William Faulkner, Screenwriter

by Stephen J. Gertz

A cache of screenplays by novelist William Faulkner is being offered by Bonham's - Los Angeles in its Fine Books and Manuscripts including Historical Photographs sale October 16, 2013. The trove comes from the Richard Manney collection via the late, great Serendipity Books of Berkeley.

You haven't lived until you've read Faulkner's hilariously contemptuous screenplay notes, i.e. "Lana tells Mary whatever sappy stuff we need here about love conquers all things, etc...."

Mimeographed Manuscript, dialogue cutting continuity script
of Today We Live, 121 pp, 4to, n.p., April 8, 1933,
in tan wrappers, the Dublin censor's copy, annotations
throughout in green, red and graphite pencil.

Today We Live is based on the Faulkner short story "Turn About," and is one of only two films based on an original story by the author, and the only screenplay based on his own work for which Faulkner received credit. Director Howard Hawks saw the piece in the Saturday Evening Post in March of 1932, bought the rights, and hired Faulkner to write the script. Soon after Faulkner turned in his first draft, Irving Thalberg asked that a part for Joan Crawford be created, since the star was available. Faulkner dutifully complied, and the film, now a love triangle between two WWI pilots and Crawford, went into production in late 1932.

The Dublin censor removed some seemingly inoffensive dialogue and imagery: a reference to sipping communion wine, a shot of a cockroach in a box, Crawford's character putting her head on her brother's shoulder.

Mimeographed Manuscript, final draft of Zero Hour,
140 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], January 27, 1936
(with blue revision pages bound in as late as
February 2, 1936), in plain blue wrappers stamped
"Twentieth Century-Fox ... Stenographic Department"
and copy #32 to title page.

Faulkner and Joel Sayer developed the present script, originally titled Wooden Crosses, then Zero Hour, and finally released as The Road to Glory, between December of 1935 and early January of 1936. The film, set in France during World War I, details trench life during that conflict. During the same period, Faulkner finalized the manscript of his most complex novel, Absalom, Absalom!

The University of Virginia's Faulkner collection has a copy of the January 27 "final" screenplay, though theirs is apparently four pages longer than this one.

Mimeographed Manuscript, screenplay of The Last Slaver,
144 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], December 3, 1936, in
blue Twentieth Century-Fox wraps stamped #1, with
initials to upper cover and annotations throughout
of studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck.

This is Darryl F. Zanuck's copy of The Last Slaver, with his initials to the upper cover and with his many annotations in ink throughout.

In July of 1936 Faulkner, his wife Estelle, and daughter Jill traveled from Mississippi to California for another swipe at the lucrative work of screenwriting, this time for Twentieth Century-Fox Studios. He was assigned to adapt The Last Slaver, based on a novel set on board a slave ship in 1845. The film would be released in 1937 as Slave Ship, starring Warner Baxter, Wallace Beery and Mickey Rooney; Faulkner received story credit for the film.

This copy is dated December 3, 1936, and though stamped "Final," a pencil notation indicates that it is not in fact the final draft. A penciled note at the lower right corner of the title page indicates this copy as the "Faulkner draft." The text is annotated throughout in pencil by Zanuck, editing dialogue and making important character suggestions ("Swifty should watch all this from a distance, taking no part").

The copy of The Last Slaver in the Carl Petersen Collection is identified as the revised final draft and bears the date of December 15, 1936 (with revisions as late as December 20). That copy is identified as the text of Faulkner's September 1936 draft minimally revised by Nunnally Johnson. The University of Virginia has Zanuck's copy of the September 24 and October 10 drafts of The Last Slaver. No other copies of a December 3 draft have been located.

Mimeographed Manuscript, first draft continuity
screenplay of Splinter Fleet, 130 pp, 4to,
[Los Angeles], December 22, 1936, in orange
Twentieth Century-Fox wrappers. WITH: Mimeographed
manuscript, shooting final screenplay of Splinter Fleet
(crossed out and re-titled in pen Submarine Patrol),
160 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], June 23, 1938,
in tan Twentieth Century-Fox wraps stamped.

This is a rare draft of an early Faulkner screenplay, along with a copy of the shooting script.

In September of 1936, Darryl Zanuck assigned Faulkner to work on the dialogue Splinter Fleet, while Kathryn Scola was tasked with keeping an eye on the story line. Faulkner told Scola that producer Gene Markey had told him to "follow the story line, but I can't find the story line" (Blotner 373). Scola told Faulkner's biographer that the dialogue was "Good Faulknerian dialogue," but that it had little to do with the story at hand, as it seemed to relate more to aerial than naval warfare.

The presence of the later shooting final script here offers a rare chance to assess how much of Faulkner's work made it into the final script (Blotner claims nothing did).

The University of Virginia has a copy dated December 7, 1936 which is one page longer than this copy; no other copies of the December 22 version have been located.

Typed Carbon on yellow foolscap, treatment of
Drums Along the Mohawk, 26 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles],
March 14, 1937, housed in blue wraps bound with brads,
with typed title and date, marked "only copy" twice
at upper margin and with ownership signature of
assistant producer Ben Silvey to upper right corner.

On March 12, 1937, Faulkner began an extended assignment for Twentieth Century-Fox Studios (Blotner p 954). Three days later he turned in this 26-page breakdown of Walter D. Edmonds' best-selling novel, Drums Along the Mohawk. Never a fan of studio work, Faulkner injects a fair amount of contempt into this treatment. From page 21: "McKlennar's house. Two Indians enter the house, set fire to it, kill Mrs. McKlennar, find Lana in bed with her child which is about three years old. They tell her the house is on fire. They are drunk. Lana forces the Indians to carry the wedding bed outside of the house. Lana gets into it again with the child. The two drunken Indians are finally driven away by the child. This will be comedy. Lana lies in bed and watches the house burn." If that's not clear enough, in his final paragraph, as the next generation is taking up the challenge of settling the new frontier, he writes, "Lana tells Mary whatever sappy stuff we need here about love conquers all things, etc...."

The University of Virginia has a mimeographed version of this treatment bearing the same date, but no typescript or other typed carbons have been located.

Mimeographed Manuscript, dialogued treatment titled
Drums Along the Mohawk, 248 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles],
July 3, 1937, housed in blue Twentieth Century-Fox
wraps bound with brads, upper cover marked "only copy."

Faulkner's full-length adaptation of Edmond's novel: From March until mid-June of 1937 Faulkner worked on this "dialogued treatment," which includes a detailed list of characters with description, a sequence-by-sequence breakdown of location, and a 238 pp screenplay. After he turned this treatment in, Faulkner was taken off the project and Lamar Trotti and Sonia Levien took over (and earned final screen credit).

Walter Edmonds' novel of the hardships endured by settlers of the Mohawk Valley in the 1700s was a runaway bestseller in 1936. Faulkner was something of a logical choice to adapt the book, given his experience writing about rural life and tensions between cultures. The contempt evident in the short treatment (See lot 2301) is no longer present here. He apparently takes the assignment seriously, crafting the long novel into a workable three act structure. Among other things, he boils down Edmonds' long subplot of servant girl Nancy Schuyler's loss of innocence and later marriage to an Indian into a single scene: after a brave surprises Nancy at a stream, the two engage in a silent dance: "CLOSE SHOT OF BOTH -- Nancy shrinks slowly back, as the Indian lifts her shawl away and touches her hair. He takes it up and examines it with interest and admiration. He gestures and speaks to Nancy in Indian. Nancy stares at him. The Indian gestures to her to get up. She doesn't move. He takes her arm and helps her up, stands facing her, takes her hair into his hands again, speaks to her in Indian. Nancy's terror goes away. He takes a small pouch from his shoulder and hands it to her, still speaking. She takes the pouch, staring at him stupidly. He taps his chest, then he taps Nancy's speaking Indian. He hangs the pouch over Nancy's shoulder, points toward the forest, advances, stops, looks back, beckons. Nancy follows him. He looks down at her feet, speaks again, approaches, takes from the pouch a pair of mocasins, drops them at Nancy's feet. She sits down and puts them on, the Indian watching. he beckons again. She rises. He turns into the forest, Nancy following."

No copies of this treatment appear in WorldCat, though the Morgan library has later treatments by Trotti and Levien that are purportedly based on this one. This script provides the unique opportunity once and for all for scholars to determine the extent of Faulkner's contribution to the final film.

Mimeographed Manuscript, final screenplay of
The Bouncer and the Lady, 134 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles],
April 7, 1941 (blue revision pages dated as late as
April 19, 1941 bound in), in blue Twentieth Century-Fox
steno department wraps, stamped #21 to title page.

In March of 1939 Faulkner worked for two days on a project titled Dance Hall, before being once more listed by the studio as "unassigned." The film was released four years later under the original title of Dance Hall and starred Carole Landis and Cesar Romero.

Typed Carbon titled "Battle Cry—Hawks,"
144 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], April 21, 1943,
treatment in prose and screenplay format,
moderate thumbing to leaves, housed in
plain blue wraps with typed title, story
department stamp, and penciled annotations
to upper right corner ("rec'd Geller9/16/43".

Faulkner's original story treatment of Battle Cry. Following Howard Hawks to Warner Bros., Faulkner was assigned to Battle Cry in early 1943. The film was to celebrate the U.S. and its allies in the world war. Hawks and Faulkner roughed out an outline, and Faulkner completed this 144 pp treatment on his own by late April. This draft was scrapped, however, and so Faulkner began again, completing a 231 pp script by June, at which point screenwriter Steve Fisher was brought in to collaborate.

Faulkner was excited about the prospect of an epic like Battle Cry making it to the screen, not the least because it would help restore the four-figure screenwriting salary he so desperately needed. The project, however, was canceled by Jack Warner, either because director Howard Hawks clashed with the studio exec, it was too sympathetic to the Soviets, or just too expensive to mount.

The 231 page expanded story treatment and the second temporary screenplay of Battle Cry were published in volume IV of Faulkner: A Comprehensive Guide to the Brodsky Collection (Oxford, MS: 1985), but this, the first treatment, remains unpublished.

Mimeographed Manuscript, revised final screenplay
of The Left Hand of God, 140 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles],
July 18, 1952, in plain blue wrappers stamped
"Please return to RKO Story Files" and "20" at
lower right, minor toning to leaves, light staining
to upper and lower wraps. WITH: HAYES, ALFRED.
Mimeographed manuscript, final draft of The Left
Hand of God, 135 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], February 22,
1955 (blue revision pages dated as late as
June 7, 1955 bound in), in blue Twentieth Century-Fox
wraps stamped copy #8 to lower right.

In early 1951 Howard Hawks reached out to Faulkner once more, asking him to come to Los Angeles and work on The Left Hand of God, a script about a former army pilot in China who escapes a warlord by masquerading as a priest (Blotner 537). Faulkner turned in a draft early, earning a bonus, and later that year the trades announced that RKO would make the film and Kirk Douglas would star. Faulkner revised the draft again in 1952 (the original typescript of the present draft appears to be with the Howard Hawks Collection at Brigham Young University), but again the project was delayed. In early 1954, Paramount and Hawks sold the property to Twentieth Century-Fox, which eventually produced the film starring Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney. The screenwriting credit went to Alfred Hayes.

• • •

There are many stories about Faulkner in Hollywood. My favorite: While under contract to Warner Brothers and unhappy and weary showing up for work to the Writer's Building on the Warner's lot in Burbank, he asked studio head Jack Warner if he could go home to write. "Sure, go ahead," Warner replied, presuming that Faulkner preferred to work alone in his house.

He did.

Days later, Warner was looking for Faulkner and couldn't find him. The writer had indeed gone home to write.

To Oxford, Mississippi.

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All images courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.

A tip o' the hat to Bonham's cataloger.
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When Brontë Met Thackeray: The Puncturing Of Inflated Expectations

by Stephen J. Gertz

This is what introduced Charlotte Bronte to William Makepeace Thackeray:

This is what introduced William Makepeace Thackeray to Charlotte Brontë aka Currer Bell:

 "There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital - a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of 'Vanity Fair' admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst who he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time - they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead.

"Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day - as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterize his talent. They say he's like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humor, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humor attractive, but both bear the same relation, to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud, does to the electric death-spark his in its womb. Finally: I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him - if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger - I have dedicated this second edition of Jane Eyre. Currer Bell Dec. 21st, 1847."

This is what Thackeray thought of Brontë's tribute:

"January 1848

My dear Mr. [William Smith] Williams,

I am quite vexed that by some blundering of mine I should have delayed answering Currer Bell's enormous compliment so long. I didn't know what to say in reply; it quite flustered and upset me. Is it true, I wonder? I'm - But a truce to egoism. Thank you for your kindness in sending me the volumes, and (indirectly) for the greatest compliment I have ever received in my life.

Faithfully yours,

W.M. Thackeray"

What happened when the two finally met face to face was a textbook case of romanticized notions of an author's greatness deflated upon meeting the superman; he was merely human and nothing at all  like Brontë had built up in her imagination. Her hero was just a guy; the glorious prophet in print was pedestrian in person, a holy man defrocked by reality and stripped of his sanctity. Lewis Melville, in his biography of Thackeray, tells the story.

"It has already been mentioned that 'Currer Bell' dedicated the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' to Thackeray, and Thackeray later acknowledged the compliment, before even he knew her name or sex, by sending her a copy of 'Vanity Fair' [first edition in book form, 1848] inscribed with his 'grateful regards.' Charlotte Bronte had been much disturbed by the widespread rumour that she had drawn Thackeray and his wife [who was mentally ill and institutionalized] as Mr. and Mrs. Rochester, though she was indifferent to those other lying reports that said she had been a governess in his family and subsequently his mistress; and when she came to London in December 1849, she eagerly accepted the offer of George Smith [1824-1901, partner in Smith, Elder & Co., publisher of Jane Eyre, The Cornhill Magazine, and Thackeray's friend], to introduce Thackeray to her.

Thackeray's inscription on his presentation copy to Brontë of Vanity Fair.

"When they did meet, she was much astonished. As the dedication to the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' shows, she had expected to find a fervent prophet, and Thackeray was simply a quiet, well-bred gentleman, with nothing in appearance to distinguish him from hosts of other men. A delightful story has been related of their meeting. It is worthy of being repeated, for, though probably apocryphal, it is amusingly true of the lady's attitude to her hero.

"'Behold, a lion Cometh up out of the North!' she quoted under her breath, as Thackeray entered the drawing-room. Thackeray, being informed of this, remarked: 'Oh, Lord ! and I'm nothing but a poor devil of an Englishman, ravenous for my dinner.' 

"At dinner. Miss Bronte was placed opposite him. 'And,' said Thackeray, 'I had the miserable humiliation of seeing her ideal of me disappearing, as everything went into my mouth, and nothing came out of it, until, at last, as I took my fifth potato, she leaned across, with clasped hands and tearful eyes, and breathed imploringly, 'Oh, Mr. Thackeray! Don't!'"

"Oh, Mr. Thackeray! Don't!"

"Thackeray was an enigma to Charlotte Bronte; she could not understand him; she was never certain whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest; but she was determined to take him seriously.

"'All you say of Mr. Thackeray is most graphic and characteristic,' she wrote to Ellen Nussey, on December 19 [1849]. 'He stirs in me both sorrow and anger. Why should he lead so harassing a life? Why should his mocking tongue so perversely deny the better feelings of his better moods?…Mr. Thackeray is a man of very quiet, simple demeanour; he is, however, looked up to with some awe and even distrust…Thackeray is a Titan of mind. His presence and powers impress one deeply in an intellectual sense; I do not know him or see him as a man. All the others are subordinate…I felt sufficiently at my ease with all but Thackeray; with him, I was fearfully stupid.'

"Charlotte Bronte came again to London in the following June [1850], and Thackeray called on her at George Smith's house, and the host, who was alone with them, afterwards described the interview as 'a queer scene.'

"'I suppose it was,' the lady wrote to Ellen Nussey. 'The giant sat before me: I was moved to speak of some of his shortcomings (literary, of course); one by one the faults came into my head, and one by one I brought them out, and sought some explanation or defence. He did defend himself, like a great Turk and heathen; that is to say, the excuses were often worse than the crime itself. The matter ended in decent amity; if all be well I am to dine at his house this evening (June 12).'

"The dinner, it must be confessed, was not a success. The party included Mrs. Crowe, the Brookfields, the Carlyles, Mrs. Procter and her daughter, and Mrs. Elliot and Miss Perry, and it should have been a bright gathering. Instead it was a gloomy and silent evening, conversation languished, the guest in whose honour all were assembled said nothing, and Thackeray, too much depressed by the failure of the entertainment, but little. Mrs. Brookfield made an effort.

"'Do you like London, Miss Bronte?' she asked; then, after a pause, the other said gravely, 'Yes — no.'

"Charlotte Bronte was the first to leave, and so soon as she had gone Thackeray slipped out of the drawing-room, and his eldest daughter was surprised to see him open the front door with his hat on.

"'He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him. When I went back to the drawing-room again, the ladies asked me where he was. I vaguely answered that I thought he was coming back,' Lady Ritchie [Thackeray's daughter] has written. 'Long years afterwards, Mrs. Procter, with a good deal of humour, described the situation — the ladies, who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and constraint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club. The ladies waited, wondered, and finally departed also; and as we were going up to bed with our candles, after everybody was gone, I remember two pretty Miss L 's, in shiny silk dresses, arriving full of expectation…We still said we thought our father would soon be back, but the Miss L's declined to wait upon the chance, laughed, and drove away again almost immediately.'

"Once more Charlotte Bronte and Thackeray met, and again a letter of the lady tells the tale.

"'I came here (London) on Wednesday, being summoned a day sooner than I expected, in order to be in time for Thackeray's second lecture, which was delivered on Thursday afternoon. This, as you may suppose, was a great treat, and I was glad not to miss it,' she wrote to Ellen Nussey, on June 2, 1851. 'As our party left the (lecture) Hall, he (Thackeray) stood at the entrance; he saw and knew me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered the words, 'Qit'eii dttes-vous?' — a question eminently characteristic and reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-control, which were among his faults. He should not have cared just then to ask what I thought, or what anybody thought; but he did care, and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress, his wish. Well! if I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his naivete. I would have praised him ; I had plenty of praise in my heart; but, alas! no words on my lips. Who has words at the right moment? I stammered lame expressions; but was truly glad when some other people, coming up with profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by their redundancy.'

"Indeed, though intensely appreciative, Charlotte Bronte proved so severe a critic, both of himself and his works, that Thackeray was not quite pleased with the various letters (printed in Mrs. Gaskell's 'Life') in which she expressed her opinions, and he said so much in his 'Last Sketch,' prefixed to 'Emma,' when, under his editorship, that fragment appeared in the Cornhill Magazine.

"'I can only say of this lady, vidi tantiim. I saw her first just as I rose out of an illness from which I had never thought to recover. I remember the trembling little frame, the little hand, the great honest eyes. An impetuous honesty seemed to me to characterise the woman. Twice, I recollect, she took me to task for what she held to be errors in doctrine. Once about Fielding we had a disputation. She spoke her mind out. She jumped to conclusions (I have smiled at one or two passages in the 'Biography' in which my own disposition or behaviour form the subject of talk). She formed conclusions that might be wrong, and built up whole theories of character upon them. New to the London world, she entered it with an independent indomitable spirit of her own; and judged of contemporaries, and especially spied out arrogance or affectation, with extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry with her favourites if their conduct or conversation fell below her ideal. Often she seemed to be judging the London folks prematurely; but perhaps the city is rather angry at being judged...

"An austere little Joan of Arc."
The ecdysiast edition for Kindle.

"'I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc marching in upon us, and rebutting our easy lives, our easy morals. She gave me the impression of being a very pure and lofty, and high-minded person. A great and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with her always. Such, in our brief interview, she appeared to me'" (Melville, The Life of William Makepeace Thackeray [1899], pp. 310-314).

• • •

While we know what Brontë and Thackeray thought when they met we have no idea what the designers of the above modern editions of their work were thinking when they met these two classics of English literature. We only know that when Brontë and Thackeray met modern packaging travesty ensued and bore two further examples of the death of civilization as we know it, whether through ignorance or a good case of bad taste while trying to breathe new life into old bones and resuscitate the once lively now near dead for 21st century readers.

But it appears to be fact of modern life that until a product of culture is sexualized it hasn't truly been integrated into the culture that produced it. In that regard, the sexualization of Jane Eyre and Vanity Fair for sales purposes may be, however dubious, the greatest compliment that can be paid to these old standards. 

"The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name" (William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair). Thackeray, the great social observer, would have been, it seems, in Playland in the 21st century; so much to satirize. His challenge, of course, would be how to satirize a society that is already a parody of itself, the modern humorist's dilemma.

"To those who think with their heads, life is a comedy, to those who think with their hearts, life is a tragedy" (Henry Miller). That's the difference between Thackeray, the cool satirist, and his contemporaries, Dickens, the warm sentimentalist, and Brontë, the suffering gothic naturalist.

“If I am against the condition of the world it is not because I am a moralist, it is because I want to laugh more. I don't say that God is one grand laugh: I say that you've got to laugh hard before you can get anywhere near God" (Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn). And cry hard. While we shed tears over the perversion of culture we are amused by it. It is not unreasonable to suspect that Thackeray would have shared that view. Sorrow is the root of comedy and to be able to laugh in the midst of tears is the best defense against utter despair. 

And so, painful though the prospect is, I look forward to Jane Erred and Venery Fair, proof-positive that there's still life in these old cougars pathetically porned-up to attract younger partners. Brontë, the judgmental moralist, would be appalled. Thackeray would be appalled, too, but the temptation to slit his wrists would be tempered by wit, the folly of human behavior trumping stern righteousness.

That's the conversation I'd have enjoyed eavesdropping on when Brontë met Thackeray, if only Thackeray had stopped shoveling potatoes into his mouth long enough to participate. She was hungry for wisdom. He was just plain hungry.

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The Amazon Of The American Revolution

by Stephen J. Gertz

I "burst the tyrant bounds which held my sex in awe."

The Female Review: or, memoirs of an American young lady whose life and character are peculiarly distinguished - being a Continental soldier (for nearly three years) in the late American War, during which she performed the duties of every department into which she was called with punctual exactness, fidelity, and honor. By a citizen of Massachusetts. Portrait engraved by Graham. Dedham: Printed by Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, for the author, 1797.

"The subject of this memoir was born at Plympton, Mass. in 1760. Disguised as a man, she enlisted in the Revolutionary Army (Fourth Mass. Regiment) under the name Robert Shurtleff, and was wounded in a skirmish at Tarrytown, N.Y. She was also present at Yorktown" (From a Boston bookseller's catalog c. 1916).

"There are few cases known to history, of women serving as soldiers, without discovery of their sex, but all, save our heroine, were in foreign armies: she remains the only one known to our own army, until 1861-65, when according to Mrs. Livermore's My Story of the War [Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington and Company. 1888], there were many in the Union Army, by one unnamed authority almost four hundred - though of course none were enlisted if their sex was known.

"It is admitted that there were two women in Washington's army who did soldier's work - Molly Pitcher of Monmouth, and Margaret Corbin of Fort Washington - But theirs was but a 'service of occasion,' and they were not regularly enlisted, as was Deborah Sampson" (Editor's note to 1916 edition).

Deborah Sampson (1760-1827) was born the daughter of impoverished farmers who claimed distinguished lineage from the early Pilgrims. Bound out as an indentured servant as a child, she became literate and taught school for six months after her indenture ended in 1779. She was five feet seven inches - tall for a girl of that era - and, according to observers, possessed a sturdy physique and was strong.

"A more headstrong and even reckless aspect to Sampson's nature appeared during the year 1782. Inspired by the events of the American Revolution, she dressed in men's clothing and enlisted in the Massachusetts militia forces under the assumed name of Timothy Thayer. Caught soon afterward and exposed as a woman masquerading in men's clothes, she was forced to yield the bounty money that was customarily paid to enlistees during that period of the revolutionary war. Unhindered by this initial setback, and rejecting a suitor who was favored by her mother, Sampson dressed in men's clothing once again and on 20 May 1782 enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, under the assumed name of Robert Shurtlieff (given variously in other sources as Shirtliff, Shurtleff, or Shirtlief). Mustered in Worcester, Massachusetts, on 23 May 1782, she marched southward to West Point, New York, as a member of the Continental army.

"Sampson saw considerable action during her year and a half in the American forces (20 May 1782-23 Oct. 1783). She took part in a battle against American Loyalists near Tarrytown, New York, where she was wounded in the thigh. Treated by a French surgeon in the American army, she extracted a musket ball from her thigh [with penknife and needle] rather than have her gender discovered. Around this same time she suffered the indignity of having the First Baptist Church of Middleborough, Massachusetts, sever its connections with her, citing her 'very loose and unchristian like' behavior" (American National Biography).

She continued her service in the Continental Army through war's end. For a brief period immediately afterward she continued to pose as a man, under the name Ephraim Sampson. But in 1784 she married Benjamin Gannett, settled down, and bore three children. Sampson suffered from the effects of her war wounds, and experienced financial difficulties.

She solicited assistance from her friend and neighbor in Canton, Massachusetts, Paul Revere, who wrote letters in her behalf, and may have provided direct financial support. Sampson was placed on the pension list of the United States in 1805 (retroactive to 1803) as the result of her petitions and the pleading of Revere.

Title page, 1916 reprint, Tarrytown, N.Y. : William Abbatt.

The diary she kept of her exploits as a soldier was lost when, returning to West Point, the boat she was in capsized. She told her wartime stories to Herman Mann, a printer, publisher, and editorial writer for the Dedham. Massachusetts Village Register.

"He interviewed her, and after much persuasion she agreed to let him write her story, with his promise that she would have the final say…but  there is reason to believe that Deborah never did get final review. Mann arranged for a list of subscribers to pay costs and promised Deborah a share of the profits, but it seems she did not receive much of these. He commissioned Joseph Stone of Framingham, Massachusetts, to paint Deborah's picture for a frontispiece for the book" (Bohrer, Glory, Passion, and Principle: The Story of Eight Remarkable Women at the Core of the American Revolution, p. 208).

Mann was loose with facts, added his own "moral reflections," and with his own vivid imagery and fanciful hyperbole related her experiences. As a result, the book is now considered to be more the product of his pen than Sampson's direct memories; his words, not hers. Mann even spelled her surname incorrectly: it is "Samson," no "p."

A more accurate recounting of Deborah Samson's exploits can be found in The Women of the American Revolution by Elizabeth F. Ellet (NY, Baker and Scribner, 1848). In the Preface, Ellet notes, "I have been told that the Female Review about this heroine was not in any measure reliable and that Deborah Samson repeatedly expressed her displeasure at the representation of herself which she did not at all recognize. The following facts respecting her I received from a lady who knew her personally and has often listened with thrilling interest to the animated description given by herself of her exploits and adventures."

In 1802 Deborah Samson began public speaking to theater audiences in New England and New York; she was the first professional woman lecturer in the United States. Billed as "The American Heroine" and wearing a blue and white uniform and armed with a musket, she performed military manual exercises while relating how she had 'burst the tyrant bounds which held my sex in awe.' The remainder of her life was uneventful.

"Sampson's wartime service was both sensational and remarkable. The activities of this American 'Joan of Arc' were in many ways more extraordinary than the heroics of persons such as Betsy Ross and Molly Pitcher. First, Sampson's military service was reasonably well documented; second, she took obvious pride and pleasure in both her service and in the manner of her disguise; and third, she attracted the attention of a revolutionary notable, Revere. Even in her own day, a Massachusetts newspaper marveled at the story of a 'lively, comely young nymph, nineteen years of age, dressed in man's apparel,' serving in the armies of the revolutionary cause" (Davis, "A 'Gallantress' Gets Her Due: The Earliest Published Notice of Deborah Sampson," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 91, no. 2 (1981): p. 322). "As was the case with many heroes and heroines of the Revolution, Deborah Sampson Gannett's name faded from the public memory by the mid-nineteenth century" (American National Biography).

Lost in obscurity Deborah Samson was rediscovered by the feminist movement during the late 1960s. In 1983 Deborah Samson was formally proclaimed "Official Heroine of the State of Massachusetts."

The first edition of The Female Review is quite rare; according to ABPC only two copies have come to auction within the last thirty-seven years. Only one copy of the 1866 reprint has seen the auction rooms during the same period. There are no copies of the 1797, 1866, or 1916 (with biographical corrections) editions currently being offered by anyone, anywhere in the world; the book is as scarce as can be.

But for those interested in reading this tale of the American Revolution's amazon in male drag the full text is available online.

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[SAMPSON, Deborah] [MANN, Herman]. The Female Review: or, memoirs of an American young lady whose life and character are peculiarly distinguished - being a Continental soldier (for nearly three years) in the late American War, during which she performed the duties of every department into which she was called with punctual exactness, fidelity, and honor. By a citizen of Massachusetts. Portrait engraved by Graham. Dedham: Printed by Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, for the author, 1797.

First edition. Twelvemo. xv, [16]-258, [8] pp. Frontispiece portrait by Stone, engraved by Graham.

Sabin 44314.

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Poet & Literary Hoaxster John Glassco On Pornography, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Etc.

by Stephen J. Gertz

 

Scraping the crumbling roadbed of this strife
With rotting fenceposts and old mortgages
(No way of living, but a mode of life),
How sift from death and waste three grains of duty,
O thoughts that start from scratch and end in a dream
Of graveyards minding their own business?

But the heart accepts it all, this honest air
Lapped in green valleys where accidents will happen!

                     — John Glassco, "The Rural Mail"

What distinguishes good porn from bad? Is there an aesthetic of pornography? Are porn novels an essentially romantic genre of literature? What are the true rewards of authorship? Is Margaret Atwood a sexual fetishist? And did Leonard Cohen really want to give up singing and join the Israeli army?

Last year, A Gentleman of Pleasure, literary historian Brian Busby's biography of the enigmatic Canadian poet, memoirist, acclaimed translator of French-Canadian poetry, novelist, pornographer, and literary hoaxster, John Glassco, the self-proclaimed "great practitioner of deceit," was published. Now, Mr. Busby presents The Heart Accepts It All, a selection of Glassco's letters.

Glassco's correspondents included novelist Kay Boyle; poet and novelist, Robert McAlmon; Olympia Press publisher Maurice Girodias; novelist, poet, and critic Malcolm Cowley; novelist Margaret Atwood; Henry James' biographer, Leon Edel; and many other literary notables, including novelist, literary and cultural critic, and professor, Geoffrey Wagner, who, under the pseudonym, P.N. Dedeaux, wrote a handful of erotic novels in the 1960s and early '70s that remain amongst the best written of the era.

DEDEAUX, P.N. [Geoffrey Wagner]. The Tutor.
Wilmington, Delaware: Taurus Publications, 1970.
Distributed by All America Distributors Corp.
True first edition, reprinted by Venus Library (Grove Press), 1971.

DEDEAUX, P.N. [Geoffrey Wagner]. Tender Buns.
North Hollywood: Essex House #0126, 1969.
First edition.

Glassco, whose Memoirs of Montparnasse (1970) is considered to be the best view of expatriate Paris in the 1920s, had a gift for stylistic imitation. He seamlessly completed Aubrey Beardsley's unfinished erotic novel, Under the Hill (aka Venus and Tannhauser) for Olympia Press in Paris (1959). He wrote the erotic poem, Squire Hardman, which he mischievously ascribed to George Colman the Younger, a once popular British dramatist and writer of the late eighteenth- early nineteenth centuries).

First edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970.

He was the author of what is arguably the best-selling, most popular erotic novel in English of all time, The English Governess by Miles Underwood (Paris: Ophelia Press [Olympia Press], 1960) aka Harriet Marwood, Governess, The Authentic Confessions of Harriet Marwood, An English Governess; The Governess; Under the Birch, and who knows how many other reprint titles, a novel so often pirated that it may hold a record in that department, too. Glassco also wrote Fetish Girl by Sylvia Bayer, which he, with a gallant wink, dedicated, "To John Glassco."

He wrote the Introduction to The Temple of Pederasty by Ihara Saikaku, translated by Hideki Okada (Brandon House/Hanover House, 1970). He wrote more than the Introduction.  The book, purportedly based on one by the very real 17th century Japanese poet and novelist, Ihara Saikaku (1642-93), the volume is an grand exercise in literary deception. The translator, 'the late Dr. Hideki Okada,' is actually Glassco himself. Glassco's translation (in his word, "interpolation") is, for the most part, derived from Ken Sato's unintentionally hysterical and inept translation of Saikaku's Quaint Stories of the Samurais, a collection of homoerotic tales published by Robert McAlmon, Paris, 1928.

In Glassco's letters to Wagner he shares his thoughts on literary pornography.

"Ours are only more sophisticated, in better taste, more literate and civilized. In my 'Art of Pornography' I have hazarded a tentative definition of the genre, in so far as it can be considered a branch of literary art, as 'that kind of aphrodisiac writing which, no matter to what sexual disposition of vagary it is addressed, can command the interest of a judicious reader of dissimilar psychosexual disposition.' This rules out all kinds of trash but leans heavily on imponderables. I was simply trying to formulate some definition, to isolate what we know is good pornography (Cleland, Nerciat, Voisenon, Beardsley, Swinburne) from the mass of rubbish like Rosa Fielding, The Lustful Turk, etc. and such dead horses as poor Steven Marcus flogs so pointlessly [in The Other Victorians]. I was subjecting pornography to an aesthetic test: perhaps thereby imposing on it a dead critical hand. - the essential mystery of sadomasochism itself remains dark, and I for one shall never unravel it. All I know is that like all forms of psychosexuality it is auto-erotic, subjective, and the partner sought (and sometimes found, and isn't this a blessing) in real life is only a projection of one's own self. One does find one's alter-ego, as I know; and so does she, and then everything in the garden is lovely, even for years.  The real Luv arrives, and dulls the sharp end of sex, and both go wandering off on their endless quest for variety, separately alas, still seeking some new double version of the self..."

"Dear old Bizarre! It was an oasis back in the dreary fifties. Yes, I remember the wonderful photo of of Mlle Polaris, the Queen of the Wasp-waists, in her extraordinary corset, which John Willie unearthed and reprinted….He was a Pioneer. Though his pony-girl fantasy, in monthly episodes, did get rather tedious: the writing was so amateur…

"Thanks for your suggestion that I send the Governess to the Penthouse Book Society. Alas, I sold all British rights outright, in dear Harriet to one Aaron M. Shapiro of New York for $1,000 down and 50% of everything he can get over this. And notre cher Maurice G. owns the rights to the obscene version. He still owes me $500 (due last July) but what hope. So I am now only an onlooker of the progress of this absurd book. It gives me unexampled delight to see it on drugstore counters and being bought by liplicking trembly-handed gents on Montreal. These are the true rewards of authorship" (Sept 3, 1968).

North Hollywood: Hanover House (Brandon House), 1970.

On April 12, 1970, copies of Glassco's Temple of Pederasty sent to him by the publisher in California were intercepted at the Canadian border, examined in Ottawa, and determined to be "immoral or indecent." On April 24th, Glassco wrote Wagner:

"I just might make an issue of this. I am consulting our great F.R. Scott (Lady Chatterley's Lawyer) about this next week. After all, these 18 free copies are mine by right, aren't they? I'm mad as hell about this virtual confiscation of my proputty."

On June 16, 1971, Glassco wrote Wagner:

"Thank you so much for Gynecocracy [1893] and The Boudoir [1880s magazine]: they are both banned in this moral province [Quebec]. These Victorian things have always had a great appeal to me, largely as period pieces. In spite of or perhaps because of their awkwardness, bad grammar and super-abundance of cliché (descriptively, the girls simply don't exist!), they are still readable and often stimulating. What I find their greatest fault is their lack of verisimilitude, the demands they make on the reader for an utter suspension of common sense, and a certain monotony. But what is most interesting is that their very situations, action and preoccupations are still being reproduced in places like the correspondence column of Justice Weekly: in porno, there is almost nothing new under the sun! - Well, these old books were of course for the most part carelessly and hastily written: Gynecocracy begins rather well but falls down badly about half-way through, with absurdity piled on absurdity as the  author either became tired or lost all sense of proportion. I think you and I have done much better in the genre; the next generation will be reading us, rather than them, I'm sure…Even at that, however, I think we tend to bypass reality rather too much: it's such a temptation to let one's fancy lightly fly! And to pile things on. At least it is so in my case:I've forgotten Horace's ne nimium advice much too often.

"But this raises the whole question of an aesthetic of pornography, the matter of raising it to the plane of art, as Cleland and Nerciat somehow did. Perhaps we should try and forget the Victorians: they are, subtly, too much with us, too sweetly oppresive by reason of their décor, richness and nostalgia. But what milieu, what locus, can take their place? Our art is essentially romantic, and seeks a never-never climate; yet it must, I think, take more account of reality than it has in the past. This means, to begin with, it must have a strong story-line, a good skeleton as it were; it should also be psychologically viable; and should even have a certain moral truth such as it had in the 18th century. Perhaps this involves giving our work a wry, tragic, or unhappy ending. Quite a programme, indeed!"

For all his genius as an editor-publisher, Maurice Girodias was a poor businessman with a casual attitude about contracts and author payments. Everyone who wrote for Maurice Girodias had complaints and Glassco was no exception.

On September 26, 1966 Glassco sent Girodias a postal spear with firm point.

"It has…come to my notice that you have published a book called Under the Birch, using the text of The English Governess, and are apparently selling it in various countries. This is a breach on copyright, since under our agreement of 30 March 1960, you had only the right to reprint The English Governess on payment to me of NF 3000 for each reprint. The new title means a new publication, not a reprint…

"In view of the difficulties I have experienced in the past in ensuring performance of our agreement of 30 March 1960 I am sure you will understand my insistence on payment of the $1000 in Canadian funds within three months of the date of this letter…"

On May 11, 1967, Glassco wrote Girodias again, his spear inspired by Nabokov's Lolita.

"Dear Maurice (if I may):

"I have just been reading your 'Sad Ungraceful Tale of Lolita' in the reprinted Olympia Reader, and was struck by the undoubted fact that Lolita would not, as you point out, heve been published at all; but for you: at which point I realized that this also holds true for Under the Hill, and that my last letter to you was written in an unduly heated state of mind…

"…There is a chance I may be sent to Paris on a government cultural mission in a week or so…I hope then to have the pleasure of calling on you, and talking on all subjects except that of money.

"Yours with kindest regards, John G."

Later in that year, Glassco wrote again to Girodias in response to a request (and Girodias' plan to reprint The English Governess in the U.S. under his Olympia Press- NY imprint). The request remains intriguing:

"Some new Sade translations might be within my powers this winter. My versions would be quite unlike [Austryn] Wainhouse's as to constitute original translation…Sade has a good clear rhetorical style, a little turgid, but full of a life and vivacity which do redeem the dryness and tedium of his philosophical ideas…All the English versions of Sade I've ever seen are quite unworthy of this inspired madman who surpasses St. Francis of Assisi in the scope of his ideas. Sade is the moral Columbus of our epoch."

Margaret Atwood interested in fetishism? Leonard Cohen in the Israeli army?

"June 16, 1971

"Dear Peggy

Thank you so much for The Undergrowth of Literature [by Gillian Freeman, 1967, a survey of sexual fantasy in literature]. I was specially struck by the chapter on rubber fetishism, which I can see is rampant over there [in England]. As a latex fan since the age of 4 (my true Venus has always worn a frogman's suit), I enjoyed it enormously. Also, I had just finished a short novel [Fetish Girl] whose characters wallow delicate in this fetish, and it was encouraging to read about its popularity in the U.K…

"…Leonard Cohen tells me he is finished with Literature and chansonnerie and suggests we both join the Israeli army…"

NY: Venus Library, 1972. First edition.

In 1971 Glasco submitted the first chapter of Fetish Girl to Fraser Sutherland, publisher of Northern Journey, a Canadian literary journal, for publication.

"You may find FG disappointing. But don't forget that this is formula commercial pop-porno, beginning mildly because the action must always be a constant crescendo and all subsequent chapters depend closely on each other, and they can't be isolated. - By the way, FG is the first rubber-fetish novel ever written. [N.B. It was not. That honor lies with Rubber Goddess by Lana Preston (Paul Hugo Little, 1967).

"If you take this chapter - and please feel free to reject it in spite of your kind sight-uneen acceptance! - it must appear under the name of its true author Miss Sylvia Bayer, as the entire book will; nor should any reference be made to its publication this fall by Grove Press [under its Venus Library imprint], since this may invalidate her contract.

"I will send you a recent glossy of myself, and one of Miss Bayer, too…"

"To The Editors Of Northern Journey, July 15, 1971.

Dear Sirs: -

My good friend John Glassco has just told me you have accepted the first chapter of my latest novel Fetish Girl and I am delighted.

I understand you would like to use a photograph and to print some kind of introductory-biographical note.

I enclose the photograph. As for the note here also is a suggested first person text giving all relevant information and you can 3rd-person alter, cut, telescope or rearrange as you see fit. Only I must see the final text of whatever note you mean to use, I'm sorry to put you to this extra trouble, but I have to do it.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Sylvia Fenwick-Owen, 1224 Bishop St.,
Montreal 107
P.Q.

P.S. May I beg you to keep my home address quite confidential. Thank you."

Whose photograph did Glassco submit as that of "Sylvia Bayer?" His first wife, Elma. Fraser Sutherland had no idea. Glassco's friends did and were startled.

It remains a mystery just who John Glassco really was. For all the light Mr. Busby has diligently shone on the man, and no matter how revealing his letters, John Glassco remains, however open, charming and generous of spirit - his heart, indeed, accepted it all - something of a puzzle, he seemed to prefer it that way, and he's all the more fascinating because of it. He enjoyed pseudonymity and creating a tall-tale context for his erotica. His pleasure was writer as actor portraying his characters. He was one of Canada's gifts to literature, a gentleman litterateur in a smoking jacket with a talent for literary sex.

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Full disclosure: Mr. Busby is a friend, and in the book generously acknowledges the meager assistance I provided by answering a few questions.

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Kierkegaard's Silver Quill At Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's silver quill, finely wrought as an elegant feather, is being offered by Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Copenhagen in its International Paintings, Antiquities and Modern Art sale on September 18, 2013. It is estimated to sell for €10,000-€13,000 ($13,295 - $17,282).

The quill, 16.3 cm long (just shy of 6 1/2 inches), has passed down through the Høyernielsen family, descendants of Kierkegaard's sister, Nicoline. According to family tradition, it is the only pen he is known to have meticulously and diligently used to set down his thoughts, which flooded out of his head, poured down his arm, ran into his fingers through to pen and burst onto paper.

In 1955, this pen was exhibited at the Royal Library's Memorial Exhibition on Kierkegaard, and it was also depicted in the exhibition's catalog.

Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the father of existentialism who considered himself a Christian poet, was a compulsive, profound and prolific writer with a chronic itch. In 1838, he wrote in his journal, "Ingen dag uden en streg" ("No day without a line"). Later, in 1847, he noted, "Only when I'm writing do I feel well. I forget all unpleasantness and sufferings, I am with my thoughts and happy. If I stop for only a few days I feel immediately sick, overwhelmed, labored, my head heavy and weighed down."

As a youth the prominent Danish literary and cultural critic, Georg Brandes (1842-1927), was witness to Kierkegaard's fervent urge to write. In his memoirs (1880) he recalled walking past Kierkegaard's apartment and catching sight of him through a window:

"The strange Thinker went back and forth during a silence that was only broken by pen scratching on paper [...] in all rooms lay pen, paper and ink [...] Never in all existence has ink played so great a role."

Note that the pen has no nib. By the 1830's, quill pens, which sucked up ink into their hollow via capillary action and required that the feather be often sliced at its point to maintain a sharp nib, had been replaced by dip pens with steel nibs (the pen itself) inserted into pen-holders, as here.  Steel nibs were sturdier, kept their sharpness, lasted longer, and had the added advantage of being a much neater implement, not spilling ink all over paper and fingers. The next step in the evolution of pens was the fountain pen. Had Kierkegaard lived long enough to enjoy their use, the fountain would have required the capacity of Niagara Falls to handle the rush of words that cascaded forth.

His pen in overdrive, Kierkegaard wrote seventy-three works during his lifetime, many under pseudonyms including Johannes Climacus, Nicolas Notabene, Vigilius Haufniensis, Frater Taciturnus, Johannes de Silentio, Constantin Constantius, Victor Eremita, and my personal favorite, Hilarius Bookbinder, who, I imagine, thinks that binding a book in infant-soiled publisher's diaper cloth glued with anti-bacterial zinc oxide paste and dusted with Johnson's Baby Powder is a laff-riot.

Philosophy being a notoriously low-paying gig, one wonders how Kierkegaard could afford such an  extravagant and expensive pen. He was, however, born into wealth and died in it, never held a job, and never, ever had to worry about paying bills, which tends to burn a lot of mental energy that Kierkegaard had the luxury to conserve for that other consuming preoccupation, the anxiety of existence.

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Images courtesy of Bruun Rasmussen auctions, with our thanks.
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Progress Is Chanel No. 5 On The Rocks, Wrote Captain Beefheart

by Stephen J. Gertz

An original poem in manuscript composed by musician, artist, and poet Don Van Vliet (1941-2010), aka Captain Beefheart, in 1975 with an accompanying drawing of a foot surrounded by musical notes (a Beefheart "footnote") has come to market. Manuscript material and original drawings by Vliet are highly desirable and extremely scarce. Offered by Royal Books the asking price is $9,500.

A letter of provenance from music writer, record producer, concert promoter, and deejay  Bill Bentley explains the circumstances of this poem's composition:

"In 1975 I interviewed Captain Beefheart at the Armadillo World Headquarters for the Austin Sun. Beefheart was appearing there with Frank Zappa's band, recording a live album [Bongo Fury]. After the interview I asked Captain Beefheart to draw me a picture, since he was doodling as we spoke...

Poster verso to poem, 11 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches.

"He got a poster from another Armadillo show and on the back quickly wrote out this poem. The words flowed out of him spontaneously. He signed it and handed it to me, and then took it back. He added at the end, 'Progress is Chanel No. 5 on the rocks,' and then drew a foot around those words with notes circling it. He called it his 'footnote.' As I got ready to leave, I started to fold the poster. He said very loudly, 'No!' He took it from me and rolled it up before handing it back, and said 'Some day you'll thank me.' He didn't want me to crease the poster, knowing it would adversely affect the value. We ran the poem along with the interview shortly after in the Austin Sun."

The poem reads:

train the
Caboose
its not Zen
its
Zrite znow
when the ocean
is wounded it
takes the whole
world to heal.
Ah, Eden [?] is
the thing that
runs down
the back of
your leg
that makes
your foot
work
Cough
it isn't worth
getting into the
bull's shit to find
Out what the bull ate.
ah joint is part of
today's anatomy
an artist is one
Who kids him
Self the most
gracefully
A psychiatrist is
one who wishes to
die in your other
life

Don Van Vliet '75

Progress is
Chanel Number 5
on the rocks

Don Van Vliet began his career in high school in Lancaster, CA as vocalist in a band with Frank Zappa on drums. The journey of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - whose third album, Trout Mask Replica (released by Zappa's Straight Records in 1969), is #60 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and, inspired, in part, by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman, redefined the boundaries of rock music and continues to influence - is too tortured to recount here. 

"On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like a wild, incomprehensible rampage through the blues. Don Van Vliet growls, rants and recites poetry over chaotic guitar licks" (Rolling Stone).

"I thought [Trout Mask Replica] was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me – and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realized they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard" (Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons).

Unsurprisingly, it's reported to be director David Lynch's favorite album of all time.

Of Vliet's poetry, it began to pour forth early on, separately and through his lyrics. It was first collected in Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush (1991), followed by Riding Some Kind Of Unusual Skull Sleigh (2003) and Don Van Vliet Paintings and Poetry (2007). Each volume has become highly collectable with prices continuing to rise with his reputation in the midst of a limited number of copies.

In a nod to carping ichthyologists who've been aching for a correction, yes, the trout in the cover shot of Trout Mask Replica is a carp. The trout, apparently, weren't running on the day of the shoot which is why Beefheart wears a trout mask replica and not a carp mask original.

At age twenty in 1971, I lived on Clark Street, a short distance up the hill north of the Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. (Remind me to tell you about the time I met Wild Man Fischer at Sun-Bee Market across the street). When multiple guests came by and overstayed their welcome, I'd play Trout Mask Replica (with Stockhausen's Gesang de Junglinge as back-up) to clear the room and two minutes later be alone to enjoy it myself. It was easy listening music to my ears, divinely savaged at age thirteen when I heard Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps for the first time and fell in love with dissonance and polyrhythms.  Discordant prose and poetry soon followed.

Click here for an index of Don Van Vliet's poetry. The poem under notice has, it seems, been forgotten; it is not included.

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Poem and poster images courtesy of Royal Books, with our thanks.
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