ESSAYS AND OTHER WRITINGS
419.19–21 Little Women . . . Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.] Little Women (1868–69) and Little Men (1871), novels by American writer Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888); Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland (1865), novel by American writer Mary Maples Dodge (1831–1905); Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), novel by French writer Jules Verne (1828–1905).
423.28–29 Child Life . . . True Confessions] Child Life, American children’s magazine published from 1922 until it was incorporated into Children’s Digest magazine in 2007; True Confessions, American magazine, founded in 1922, directed at a teenage and young female audience with its purportedly true stories, often of a salacious and sensational nature.
424.1–2 Come, little leaves . . . play] From the children’s song “Come, Little Leaves,” based on the poem by American poet George Cooper (1838–1927) with music by American composer Thomas J. Crawford (1877–1955).
426.1–4 Hang up . . . yet] Song (1870), music by American composer Hiram Murray Higgins (1822–1879), with lyrics from a poem by American lyricist and children’s magazine editor Emily Huntington Miller (1833–1913).
433.14 C.C.C.] Civilian Conservation Corps.
439.12–13 Company K, A Farewell to Arms, The Road to War, and The Enormous Room.] Books about World War I written by men who had served in the U.S. armed forces during the conflict: Company K (1933), novel by William March (pseud. William Edward Campbell, 1893–1954); A Farewell to Arms (1929), novel by Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961); Road to War: America 1914–1917 (1935), study by journalist, editor, and historian Walter Millis (1899–1968); The Enormous Room (1922), novel by American poet E. E. Cummings (1894–1962).
442.1 Love’s Not Time’s Fool] From Shakespeare’s sonnet 116.
442.31–32 Orphan Annie . . . Flip Corkin] Heroine of the comic strip Little Orphan Annie, created by Harold Gray (1894–1968); character from the comic strip Terry and the Pirates, created by Milton Caniff (1907–1988), which began newspaper publication in 1934.
448.21–22 All the whole world . . . peace.] From a translation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti from the opening lines of a poem by the twelfth-century Italian poet Folcachiero de’ Folcachieri.
453.30 “Ein Edler Mensch,”] A noble man; cf. 26.24.
455.32–33 “What a man thinks of himself . . . his fate.”] From Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau.
455.38–40 “That silent meeting . . . men’s lives.”] From Of Time and the River (1935) by Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938).
457.10 Lillian Smith] Lillian Eugenia Smith (1897–1966), American novelist and civil rights advocate best known for her 1944 novel Strange Fruit. With her companion Paula Snelling (1899–1985), she founded the progressive Southern journal Pseudopodia, later known as North Georgia Review and The South Today. For many years Smith and Snelling operated a girls’ camp in Clayton, Georgia.
457.34 “une petite combine”] French: a little scheme.
464.12 Mr. Pickwick] I.e., Charles Dickens’s first novel The Pickwick Papers (1836).
464.17–18 The Rover Boys . . . Tom Swift] The Rover Boys and Tom Swift (see note 7.10) were heroes of two series of children’s adventure novels created by Edward Stratemeyer (1863–1930) and continued by his fiction syndicate.
464.31 Argosy magazines] Pulp adventure magazine founded by American author and publisher Frank Munsey (1854–1925) in 1889.
464.35 “The Lost Child”] Novel (1926) by the German actor, dancer, and novelist Rahel Sanzara (pseud. Johanna Bleschke, 1894–1936).
467.30–31 his introduction to M. M.’s “Memoirs of the Foreign Legion.”] Memoirs of the Foreign Language (1924), posthumous publication of a manuscript originally entitled “Dregs” by Maurice Magnus (1876–1920), an American who had joined and deserted the French Foreign Legion during World War I, left unfinished at the time of his suicide. Lawrence wrote the book’s introduction.
467.33 “My name is Ishmael!”] Cf. the opening of Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851): “Call me Ishmael.”
470.25 D. S. Mirsky] Russian literary historian (1890–1939), author of the English-language History of Russian Literature (1927), from which the quote about Dostoevsky is taken.
471.30 Tobacco Road] Popular novel (1932) about Georgia sharecroppers by Erskine Caldwell (1903–1987), adapted into a long-running play.
471.40 Aksakov] Sergey Timofeyevich Aksakov (1791–1859), Russian writer known for his autobiographical family stories.
473.39 Herzen] Russian political philosopher and editor Alexander Herzen (1812–1870), advocate for the peasantry, author of the novel Who Is to Blame? (1845–46).
480.40 Berkeley Cole and Denys Finch Hatton.] Berkeley Cole (1882–1925), Anglo-Irish aristocrat, expatriate in the British Kenya colony, and a friend of Karen Blixen (1885–1962) described in her memoir Out of Africa (1937), published under her pseudonym Isak Dinesen. Denys Finch Hatton (1887–1931), British aristocrat, game hunter, and prominent member of the expatriate community in the Kenya colony; he was a friend of Cole and a lover of Blixen, as depicted in Out of Africa.
481.24 Rungsted Kyst] The suburban area along the coast of North Zealand, north of Copenhagen, Denmark, where Karen Blixen grew up.
481.31 Cecil Beaton] British photographer and designer (1904–1980).
481.35 Bébé Bérard] French stage designer and painter Christian Bérard (1902–1949).
486.1 “The Mute”] McCullers’s working title for her novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. This outline was submitted to a fiction contest sponsored by Houghton Mifflin, which led to the novel being published (see Chronology, 1938, and pp. 539–40).
512.12 Lizzie Borden’s] Lizzie Borden (1860–1927) was tried and acquitted for the ax murders of her father and stepmother on August 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts.
512.36–37 Terence who said, “Nothing human is alien to me.”] In Terence’s play Heauton Timoroumenos (The Self-Tormentor): “Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto” (I am a man; I count nothing human as alien to me).
514.6–7 once wrote to Cosima Wagner] McCullers may be referring to a letter addressed not to Cosima Wagner (1837–1930), daughter of Franz Liszt and widow of Richard Wagner, but to his sister Elisabeth: “Get me a small circle of men who will listen to me and understand me—and then I shall be cured!” (July 8, 1886).
518.31–32 “Je regrette . . . français—”] French: I am very sorry but I do not speak French.
522.6 Saint Subber] Arnold Saint-Subber (1918–1994), American theatrical producer who produced the 1957 Broadway staging of McCullers’s The Square Root of Wonderful.
POEMS
530.1 Post coitum, omnia tristia sunt.] Latin: after intercourse, everyone is sad.
532.15 it is finished] Christ’s final words (John 19:30), a translation of the Greek tetélestai or Latin (from the Vulgate) consummatum est.
533.12 Hyacinth’s] Beautiful youth in Greek mythology who was the lover of the god Apollo, who accidentally killed him with a discus directed by a gust from Zephyrus, god of the west wind and an unrequited rival for Hyacinth’s affections. Apollo mourned his death by creating a flower from his blood, which was then stained with the god’s tears.
533.28–29 bones of Hart Crane . . . ocean’s floor] American poet Hart Crane (1899–1932) committed suicide by leaping off the deck of the SS Orizaba on April 27, 1932.
ILLUMINATION AND NIGHT GLARE
537.1 Illumination and Night Glare] McCullers’s incomplete, fragmentary autobiography written in her last years and published posthumously in 2001 (see Note on the Texts).
537.27 following passage] Taken from “Author’s Outline of ‘The Mute,’” see pp. 486–509.
540.11–12 “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”] Novel (1928) by English writer D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) about a woman’s affair with her estate’s gamekeeper, banned in the United States as an obscene book until 195
9.
540.21 Goldens Bridge] Small town in Westchester County, New York.
544.18 “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”] Popular novelty jazz song (1923) by Frank Silver (1896–1960) and Irving Cohn (1898–1961).
544.27–28 Second Hungarian Rhapsody] See note 63.13.
545.37 Sons and Lovers] Novel (1913) by D. H. Lawrence.
546.38 magazine called More Fun and New Comics.] Two separate magazines, More Fun and New Comics; they were published by National Allied Publications, the precursor to DC Comics.
548.7 having bought himself out of the army.] In August 1936, Reeves McCullers availed himself of the option afforded to second-term enlisted men to purchase an early discharge.
549.2 Bach double concerto for violins] The Concerto for Two Violins, Strings, and Continuo in D minor (BWV 1043).
549.18 S & W] A cafeteria at 100 W. Trade Street, the first restaurant in a regional chain based in Charlotte.
550.28–29 Robert Linscott] American book editor (1888–1964) with Houghton Mifflin from 1904 to 1944, and later with Random House.
550.39 Erika Mann] German writer and actor (1905–1969), the daughter of novelist Thomas Mann.
551.17 The Idiot] Novel (1868–69) by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881).
552.2 when she was seventeen] Referring to Annemarie herself, not her mother.
552.38 George Davis] American editor and writer (1906–1957), author of the novel The Opening of a Door (1931).
553.16 Benjamin Britten, and his friend Peter Pears.] English composer Benjamin Britten (1913–1976), whose many works include the operas Peter Grimes (1945) and Billy Budd (1951), and his companion the tenor Peter Pears (1910–1986).
553.17–18 MacNeice . . . Bowles.] Irish poet and playwright Louis MacNeice (1907–1963); English writer Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986), author of the story collection Goodbye to Berlin (1935), the fictionalized memoir Lions and Shadows (1938), and, with his friend W. H. Auden, The Ascent of F6 (1936); American novelist Richard Wright (1908–1960), best known for Native Son (1940) and the memoir Black Boy (1946); the preeminent twentieth-century American composer Aaron Copland (1900–1990); American writer Jane Bowles (1917–1973), author of experimental fiction such as Two Serious Ladies (1943); American writer and composer Paul Bowles (1910–1999), whose works include the novel The Sheltering Sky (1949) and the story collection The Delicate Prey (1950).
553.21 Gypsy Rose Lee] American burlesque entertainer and actor (1911–1970), author of the memoir Gypsy (1957), later adapted as a musical and a film.
553.25 Diana Vreeland] American fashion journalist and editor (1903–1989) who wrote for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, where she was editor-in-chief from 1963 to 1971.
553.31–32 Dichterliebe] Song cycle (Op. 48; 1840) by German composer Robert Schumann (1810–1856), which sets music to poems from the Lyrisches Intermezzo (1823) of German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine (1797–1856).
554.9 Porter . . . McPhee] American writer Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980), author of the story collections Flowering Judas (1930) and Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939), and the novel Ship of Fools (1962); Hungarian-born American writer Edward Newhouse (1911–2002), author of the novel You Can’t Sleep Here (1934) and stories published in The New Yorker magazine, where he worked as a staff writer; American writer John Cheever (1912–1982), author of the novels The Wapshot Chronicle (1957) and Falconer (1977) and many short stories, including “The Swimmer” (1964); and Canadian-born composer and ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee (1900–1964), whose music was profoundly influenced by his research in Bali and his long study of Balinese music.
554.39–555.1 the wife of the Opel industrialist] Fritz von Opel (1899–1971) was the grandson of the founder of the Opel manufacturing company in Germany, best known for its automobiles, and worked with the company’s rocket-propelled cars and aircraft. He was married to Margot von Opel (née Löwenstein, 1898–1993) from 1930 through the mid-1940s.
556.22 Henry Varnum Poor and Bessie Breuer] The married couple Henry Varnum Poor (1887–1970), American ceramicist, painter, and author, and Bessie Breuer (1893–1975), American writer and editor at the New York Herald Tribune.
557.37 1940] McCullers and Reeves McCullers were divorced in 1941.
558.38 Crime and Punishment] Novel (1866) by Dostoevsky.
560.19 Mr. Wexler] Irving Wexler (1888–1952), American gangster known as Waxey Gordon.
560.27–28 squealed and was sent to Sing Sing.] Gordon was convicted in 1933 on charges of tax evasion and served his prison sentence not in Sing Sing, as the state prison in Ossining, New York, is known, but in the Atlanta federal penitentiary. Similarly, he was not murdered (“shot down,” 569.34) in New York but died later of a heart attack in prison at Alcatraz.
561.26 Freddy’s] Annemarie Clarac-Schwarzenbach’s brother Alfred Friedrich Schwarzenbach (1911–1988).
563.6 John La Touche] American stage lyricist (1914–1956) who wrote for musicals such as Cabin in the Sky (1940) and The Golden Apple (1954).
564.15–16 Klaus Mann] German writer (1906–1949), author of the novel Mephisto (1936); he was Erika Mann’s brother.
567.10–11 read Sarah Bernhardt] In My Double Life (1907), autobiography of French actor Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923).
567.17 John Huston’s] American director and screenwriter (1906–1987) whose many films include The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), and The African Queen (1951).
568.21 the wife of my publisher] The American-born physician and psychiatrist Kathryn Hamill Cohen (1905–1960), formerly a stage dancer and actor, was married to the founder of the Cresset Press in London, Dennis Cohen (1891–1970).
568.31 David Garnett] English novelist (1892–1981), author of Lady into Fox (1922) and Aspects of Love (1955).
568.32 Dame Edith Sitwell] English poet (1887–1964).
568.35 David Gascoyne] English surrealist poet and translator (1916–2002).
568.36 Sir Osbert Sitwell] English poet (1892–1969), brother of Edith Sitwell.
569.14 Edita and Ira Morris] Swedish-born writer and political activist Edita Morris (1902–1988), author of the novel The Flowers of Hiroshima (1959), and her husband the American novelist Ira Morris (1903–1972).
570.2 dépendances] French: outbuildings.
570.18 Ellen Wright] American political activist (1912?–2004) and Communist Party member, the second wife of Richard Wright.
570.27 friend Bob Myers] The American doctor Robert Myers, who worked at the American Hospital in Neuilly, outside Paris.
571.26–27 Robert Whitehead and Stanley Martineau] Canadian theater producer Robert Whitehead (1916–2002), and Stanley Martineau (1915–1977), American sculptor of portrait busts.
571.33–34 Sundown Beach] Play (1948) by Bessie Breuer (see note 556.22) that ran briefly in an unsuccessful Broadway production.
571.37 Julie Harris] American stage and film actor (1925–2013) who won five Tony Awards over the course of her career; she played Frankie Addams in The Member of the Wedding’s first Broadway run and its adaptation as a film.
572.4 Ethel Waters] See note 283.28–284.11.
572.14 Harold Clurman] Influential American director (1901–1980), a co-founder (with Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford) of the Group Theatre (1931–41).
572.18 Brandon de Wilde] American child actor Brandon deWilde (1942–1972), who was seven when he played the role of John Henry West in The Member of the Wedding on Broadway.
573.9 Florence Martineau] Florence Baker Martineau (1911 or 1912–1993), the wife of Stanley Martineau (see note 571.21–22).
574.29–30 Mary Rodgers, the musician, and Marshall Barer, the lyricist] The collaborative duo of American stage composer Mary Rodgers (1931–2014) and American lyricist Marshall Barer (1923–1998) worked together on musicals during the late 1950s and ’60s, including on Once Upon a Mattress (1959). Their adaptation of The Memb
er of the Wedding was never staged, though one song, “Something Known,” was later included in a 1993 musical revue of Rodgers’s songs, Hey, Love.
575.9–10 Joseph Strick who so brilliantly directed Ulysses will direct it.] American director Joseph Strick (1923–2010), who had directed a movie version of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses released in 1967, was fired from the production of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter after objecting to changes in the script. The film was directed by Robert Ellis Miller (b. 1932), who had directed the television adaptation of McCullers’s “The Sojourner” for Omnibus in December 1953.
575.30 André Girard’s “Painting in Movement,”] French artist André Girard (1901–1968) developed a method of painting directly on film.
576.3 Saint Subber] See note 522.6.
577.10 The Vamp] Musical (1955) with lyrics by LaTouche, book by LaTouche and Sam Locke (1917–1998), and music by James Mundy (1907–1983), which closed after sixty performances on Broadway.
579.6 Marshallville] Small Georgia town 54 miles east of Columbus.
580.9 Rasputin] Rasputin and the Empress (1932), film directed by Richard Boleslawski (1889–1937) and starring Lionel Barrymore (1878–1954), Ethel Barrymore (1879–1959), and John Barrymore (1882–1942).
581.28–29 tune which went “tip toe to the window.”] “Tip-toe Thru the Tulips with Me” (1929), lyrics by Al Dubin (1891–1945), music by Joe Burke (1884–1950), from the film Gold Diggers of Broadway.
582.25–26 “the wages of sin is death.”] Romans 6:23.
584.25–26 Katherine Mansfield] New Zealand-born writer (1888–1923) whose books include In a German Pension (1911), Bliss (1920), and The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922).
585.5–6 her criticism of The Idiot, especially her observations of Nastasya Filippovna.] See a journal entry by Mansfield from 1916: “I feel slightly more bewildered than I did before as regards Nastasya Filippovna’s character. She is really not well done. She is badly done. And there grows up as one reads on a kind of irritation, a balked fascination, which almost succeeds finally in blotting out those first and really marvellous ‘impressions’ of her. What was Dostoevsky really aiming at?”