you might look in on my folks and tell them there is little possibility of my either starving or freezing. Be as honest as you can, but picture me in a land flowing with ham and eggs, and one wherein woolen underdrawers grow on the fir trees. Tell them that I am living on the inside of a fiery furnace, or something.

It's time for me to go to the post office now, I will cease without the usual candle-like spluttering. Write to me when and as often as you get a chance. I shall depend on the mail quite a lot.

love
John