“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, Christmas, 1922, Del Monte Ranch, near Taos, New Mexico

Happy Christmas!

This has never been the favorite holiday for English writer David Herbert Lawrence, 37. Last year he was fine staying in bed with a persistent case of flu.

But this year Lawrence is actually enjoying himself. His American publisher, Thomas Seltzer, 47, and his wife Adele, 46, have come to visit Lawrence and his German wife Frieda, 43, at their ranch here.

Del Monte Ranch

In preparation for the trip, Frieda had written to Adele: 

You will find it a different sort of life after New York—bring warm clothes and old clothes and riding things if you like riding—It’s primitive to say the least of it—but plenty of wood and cream and chickens.”

With the clean, dry scent of pine-log fires coming from the fireplace, the two couples have been cooking roasted chicken, bread, Christmas pudding, and mince pie. The Lawrences’ patron, who invited him to come live here, Mabel Dodge, 43, has given them a puppy, Bibbles, who has kept the visitors entertained.

Their hosts have taken the Seltzers to see nearby hot springs, pueblos, and Santa Fe.

In the evenings, the publisher and his author talk shop together. One recurring topic is Ulysses, the new novel by Irishman James Joyce, 40. Lawrence thinks it’s “tiresome,” but hasn’t really read the whole thing.

Their other topic of conversation is Lawrence’s agent, Robert Mountsier, 34. Seltzer is trying to convince Lawrence that he doesn’t really need an agent to be published by Thomas Seltzer, Inc. Hasn’t he always treated his authors fairly? And Mountsier has made it clear that he didn’t even like Lawrence’s most recent novels Aaron’s Rod or Kangaroo.

Robert Mountsier

The Lawrences have invited Mountsier to visit too, paying his train fare from New York with David’s royalties. Luckily, the terribly anti-semitic Mountsier won’t be arriving until the day before the Seltzers leave.

But he’s staying for four weeks. Lawrence isn’t looking forward to that

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Early next year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, July 7, 1922, 5 West 50th Street, New York City, New York

Late on this hot Friday afternoon, Thomas Seltzer, 47, is working at his desk in the office of his publishing company, Thomas Seltzer, Inc.

Signature of Thomas Seltzer

Suddenly, there is noise outside the door and in walks John Sumner, 45, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV). Accompanying him is an officer of the West Side Police Court with a search warrant. They seize almost 800 copies—and also books from other publishers stored in Seltzer’s own locked desk—of three books:  the novella Casanova’s Homecoming by the Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler, 60; A Young Girl’s Diary, by an anonymous author, with a foreword by noted psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, 66: and Women in Love, a novel by one of Seltzer’s star authors, Englishman D. H. Lawrence, 36. Lawrence’s most recent best seller, Aaron’s Rod, is there in plain sight, but Sumner ignores it.

Women in Love, U. S. edition

Unfortunately, there are lots of copies of Women in Love in the office because Lawrence’s novel has not done as well as Seltzer expected.

Sumner informs the publisher that he is being charged under the New York State Penal Code for “the publication and sale of obscene literature.” Sumner says he will have a police patrol car come by and haul away the books. Seltzer decides he will rent a truck to take them to the police station instead, so the books themselves will not appear to be criminals under arrest.

West Side Police Court

Sumner is Executive Secretary of the NYSSV, which is empowered by the city to search and seize any materials the Society deems obscene. But Sumner is just a private citizen, so he issues Seltzer a receipt for the books in the name of the New York District Attorney.

The NYSSV confiscates copies of the Young Girl’s Diary from Brentano’s bookstore and also arrests a clerk at a local circulating library for lending out that book to “diverse persons.”

Seltzer knows that he will need to consult his attorney before he takes any action, but his instinct is to fight these charges and to fight them quite publicly. This is going to be a big financial blow to his three-year-old publishing company, but his wife Adele, 46, a partner in his business, will support his decision. She is an even bigger fan of Lawrence than Seltzer is.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and also in print and e-book formats on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Later in the year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

“Such Friends”: 100 years ago, June 10, 1921, Fontana Vecchia, Taormina, Sicily, Italy

Today is the day.

English ex-patriate writer David Herbert Lawrence, 35, on his 20-minute walk from his hilltop house in to town, realizes that today is the day his novel Women in Love is being published in the United Kingdom. What a long and circuitous journey.

Fontana Vecchia

Lawrence had conceived of this novel during the Great War. But then had written and published six years ago what he thought of as part one, The Rainbow, in both the US and the UK.

Well, of course, the Brits had gone ballistic and banned it under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. 1857. Did they realize it is now the 20^th century?!

Angry, Lawrence sat down and wrote Women in Love as a response, telling his literary agent,

You will hate it and no one will publish it. But there, these things are beyond us.”

Actually, his American publisher, Thomas Seltzer, 46, was willing to take a chance and published it last November. But only in a US private edition costing $15 each. Bit of a narrow audience. Lawrence argued that he didn’t want it to be released that way, but eventually gave in. The title page doesn’t even include the publisher’s name. Just “Private Printing for Subscribers Only.”

Seltzer has told Lawrence that his books are selling quite well in the States, even in a bad year for publishing in general. However, after the uproar over The Rainbow in the UK, Seltzer doesn’t want to take any chances bringing out Women in Love over there.

So Martin Secker, 39, has shouldered the burden with his publishing company. Fear of the censors has led Secker to make a few discreet edits. But Women in Love is scheduled to be unleashed on the public today.

Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, 41, have been in self-imposed exile from England for the past four years. Because Frieda is German, their English neighbors had suspected them to be spies. Ridiculous. And also, he writes dirty books.

D. H. and Frieda Lawrence

The couple have been traveling throughout Europe, mostly Germany—which seemed to Lawrence to be “so empty…as if uninhabited…life empty: no young men”—and Italy. Last year they settled in this Sicilian town. At the beginning of this month, visiting Frieda’s family in Germany, he finished Aaron’s Rod, his third novel in the series about his home country, the English midlands. Seltzer feels that right now Lawrence has too many books out in the US market, so he is going to hold publication of Aaron’s Rod until next year.

David and Frieda are getting antsy. In Italy, he has been writing very little. He is hopeful that excerpts from his travelogue Sea and Sardinia will appear in the American Dial magazine later this year.

Their passports will need to be renewed soon. Lawrence feels it is time to move on to the next adventure.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volume I covering 1920 is available on Amazon in print and e-book versions. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This summer I will be talking about The Literary 1920s in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and e-book formats.