Authors: Nancy Milford
2.
“Sometimes I’m afraid”: “Her Book,” August 3, 1911. Edna St. Vincent Millay Papers, Diaries and Notebooks 33. Diary, “Vincent Millay—Her Book,” April 1911-January 1913. Library of Congress.
3.
“You are strong”: ESVM, diary (“Mammy Hush-Chile”), p. 38. St. Coll.
4.
“Sometimes I don’t mind”: “Her Book,” July 3, 1911.
5.
“It is as if”: “Her Book,” July 27, 1911.
6.
“I cannot stand it”: CBM to ESVM, Aug. 3, 1911. St. Coll.
7.
“Just a few words”: CBM to “My Girls,” c. summer 1911, St. Coll.
8.
“Where’d you get”: ESVM to CBM, Aug. 18, 1911. St. Coll.
9.
“We have been”: “Her Book,” c. Oct. 3, 1911. 57 “I’m getting old”: “Her Book,” “Monday— 10th.”
10.
“I do not know”: “Her Book,” Feb. 11, 1912.
CHAPTER 7
1.
“The minute we came in”: ESVM, diary, “Sweet & Twenty,” unpaged, March 12, [1912].
2.
“My dear little daughter”: CBM to ESVM, March 3, 1912. St. Coll.
3.
“to enjoy his dear girls”: CBM to ESVM, March 4, 1912. St. Coll.
4.
“He’s had pneumonia”:
Ls.
, p. 13. 59 “I see Papa twice”:
Ls.
, p. 14.
5.
“I am glad”: CBM to ESVM, March 5, 1912. St. Coll.
6.
“Sister Millay”: NM to ESVM, n.d., c. March 20, 1912. St. Coll.
7.
“because … I don’t care”: “Her Book,” March 4, [1912].
8.
“And they certainly”: ESVM to “Dear Children,” St. Patrick’s Day [1912]. UVa.
9.
“Dear Vincent”: CBM to ESVM, March 21, 1912. St. Coll.
10.
“Renascence was partly”: CBM, typescript, n.d. St. Coll.
11.
“If I’d thought”: NM, interview with author, Jan. 23, 1979.
CHAPTER 8
1.
“You inquire my Books”: Emily Dickinson to Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
The Letters of Emily Dickinson
, vol. 2, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 404–5.
2.
Vincent had gone:
Ls.
, p. 307.
3.
“E. Vincent Millay, Esq.”:
Ls.
, p. 17.
4.
“It may astonish you”: ESVM to Mitchell Kennerley, July 24, 1912. St. Coll. In
Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay
, which was published in 1952 and has never been revised, the editor, Allan Ross Macdougall, said that it had been “impossible to find the fifteen or so letters which the young poet, in her excitement over his appreciation and acclaim, wrote to Ferdinand Earle from Camden.” Before Earle’s death in 1951, the year after Millay’s, he wrote that her many letters to him had been stolen. What I have done is to reconstruct her letters from drafts that were kept in the files at Steepletop. Among them only two are in typescript and dated, suggesting they are copies of the letters she actually sent.
5.
“Dear and true Poetess!”: The Editor to ESVM, Aug. 6, 1912. St. Coll.
6.
“I am to some extent”: ESVM to “Editor, ‘The Lyric Year,’ ” Aug. 9, 1912. St. Coll.
7.
“to reach just such budding”: FE to ESVM, Aug. 14, 1912. St. Coll.
8.
“But it makes no difference”: ESVM to “Mrs. Mitchell Kennerley,” c. mid–end August 1912. Pencil draft. St. Coll.
9.
“Isn’t it dear”: CBM to ESVM, n.d., c. August 1912. St. Coll.
10.
“Mother said I could go” and subsequent quotes: NM, interview with author, n.d.
11.
“If I had known”: ESVM, diary, “Sweet & Twenty,” “Being The Extraordinary Adventures Of Me In My Twenty-first Year,” largely undated, or dates guessed.
12.
“I should wager odds”: The Editor to ESVM, Sept. 14, 1912. St. Coll.
13.
“by betting on”: ESVM to FE, n.d., c. late September 1912. St. Coll.
14.
“Dear Tom Boy”: FE to ESVM, Sept. 29, 1912. St. Coll.
15.
“
Bursting
to learn”: ESVM to FE, n.d., c. late September 1912. St. Coll.
16.
“I realize that you”: FE to ESVM, n.d., PM Oct. 4, 1912. St. Coll.
17.
“Now, to be serious”: FE to ESVM, Oct. 4, 1912. St. Coll.
18.
“[I]f it will make you”: ESVM to FE, n.d., fragment, c. early October 1912. St. Coll.
19.
Two days later: FE to ESVM, c. October 1912. St. Coll.
20.
“If you could”: ESVM to FE, n.d., fragment, c. October 1912. St. Coll.
21.
“flame back into silence”: FE to ESVM, Oct. 14, 1912. St. Coll.
22.
“My Editor”: ESVM to “My Editor,” Oct. 15, 1912 (draft). St. Coll.
23.
“friendships, relations, acquaintance-ships”: FE to ESVM, Oct. 25, 1912. St. Coll.
24.
“I am asking you”: ESVM “To the Patch-Work Letter Man—” Oct. 28, 1912 (draft, date crossed out).
25.
“I say: the Prizes”: FE to ESVM, Nov. 2, 1912. St. Coll.
26.
“This, then”: ESVM to FE, Nov. 5, 1912. St. Coll.
27.
“What have I done”: FE to ESVM, Nov. 15, 1912. St. Coll.
28.
“But it didn’t get the prize!”: ESVM, “Sweet & Twenty,” Nov. 14, 1912. She recorded Jessie Rittenhouse’s reaction, which Earle had sent her.
29.
“The ‘Lyric Year’ ”: Jessie Rittenhouse, review,
The New York Times
, Dec. 12, 1912, reprinted in
The New York Times
(New York: Arno Press, 1969).
30.
“You might easily think”: Caroline B. Dow to ESVM, Oct. 15, 1912. St. Coll.
31.
“I have always wanted”: ESVM to Caroline B. Dow, Nov. 18, 1912.
32.
“the country life”: Caroline B. Dow to ESVM, Dec. 2, 1912. St. Coll.
33.
On December 18, 1912: M. L. Burton to ESVM, Dec. 18, 1912. St. Coll.
34.
“I have on hand”: Caroline B. Dow to ESVM, Jan. 9, 1913. St. Coll.
35.
“Isn’t this
fierce?
”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., c. January 1913. UVa.
36.
“Since three of the largest”: Caroline B. Dow to ESVM, Jan. 11, 1913. St. Coll.
37.
“I would write”: Charlotte Bannon to ESVM, Jan. 4, 1913. St. Coll.
38.
“I do not want”: Charlotte Bannon to ESVM, n.d., PM Jan. 20, 1913. St. Coll.
39.
“How did you come by”: ADF to ESVM, Dec. 9, 1912. St. Coll.
40.
“As to the line”: ESVM to ADF,
Ls.
, p. 22.
41.
“O, Wonder-child!” ADF to ESVM, Dec. 19, 1912. St. Coll.
42.
“Mr. Earle may be extolled”: Louis Untermeyer, Chicago
Evening Post
, Friday Literary Review, Dec. 27, 1912, p. 2.
43.
“Some people think”: “Her Book,” Jan. 10, 1913. St. Coll.
CHAPTER 9
1.
“buildings everywhere”: ESVM to the Millay family,
Ls.
, p. 32.
2.
“You see”: ESVM to family, Feb. 24, 1913. Berg.
3.
“Well, here I am”: ESVM, “Sweet & Twenty,” Feb. 7, 1913. St. Coll.
4.
“Miss Dow”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., c. February 1913. St. Coll.
5.
“Well, now I’ve come”: ESVM to “Dear Family,” n.d., c. February 1913. St. Coll.
6.
“O, it seems”: CBM to ESVM, Feb. 10, 1913. St. Coll.
7.
“I met two”: ESVM to “Dear Family,” n.d., c. February 1913. St. Coll.
8.
“Isn’t it perfectly dear”: NM to ESVM, n.d., PM Feb. 15, 1913. St. Coll.
9.
“Only you, my family”: ESVM to family, n.d., c. February 1913. St. Coll.
10.
“only rejoiced”: CBM to ESVM, Feb. 18, 1913. St. Coll.
11.
“Loose in New York!”: ADF to ESVM, Feb. 13, 1913. St. Coll.
12.
“And in order”: LWF, Feb. 15, 1913.
13.
“I call her ‘Sara’ ”: ESVM to CBM, PM April 22, 1913. St. Coll.
14.
“lovely home”: ESVM to family, April 18, 1913. UVa.
15.
“Has it ever occurred”: ESVM to Louis Untermeyer, April 11, 1913. Lilly Library, Indiana.
16.
“Wish I could hear”: ESVM, “Sweet & Twenty,” Feb. 20, 1913.
17.
“I felt that”: FE to ESVM, Feb. 25, 1913. St. Coll.
18.
“Mr. Earle I saw”: ESVM to CBM, n.d. (Cora’s hand: “April 22, 1913”). St. Coll.
19.
“Witter Bynner is tall”: ESVM to family, n.d., c. spring 1913. St. Coll. 95 “just a small party”: ESVM,
Ls.
, p. 36.
20.
“If I should die”: LWF, March 10, 1913.
21.
“Did a lot”: LWF, March 30, 1913.
22.
“I am
dying
”: ESVM to NM (postcard), PM March 18, 1913.
23.
“I wish I hadn’t”: ESVM to NM, March 20, 1913, (copy). UVa.
24.
“Po’ ole Sephus”: NM to ESVM, n.d., c. March 1913. St. Coll.
25.
“Promise me, please”: ESVM to CBM,
Ls.
, p. 37.
26.
“I am going crazy”: LWF, April 27, 1913.
27.
“It isn’t anything great”: ESVM,
Ls.
, p. 44.
28.
“beautifully written”: CBM to ESVM, PM May 12, 1913. St. Coll.
29.
“because this is the better”: ESVM to CBM, PM May 9, 1913. St. Coll.
30.
“Yesterday I got an A”: ESVM to CBM, May 13, 1913. St. Coll.
31.
“Mother should have been”: NM, interview with author, n.d.
32.
“They are in the
country!
”
:
ESVM to CBM, PM May 16, 1913. St. Coll.
33.
“Dearest old neglected Muvver”: ESVM to family, n.d., c. late spring 1913. St. Coll.