The general sources for this chapter are Harold Wilson, McClure's Magazine and the Muckrakers (1970); Peter Lyon, Success Story: The Life and Times of S. S. McClure (1963); James Woodress, "The Preeminent Magazine Genius: S. S. McClure," in Essays Mostly on Periodical Publishing in America (1973), PP. 171-92.
184 "Was the pre-eminent": Mark Sullivan, The Education of an American (193 8), P. 193. "More pages of": McClure's (Feb., 1896), P. 364.
185 "Was the most exciting": Lyon, Success Story, p. 113. Baker's memory: American Chronicle (1945), PP. 93-94. "I spent the greater part": All in the Day's Work (1939), P. 258.
186 "Kings who have come": Success Story, P. 291. "Bynner, are you leaving?": ibid., p. 294.
187 "Was the precise reversal": The Happy Profession (1948), P. 142. "Sam had three hundred": Autobiography (1946), P. 386. "Some of his ideas": Lewis, p. 60. "They leave me": SSM to Robert Mather, 14 Apr. 1906 (Lilly).
188 "It amused him": UVO p. 102. "O'Mally went in for": UVO, p. 104. "I can't do anything": UVO, p. 113. "Economics and art": ow, P. 27. She suggested changes: wc to Dwight, 3 July 1906 (Amherst).
189 She must have been blunt:
wc to Dwight, 20 July 1906 (Amherst). A letter after he had gone back:
wc to Dwight, 12 Jan. 1907 (Amherst). A feeling
could be a story: wc to Dwight, 9 Oct. 1906 (Amherst). The city was
big and raw: wc to Dwight, 12 Jan 1907 (Amherst).
190 "Throwing up a mist": YBM, P. 7.
191 Bynner's memory of "The Profile" being suggested by a friend's disfigurement comes from his "Autobiography in the Shape of a Book Review" in Prose Pieces, ed. James Craft (1979). I use this memory because the incident is characteristic of wc's practice, but Bynner's old-age memories are unreliable, and he remembered things that are demonstrably untrue. For example, he remembered that McClure asked him to cut hundreds of words from "The Sculptor's Funeral" and when wc saw the proofs she blew up. wc was not yet on McClure's staff when the story was printed, and between the magazine version of the story and the TG version there is no difference in length. "The Profile" is reprinted in CSF; also "The Willing Muse."
192 "Eleanor's House" is reprinted
in CSF. So tepid and bloodless: wc to Pattee, 2 Dec. 1926 (Penn. State).
The story of wc and the Eddy biography is fashioned from the following:
L. Brent Bohlke, "wc and The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy," AL (May, 1982),
pp. 288-94; Bohlke found the letter to Anderson, 24 NOV. 1922 (N. Y. Pub.
Lib.); Mark Sullivan, Education of an American, P. 202; Success Story,
pp. 299-302; wc to Charles Cather, 17 Dec.
1906 (copy at Va.); wc to Harrison Dwight, 12 Jan. 1907 (Amherst).
194 "The novelist must learn": ow, P. 40. "The most costly church": McClure's (Dec., 1906), P. 211.
195 Times editorial: McClure's (Feb., 1907), P. 452.
196 "Frail, diminished in force": " 148 Charles Street" in NUF, P. 57. "It was at tea time": NUF, pp. 62-63. wc insisted her letters be destroyed: wc to DeWolfe Howe, 11 Dec. 1931 (Harvard). The line from Donne is from "The Relique". "That's very nice": NUF, p. 65.
197 "Virtue is concerned": NUF, P. 72. "Who looked very like": NUF, P. 54. "I wish that I could": Letters of SOJ, ed. Annie Fields (1911), P. 235. "I was sorry to miss": ibid., P. 245.
198 Not the least interested in SOJ: wc to Alexander Woollcott, 5 Dec. 1942 (Morgan). Account of 1908 trip to Europe: wc to Alice Gaudy, 3 May 1908 (WCHC); Megaris now is known as Castel dell'Ovo.
199 Visit to Ravello: wc to SOJ, 10 May 1908.
200 "Clearly the two of them": Sergeant, P. 39. "As a curb on genius": Will Irwin, The Making of a Reporter (1942), P. 137. "A captain, as Will White": Sergeant, P. 202.
201 wc had doubts about this story: WC to SOJ, 24 Oct. 1908. "Deep happiness": SOJ to WC, 27 Dec. 1980 (Letters of SOJ, pp. 246-47).
202 "I threw my cigar away": CSF, P. 90. "I returned to the deck": CSF, P. 83. "I cannot help saying": SOJ to wc, 13 Dec. 1908 (Letters of SOJ pp. 247-50).
203 She responded with an eight-page reply: wc to SOJ 19 Dec. 1908.
205 The couplet, quoted a little inaccurately, is from "The Deserted Village." wc refers to being in the hospital: WC to DCF, 15 Apr. 1909 "I am anxious": SSM to wc, 16 Mar. 1909 (Wilson, McClure's Mag. and the Muckrakers, p. 192). "The best magazine executive": Success Story, P. 390.
206 "We had our swim before sundown": CSF, p. 69. "I have been greatly pleased": SSM to wc, 18june 1909. "I am awfully proud": SSM to wc, 19june 1909. "How can I learn?": Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (1958), P. 364. Meredith's funeral and Yeats's box: WC to FG, 19 Oct. 1939; also see Lewis, p. 68.
207 About the Rising of the Moon: wc to E. K. Brown, 24 Jan. 1947 (Yale). Two letters about the death of SOJ: wc to Mrs. Fields, 27 June, 13 July 1909 (Harvard); these two letters somehow survived the destruction of the correspondence: McClure made 149 Atlantic crossings in his career, which means he spent something like four years of his life on ocean liners. wc's life at end of 1909: WC to AF, 5 Jan. 1910 (privately owned).
208 The negotiations with Munsterberg are documented by eight letters at the Boston Pub. Lib. According to figures in the McClure Papers at the Lilly Library, the magazine reached a circulation Of 400,000 by Oct., 1898, 470,000 by the following March; in Oct., 1909, it was 485,000; in Oct., 1910, it was 565,000 and in Oct., 1911, 660,000. But the magazine was always short of cash in those years. The head of the London office wrote on 20 Mar. 19o8 (Lilly) that they had only 12 Pound in the bank and owed authors 1,500 Pound. These circulation figures were no doubt exaggerated, as H. W. Ayers's Newspaper Annual and Directory gives McClure's an average circulation for 1910 Of 425,000 and for 1912 450,000.
209 "Tell me . . . why": Sergeant, P. 35.
210 wc's memory of Twain: wc to William Lyon Phelps, 17 Feb. 1936 (Yale); see also wc to Allen Nevins, 18 Mar. 1939 (Columbia). "Here is a fine poem, a great poem, I think," Twain said to A. B. Paine, handing him a copy of wc's poem that he had cut from the N. Y. Times book section that had reprinted it from McClure's. Paine reported this conversation and reprinted three stanzas in his Mark Twain: A Biography (1912), pp. 1501-02. She wrote her former pupil: wc to Norman Foerster, 20 July 1910 (Univ. of Neb.). Christmas, 1910: WC to AF, 22 Feb. 19 11 (privately owned).
211 She woke up with an earache: Lewis, PP. 75-76. Visit to Mrs. Fields: wc to Louise Guiney, 25 May 1911 (Holy Cross College). Visit to Mary Jewett: wc to ES, 27 June 19 11. Turning down poem: wc to Dwight, 24 Aug. 1911 (Amherst).
212 "What was going to happen":
Success Story, P. 335.
.