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The Rufus Hathaway collection of Canadian literature.
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The response from Frederic Sherman is rendered in green font and is labelled [response:] in the text. All other additions and deletions are in the hand of the author, Rufus Hathaway.
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Canadian National Telegraphs
Great North Western Telegraph Company
Canadian National Telegraph Company
Grand Trunk Pacific Telegraph Co.
Toronto 2,
May 20, 1930.
Mr. F. F. Sherman, 578 Madison Ave.,
New York, N.Y. The poem "Harmonics" published in a diminutive quarto
pamphlet in gray green paper covers, which I have,
was among
Herbert Small's Carman things, together
with a youthful photo of Carman. It is
in Carman's style, and though Carman did not
recollect it from a description, I have no doubt it
is one of his early things which he would have remembered if he had seen it
Dear Mr. Sherman:
- Collation
- 1 title-black in
- band of red on
- white paper
- 2-blank
- 3-verse 5 verse
- 4-blank 6 blank
- 7-8 blank
pp 3,4,5,6 on
white cardboard
p 5 with wide band of
buff tint on outer edge
An ill-fate seems to dog my efforts to get hold
of you on the occasion of every one of my infrequent visits to New
York. I promised Mrs. Sherman, when I called up your office on
Easter Monday at her suggestion, that I would call up again at 1 p.m.,
but circumstances made it impossible for me to call up until some
five or ten minutes after that hour, with the result that you had
gone, presumably for the day, as, although I tried twice later to get
you, I failed both times.
My reason for desiring to see you was to tell you
that I have undertaken, in collaboration with my friend Nathan Van
Patten, Librarian of Stanford University, to do a bibliography of
Carman for a New York publisher, and to ask for such assistance in
connection with part of the work as you may be able to give me. My
part is to provide the annotations, Van Patten doing the collations,
and a big job I am finding it, although, of course, I have accumulated a great mass of data, during the 25 years of more I have been
interested in Carman.
I heard when in New York that you have long since
disposed of your Carman collection, but am writing you this letter
on the chance that you may be able to give me some data which would
be useful to me.
The chief points on which I desire information are as follows:
What heading does the first broadsheet ("A Woman's
Exile," etc.) carry? Both the copy I got from you many years ago and
Mitchell Kennerley's — the only other copy I know of — have the heading
[[neatly]]
cut off, apparently for some purpose, though what this can
have been I can't imagine. Probably to fit envelope or because it carried title of some
periodical
or a title he decided not to
use
What printing, if any, does the first pamphlet ("Death
in April") carry on the first cover? I have the only copy of this
I do not know
Can you give me any information as to the number of
copies issued of any of Carman's numerous broadsheets? I found
among the Drake Co's Carman records one about "Marjory
Darrow,"
which said that only 10 or 12 copies were printed,
and the old man,
upon enquiry, gave you as the authority for this statement.
If I told Drake this it must be because Carman had told me
Can you confirm that three of four sets of the first
edition of "Behind the Arras," were printed in brown ink, possibly
with the English imprint of the Macmillan Co., as intimated in your
check list?
Carman is authority for this
Can you give me a bibliographical collation of the
suppressed Italian handmade paper issue of "A Painter's Holiday",
and would you care to add any details about the suppression of this
issue?
It may interest you to know that my tentative list of
Carman's regularly and privately issued books, pamphlets, broadsheets, leaflets, etc.: books edited or with introductions by him,
books on him, and books contributed to by him totals about 165.
I shall be glad to hear from you in this connection
at your earliest convenience? I shall be glad also if you will be
so good as to let me know of any other authoritative source of
information about Carman's publications.
Yours truly, R.H. Hathaway Address:
R.H. Hathaway,
258 Garden Ave.,
Toronto 3, Ont.