On a Farther Shore (61 page)

She applied for a grant
:
Carson, application to the Eugene F. Saxton Memorial Trust, n.d., ca. November 1948, Beinecke.

In July 1949
:
Amy Flashner to Carson, July 14, 1949, Beinecke. Flashner was the secretary of the Saxton Trust.

Elated, Carson dashed off
:
Carson to Amy Flashner, July 24, 1949, Beinecke.

Carson got a letter back
:
Amy Flashner to Carson, August 4, 1949, Beinecke.

Furious, Carson pointed out
:
Carson to Amy Flashner, August 8, 1949, Beinecke.

They wrote to her again
:
Amy Flashner to Carson, August 11, 1949, Beinecke.

Eventually, Marie Rodell stepped in
:
Ibid., August 23, 1949, Beinecke.

Carson wrote to the trust
:
Carson to Amy Flashner, August 30, 1949, Beinecke.

She also received a courtesy copy of
:
Philip Vaudrin to Carson, October 4, 1949, Beinecke.

which she said she looked forward to
:
Carson to Philip Vaudrin, October 6, 1949, Beinecke.

She sent seven chapters
:
Marie Rodell to Edward Weeks, January 6, 1950, Beinecke.

which turned them down
:
Charles W. Morton to Marie Rodell, March 3, 1950, Beinecke. Morton was an associate editor of the
Atlantic
.

More rejections stacked up
:
Correspondence between Marie Rodell and various magazine editors, 1950, Beinecke.

Although most of the rejections were polite
:
Helen Grey to Marie Rodell, April 20, 1950, Beinecke. Grey was manuscript editor at
Town & Country
.

In April 1950
:
Carson to Philip Vaudrin, April 3, 1950, and Marie Rodell to Amy Flashner, April 14, 1950, Beinecke. In fact, Carson confessed that they’d tried out so many titles that she’d lost track as to whether this one had been previously proposed. Evidently it had been, as a letter to Carson from the publicity department at Oxford had referred to the book as
The Sea Around Us
back in January (Catherine S. Scott to Carson, January 3, 1950, Beinecke).

The river is within us
:
Eliot,
The Four Quartets
.

“
So long ago that we do not know”
:
Draft fragment, Beinecke. Carson put this down in one of her many small brown spiral notebooks.

and in June 1950, Oxford said
:
Carson to Henry Bigelow, July 17, 1950, Beinecke.

Science Digest
offered fifty dollars
:
G. B. Clementson to Marie Rodell, June 5, 1950, Beinecke. Clementson was the managing editor of
Science Digest
.

She heard from Edith Oliver
:
Marie Rodell to G. B. Clementson, June 8, 1950, and Marie Rodell to Carson, June 13, 1950, Beinecke.

By midsummer Oliver had
:
Edith Oliver to Marie Rodell, July 11, 1950, Beinecke.

She’d also begun sending the material
:
Edith Oliver to Marie Rodell, July 17, 1950, Beinecke.

“
Darn the
New Yorker”:
Carson to Marie Rodell, July 17, 1950, Beinecke.

Oliver promised Rodell
:
Edith Oliver to Marie Rodell, July 17, 1950, Beinecke.

Rodell, meanwhile, sold
:
Paul Pickerel to Marie Rodell, August 18, 1950, Beinecke. Pickerel was the managing editor of the
Yale Review
.

She sold another
:
Marie Rodell to G. B. Clementson, July 21, 1950, Beinecke.

Reader’s Digest
turned down
:
Merle Crowell to Marie Rodell, July 27, 1950, Beinecke.

Sometime around the middle of August
:
Carson to Marie Rodell, August 17, 1950, Beinecke.

A month later, Carson wrote to Rodell
:
Ibid., September 10, 1950, Beinecke.

Carson was going to have a
:
Ibid.

“The operation will probably turn out”
:
Ibid., September 13, 1950, Beinecke.

Carson dashed off
:
Ibid., n.d., ca. October 1950, Beinecke.

Carson was impatient with Oxford
:
Ibid., October 19, 1950, and December 9, 1950, Beinecke.

Rodell reminded her that
:
Marie Rodell to Carson, October 23, 1950, Beinecke.

She recklessly told Rodell
:
Carson to Marie Rodell, October 2, 1950, Beinecke.

In October 1950
:
Carson, Guggenheim Fellowship application, October 14, 1950, Beinecke.

a $900 advance from Houghton Mifflin
:
James F. Mathias to Carson, March 29, 1951, and Guggenheim formal announcement, April 16, 1951, Beinecke.

Beebe told her he couldn’t understand
:
William Beebe to Carson, November 7, 1950, Beinecke.

Then in early December 1950
:
Marie Rodell to Paul Pickerel, December 11, 1950, Beinecke.

Carson mentioned to Rodell
:
Carson to Marie Rodell, January 30, 1951, Beinecke.

Carson had been promoted
:
U.S. Department of the Interior, personnel records, promotion, February 1, 1950, NCTC.

Carson hated this prospect
:
Carson to Marie Rodell, January 7, 1951, Beinecke.

March 1951 brought mixed news
:
Lear,
Rachel Carson
, pp. 191 and 193.

a happy development that was partially offset when
:
Marie Rodell to Carson, March 21, 1951, Beinecke.

Astonishingly
, Vogue
magazine bought
:
Carson to Allen Talmey, March 29, 1951, Beinecke. Talmey was feature editor for
Vogue
.

In April, Carson got
:
Carson to Henry Z. Walck, April 6, 1951, Beinecke. Walck was president of Oxford University Press.

In May, William Shawn sent
:
William Shawn to Marie Rodell, May 9, 1951, Beinecke.

Rodell deducted her 10 percent
:
Marie Rodell to Carson, May 11, 1951, Beinecke.

The next month, Carson applied for
:
U.S. Department of the Interior personnel records, request for leave without pay, June 4, 1951, NCTC.

She told Rodell she believed
:
Carson to Marie Rodell, n.d., ca. July 1951, Beinecke.

The
New Yorker
reported that
: Washington Star
, July 8, 1951. A word about newspaper and magazine citations
:
For most of her publishing career Carson had a clipping service that routinely sent her copies of articles about her work from across the country and around the world. A great many, but not all, of those I cite in these notes are found in the Rachel Carson Papers in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. But because such clippings are not unique to this collection I have not given it as the primary repository. Suffice it to say that the thousands of articles at the Beinecke, as well as references to many others I retrieved elsewhere, were invaluable in my research.

Walter Winchell, the prominent
: New York Mirror
, June 6, 1951.

“an introduction to oceanography”
:
Carson to Philip Vaudrin, December 16, 1950, Beinecke.

She began at the beginning
:
Carson,
Sea Around Us
, epigraph, p. 3.

Beginnings are apt to be shadowy
:
Ibid., pp. 3–4.

Imagine a whole continent of naked rock
:
Ibid., pp. 8–9.

Carson said that the “backbone” of the work
:
Carson, “Origins of the book
The Sea Around Us
,” 1952, Beinecke. This is the memo Carson prepared for her publisher in London.

Most of man’s habitual tampering
:
Carson,
Sea Around Us
, pp. 95–96.

Where and when the ocean will halt
:
Ibid., pp. 99–100.

Writing in the
New York Herald Tribune
: The New York Herald Tribune
, July 15, 1951.

Leonard wrote that the errors poets make
: New York Times Sunday Book Review
, July 1, 1951.

though the reviewer for the
Indianapolis Times
:
Indianapolis Times
, July 7, 1951.

The critic at
Newsweek
:
Newsweek
, July 16, 1951.

Carson landed on the cover
: Saturday Review of Literature
, July 7, 1951.

The
Buffalo Evening News
agreed
: Buffalo Evening News
, July 7, 1951.

A week after its review
: New York Times Sunday Book Review
, July 8, 1951.

In a publicity piece
:
Carson, “Origins of the book
The Sea Around Us
,” 1952, Beinecke.

Proving that everyone seemed to
: Christian Science Monitor
, January 3, 1952.

Society columnist Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer
: San Francisco Argonaut
, June 29, 1951.

In a short essay she wrote
: New York Herald Tribune Book Review
, October 7, 1951.

“In minor ways I am a disappointment”
:
Ibid.

The
Cleveland Plain Dealer
referred to Carson
: Cleveland Plain Dealer
, July 1, 1951.

The
Boston Post
described her
: Boston Post
, July 8, 1951.

Among Carson’s fans were
:
Jane Barkley to Carson, June 22, 1951, Catherine Nimitz to Carson, n.d., ca. May 1951, and Thor Heyerdahl to Carson, May 3, 1951, Beinecke. Jane Barkley was Vice President Alben Barkley’s wife. Catherine Nimitz was Admiral Chester Nimitz’s wife. Barkley, Nimitz, and Heyerdahl all received advance copies of
The Sea Around Us
.

Carson also got a generous
:
Quincy Howe to Carson, July 30, 1951, Beinecke.

One letter that probably impressed itself
:
R. M. Much to Carson, October 20, 1951, Beinecke.

A man named Alfred Glassel
:
Alfred C. Glassel, Jr., to Carson, June 11, 1952, Beinecke.

Even Marie Rodell was suddenly
: Washington Daily News
, July 4, 1951. The responses, almost always glowing but sometimes strange, continued for years. In 1957, Carson got a letter from a young physician in the pathology department at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. The doctor, who seemed passionate about the subject, wanted more information about bathyspheres and other deep-diving devices. He wondered if Carson might have access to technical information on such equipment not available to the general public—and, if such details were not “restricted,” whether she might share them. He also said how much he liked her book and apologized if his inquiry was an imposition. The letter was signed “Very truly yours, Jack Kevorkian, M.D.” (Dr. Jack Kevorkian to Carson, December 4, 1957, Beinecke).

She had insisted that Oxford abandon
:
Carson to Philip Vaudrin, December 16, 1950, Beinecke.

Carson and Rodell were angry with Oxford
:
Marie Rodell to Henry Z. Walck, August 23, 1951, Beinecke.

Not so believably, Oxford pleaded
:
Henry Z. Walck to Carson, August 7, 1951, Beinecke.

she complained even more bitterly
:
Carson to Henry Z. Walck, n.d., ca. fall 1951, and Marie Rodell to Henry Z. Walck, August 14, 1951, Beinecke.

The Sea Around Us
made the
: New York Times
, July 22, 1951.

It was still at number five a week later
:
Ibid., July 29, 1951.

In mid-August it was at
:
Ibid., August 19, 1951.

and by early September
:
Ibid., September 2, 1951.

In November 1951, as sales of
:
William M. Oman to Carson, November 9, 1951, Beinecke. Oman was vice president of Oxford University Press.

There was some question
:
William M. Oman to Marie Rodell, November 30, 1951, Beinecke.

In December, Rodell sold
:
A.B.C. Whipple to Marie Rodell, December 18, 1951, Beinecke. Whipple was an editor at
Life
.

On April 20, 1952
: New York Times
, April 20 and 27, 1952.

Sales of
The Sea Around Us
:
Chicago Tribune
, February 3, 1952.

One was that more than
: Memphis Commercial Appeal
, March 18, 1952.

Still another claim
:
Ibid.

Both she and Rodell thought
:
Marie Rodell to William M. Oman, August 5, 1952, Beinecke. Carson’s dubiousness about the sales figures for
Under the Sea-Wind
were conveyed in an exchange of letters with Rodell that summer.

Carson and Rodell also quarreled
:
Carson to Marie Rodell, n.d., ca. August 1952, Beinecke.