Authors: Nancy Milford
Edna St. Vincent Millay had survived her beloved cavalier by one year, one month, and twenty days.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a great deal to many people, and I want to thank them here. To those beloved friends who stood by me and believed in my effort to shape this book—Dr. Ellen Reitz Conrad, the Honorable Vesta Svenson, Marga Beth Cibulka, Roberta and Donald Gratz, Shelby White and Leon Levy, who generously took me into their world with travel and laughter and play—my best thanks. And where would I be without the sustaining friendship of Paula Weideger and Henry Lessore, Emily Trafford Berges, Jay Meek, Doron Weber, Charles Ruas and Rob Wynne? Let alone my Virgil, William Josephson, who has led me through every circle of whatever inferno I was caught in, with a clear intelligence and a golden spirit that buoyed my own. Toni Morrison’s advice and support and, most crucially, her own model of a continuing literary life have meant the world to me. To Lois Gould: my world would be a lesser place if she were not writing in it.
Vartan Gregorian has been a matchless friend, and I’ve treasured his guidance. Joni Evans pulled me out of a mess with style and I remain grateful to her. To Lynn Nesbit, who helped me to believe that this biography was first-rate, if only I would finish it. There was nobody, however, who saw with more certainty or who believed in this biography more consistently than Kate Medina—I can’t thank her enough. To Pat Golbitz, who worked tirelessly in my behalf, whether I was in Michigan or Istanbul, my thanks. But it is Joy de Menil whose clear head, hard work, and editorial brilliance helped me to shape this book. She’s my wizard, and she’s tops.
I am grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation for their early support; to Judith L. Pinch at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and to the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund for sending me to teach in Arkansas and South Carolina; to Robert Weisbuch and James A. Winn, who were at the University of Michigan when they hired me; to Dr. Micaela Iovine at the Fulbright Commission in Washington and to Dr. Ersin Onulduran in
Turkey for arranging my stint at Bogaziçi Universitesi in Istanbul, and to Oya Başak and Asli Tekinay for their welcome. My best thanks to Alice L. Birney, American Literature Manuscript Historian at the Library of Congress, and to Vincent Virga, photo editor, for making my life much easier during the researching of this book.
It was in the Frederick Lewis Allan Room at the New York Public Library, and later in The Writers Room, which I helped to found, that I found a refuge in which to write. Donna Brodie and el Staff know how very much I value them. Joellyn Ausanka is simply the best, most helpful and gracious person I have ever worked with; and, thank God, she spells better than I do. But in the end it is my family—Kate and Matthew and Amy and Hester and Evan Dority—whom I treasure. I don’t write for them, but they have given me the heart from which I write.
NOTES
These abbreviations are used throughout the footnotes.
| ADF | Arthur Davison Ficke |
| Beinecke | Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University |
| Berg | Berg Collection, The Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation, The New York Public Library |
| CBM | Cora Buzzell Millay |
| CP | Collected Poems |
| EB | Eugen Jan Boissevain |
| ESVM | Edna St. Vincent Millay |
| EW | Edmund Wilson |
| FE | Ferdinand Earle |
| GD | George Dillon |
| HM | Henry Millay |
| KM | Kathleen Millay |
| Ls . | Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay , ed. Allan Ross Macdougall (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952) |
| LWF | “Lest We Forget” (unpublished diary) |
| MK | Mitchell Kennerley |
| n.d. | No date |
| Newberry | Newberry Library of Chicago |
| NM | Norma Millay |
| n.p. | No page |
| n.y. | No year |
| PM | Postmark |
| St. Coll. | Steepletop Collection. The Millay collection of letters, notebooks, manuscripts, and photographs is now at the Library of Congress. During the years of research and writing of this biography, I referred to the various documents as “the Steepletop Collection.” Alice Birney, who is the American Literature Manuscript Historian at the Library of Congress, agrees that this name is the most accurate and useful. |
| UVa | University of Virginia |
| VC | Vassar College Library |
Note to reader:
If in the text I have given the date a letter was written, I do not repeat it in the note.
PROLOGUE
1.
“When the Nazis razed … ”: Susan Schweik,
A Gulf So Deeply Cut: American Women Poets and the Second World War
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), p. 62.
2.
“I remember a swamp”: ESVM to Esther Root,
Ls.
, p. 176.
CHAPTER 1
1.
“a girl who had lived”: ESVM,
Collected Sonnets
, “Foreword,” p. vii.
2.
“Have the baker leave”: CBM to ESVM, n.d., c. 1904. St. Coll.
3.
“We had one great advantage”: NM, typescript, n.d., 1976. St. Coll.
4.
“I’m the Queen”: ESVM,
Poetical Works
, pp. 53–54.
5.
“At night, sometimes”: NM, typescript, n.d., 1976. St. Coll.
6.
“She was supposed to be”: Henry Pendleton, interview with author, October 1976.
7.
“We have just”: ESVM to
St. Nicholas
, n.d., c. 1906. St. Coll.
8.
“When I was fourteen”: ESVM,
Ls.
, p. 9.
9.
“The Land of Romance,” Edward J. Wheeler,
Current Literature
, vol. XLII, no. 4, April 1907, p. 456–57.
10.
“She was not like”: NM, interview with author, Sept. 8, 1976.
CHAPTER 2
1.
“a driving force”: Clementine Todd Parsons,
O Rare Red-Head
, unpublished memoir. Much of the information in this chapter and in the next is drawn from two unpublished manuscripts by Edna St. Vincent Millay’s aunt Clementine Todd Parsons,
O Rare Red-Head
and
Above the Salt
, in which there are sometimes as many as three versions of the same incident. These manuscripts include quotations from letters written by Cora Millay, as well as from fragments of autobiographical material she sent to her sister.
2.
“One unhappy day” and subsequent quotes: CBM, unpublished, undated notes. St. Coll.
3.
Among her keepsakes: Cora L. Buzzell, collection of flyers, tickets, programs, 1886. St. Coll.
4.
“I was sure I was going to die” and subsequent quotes: diary entries, newspaper clippings, telegrams. St. Coll.
5.
But by then: Story of birth of ESVM drawn from Clementine Todd Parsons,
O Rare RedHead
.
CHAPTER 3
1.
In the spring: Clementine Todd Parsons,
O
Rare Red-Head
, p. 26.
CHAPTER 4
1.
“Abbie … must have been”: Martha Knight, interview with author, May 4, 1976.
2.
“I guess I’m going”: ESVM, diary, June 29 [1908]. St. Coll.
3.
“For instance … giving parties”: “X,” interview with author, May 6, 1976.
4.
“Vincent opened the front door” and subsequent quotes: Ethel Knight Fisher, “Her Girlhood Days,”
The Rockland CourierGazette
, June 16, 1942, p. 8.
5.
“I don’t know”: ESVM,
The Dear Incorrigibles
.
6.
36 “Now, Muvver”: ESVM,
The Dear Incorrigibles
.
7.
“Once upon a time”: ESVM,
The Dear Incorrigibles
.
8.
“To live alone” and subsequent quotes: ESVM, notebook, n.d., pp. 91–94. (Norma Millay’s note: “Note Book No. 6. ESTVM. Pieces [mostly discarded] from Foreword to ‘Coll Sonnets.’ Beginning of ‘Radiance rose.’ c. 1940?”). St. Coll.
9.
“In this case”: ESVM, diary, July 19 [1908]. St. Coll.
10.
“I think I’ll call her”: ESVM, diary (“Mammy Hush-Chile”), c. July 1908. St. Coll.
11.
“I make two cups”: ESVM, diary (“Mammy Hush-Chile”), c. July 1908. St. Coll.
12.
“To My Mother”: ESVM,
Poetical Works of Vincent Millay
, July 10, 1908, p. 1. St. Coll.
13.
“for an hour’s stay”: CBM to ESVM, March 10, 1909. St. Coll.
14.
“In her class”: Stella Derry Lenfest,
Yankee
, September 1953, p. 20.
15.
“the first big disappointment”: ESVM, diary (“Mammy Hush-Chile”), April 17, 1909. St. Coll.
16.
“She was absent”: Martha Knight, interview with author, May 4, 1976.
17.
“Well, she spoke”: Jessie Hosmer, interview with author, May 5, 1976.
18.
“Oh, Mammy”: ESVM, diary (“Mammy Hush-Chile”), Sept. 30, 1909. St. Coll.
CHAPTER 5
1.
In October, Vincent won: diary, 1910. Program of
Willowdale
pasted into Millay’s “Rosemary” scrapbook. St. Coll.
2.
“with my sun-bonnet”: ESVM, diary 1910. St. Coll.
4.
“send you some more” and subsequent quotes: HM to ESVM, Sept. 16, 22, 29, Nov. 12, Dec. 11, 1909. St. Coll.
5.
“I wish I could”: HM to ESVM, Dec. 24, 1909. St. Coll.
6.
“beautiful Christmas”: ESVM to CBM, Dec. 25, 1909. St. Coll.
7.
“Dear St. Nicholas”:
Ls.
, p. 9
8.
“Rosemary,” a poem:
Poetical Works
, pp. 61–63.
9.
“Mama said today”: ESVM, Feb. 24, 1910. Black leather 1910 diary. St. Coll.
10.
“I am going”: HM to ESVM, March 15, 1910. St. Coll.
11.
“The Hotel that was burned”: HM to ESVM, March 25, 1910. St. Coll.
12.
“She was quite upset”: Robert Farr, “What Impact Did Camden Have on the Poet, Vincent Millay?”
Lewiston Journal
, Magazine section, June 8, 1957, p. 1a.
13.
“If your father”: CBM to ESVM, July 14, 1910. St. Coll.
14.
“Schedule”: NM, ESVM, KM, n.d. St. Coll.
CHAPTER 6
1.
“I am … as surely”: ESVM, diary (“Mammy Hush-Chile”), April 3, 1911. St. Coll.