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Since the principal justification for publishing Gaddis’s letters is to enable greater insight into his work, I’ve favored those in which he discusses his writing, his reading, his views on literature (and related fields like criticism, publishing, and book reviewing), along with a few concerned letters to politicians and enough personal matter to give the volume continuity and to allow it to function as a kind of autobiography in letters. This selection represents less than a quarter of his extant correspondence.

Gaddis’s letters are transcribed virtually verbatim, including idiosyncratic punctuation, spelling, careless errors, and so on; only obvious misstrokes and insignificant misspellings have been corrected. I have occasionally supplied a bracketed correction, or a
sic
, but otherwise it can be assumed
all irregularities are in the originals
. (I’ve boldfaced that to catch the eye of readers and reviewers and preempt complaints that this book was poorly proofread.) Again, these letters were not written for publication—except for a few to the editors of periodicals—and a close transcription of the originals will keep that in the reader’s mind throughout. I’ve retained Gaddis’s preference for British orthography, his habitual misspellings (e.g., tho, envelop[e], compleat, thot, magasine), his habit of closing up phrases (as in “eachother” and “3000miles”), outdated contractions like “’phone,” abbreviations (“$ly” = “financially”), and other personal choices. (However, I have not replicated his occasional use of German-style quotation marks: ,,like so.”) In a few cases I’ve retained a deleted word to indicate Gaddis’s first thought, where interesting. Underlined words have been set in italics, except for a few places where the underline has been retained for emphasis, especially when Gaddis used a double underline. Gaddis wasn’t consistent in the treatment of book titles—sometimes he underlined them (especially when writing by hand), more often he used all caps, or nothing at all—but for clarity and consistency the titles of all books, periodicals, movies, artworks, and ships have been italicized. On the other hand, I haven’t italicized foreign words unless Gaddis did so. He used a variety of paragraphing forms—including subparagraphs within paragraphs, some of which I’ve run together—and likewise placed dates and addresses in a variety of positions over the years. Most often, his address and the date appear at the bottom of the letter, to the left of his signature. But for ease of reading and reference a consistent physical layout has been imposed on all the letters. (The dates are transcribed verbatim.) For those from the same address, the first gives the complete street and city address, but subsequent ones only the city. Closing signatures are verbatim; in some cases, one isn’t present, either because it’s a carbon copy or a draft. Some abridgments of mundane matters have been made—and they are merely mundane matters, no shocking secrets or libelous insults—indicated by bracketed, unspaced ellipses ([...]); Gaddis’s own ellipses are spaced (. . .), and have been regularized thus. (Sometimes he used two periods.., sometimes more......) Some postscripts and marginalia have also been omitted. Material deleted at the request of the Estate is indicated thus: {***}.

Finally, a word about the notes in this volume. My own relationship with Mr. Gaddis and some of his friends, as well as other critics of his work, necessitated a more prevalent use of the first person in the annotations than is usually found in collections such as this, which some readers may find intrusive and self-serving. I have tried to keep such incursions to a minumum, but felt that the syntactic acrobatics necessary to avoid them entirely would have resulted in equally objectionable stiltedness.

Abbreviations

AA
=
Agap
ē
Agape

CG =
Carpenter’s Gothic

FHO
=
A Frolic of His Own
, the first American and British editions, not the repaginated paperback.

ODQ
=
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
(London: Oxford University Press, 1949, 6th impression). This often-used reference book was given to WG in 1950 by Ormande de Kay in Paris.

R
=
The Recognitions
, sometimes cited by part/chapter (e.g., III.5)

RSP
=
The Rush for Second Place

WG =William Gaddis

WG at Merricourt, c. 1928, “that blond pageboy” second from left in the foreground (see letter of 9 November 1994).

1. Growing Up, 1930–1946

To Edith Gaddis

[
WG’s mother, née Edith Charles (1900–69); see WG’s capsule biography of her in his letter of 14 March 1994. In 1922 she married William T. Gaddis (1899–1965), but they separated about four years later. WG’s earliest letters date from 1929, when he was attending the Merricourt School in Berlin, CT. Most are addressed to Mrs. Gaddis’s work address: 130 E. 15th St., New York, NY, the office of the New York Steam Corporation, which later merged with ConEdison. (Her work there was the subject of a feature in the
New York Times
:
6 April 1941, Society News, D4.) The first two are included because they refer to his first “book,” his earliest reading, and document his first creative effort.
]

Merricourt

Dec. 9, 1930

Dear Mother.

Our vacation is from Sat. Dec. 20. to January 4.

We are making scrapbooks and lots of things. We are learning about the Greek Gods.

I am making an airplane book.

With love

Billy

To Edith Gaddis

Merricourt

Jan. 23
^rd
, 1932

Dear Mother.

[...] We just came back from the library but I didn’t get any books.

I finished
Bomba the Jungle Boy
and I have started
Bomba the Jungle Boy at the Moving Mountain
. I wrote a poem and it went like this

Easter

Easter is on Sunday

But today is Monday

And Easter is 11 weeks away

At Easter the bunny hides eggs all over,

Some in the grass, some in the clover.

Did you like it

With love

Billy

Bomba the Jungle Boy
[...]
Moving Mountain
: the first two (both published 1926) in a series of boys’ adventure novels by the pseudonymous Roy Rockwood.

To Edith Gaddis

[
Most of WG’s early letters home are brief, cheerful bulletins about school activities, but the following one about the three-hour train-ride between New York City and Berlin conveys some of the anxiety that Jack Gibbs recalls of his boarding-school days in
J R
: “—End of the day alone on that train, lights coming on in those little Connecticut towns stop and stare out at an empty street corner dry cheese sandwich charge you a dollar wouldn’t even put butter on it, finally pull into that desolate station scared to get off scared to stay on
[
...
]
school car waiting there like a, black Reo touring car waiting there like a God damned open hearse think anybody expect to grow up . . .” (119).
]

Merricourt

Oct. 24, 1933

Dear Mother.

I got here safely, but got mixed up because it was dark and didn’t think [it] was Berlin. Carl, Warren, and David were there to meet me and we enjoyed the rest of the Oh-Henry. The darn train stopped up over the bridge to let another one pass it and I was wondering where the station was when we started up and rode by the station (nearly) and the boys had to race with the train. [...]

With love Billy

To Edith Gaddis

[
After Merricourt, WG attended public school on Long Island from seventh through twelfth grades. In the summer of 1940, he sailed to the Caribbean on the SS
Bacchus
, the first of many voyages he would make throughout the Western hemisphere over the next dozen years.
]

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

[24 August 1940]

Dear Mother.

Well everything is coming along fine. I was pretty under the weather the first 2 days out but after that fine. The other passengers are fine especially 4 of the men who are swell. And the crew are too. I have become the bos’n’s “apprentice.” He has taught me to splice rope etc. and is a corker. A good part of the crew are colored but they’re OK too.

As I write this it is 5 AM and we are lying in at Port-au-Price. I slept on the bridge last nite and this morning got up early and am watching the sunrise over the mountains to the east of the town. Last nite 3 of the men (passengers) and I went ashore and saw a little of Haitian nite-life, of which we saw
very
little. All the stores were closed as they didn’t expect the ship ’til this morning so the town was almost dead. Mr Romondi’s prophecy, however, has come true. There are a good many palm trees on the island and I was under one last nite.

The town is quite beautiful with the mountain behind it and all the white buildings and a flaming cloud to the right and the sun rising to the left.

We go ashore this morning to the souvenir shops etc. Oh boy!

We lift anchor at 10 AM for Aruba or La Guiara—I forget which.

I read
Black Majesty
—a fellow on the boat has it.

Hope I don’t get stuck in a record store in Port-au-Prince and miss the boat—

Love

Bill

Mr Romondi: unidentified.

La Guiara: on the coast of Venezuela, WG’s next port-of-call.

Black Majesty
: a biography of Henri Christophe, king of Haiti (1767–1820), by John W. Vandercook (1928).

Left: WG piloting the SS
Bacchus
, 1940.

Right
:
Edith Gaddis, 1941 (Times Wide World).

To Edith Gaddis

[
WG entered Harvard in September 1941, but almost immediately began experiencing medical problems. (Thirty years later he recalled it as mononucleosis.) As a result, he left after the first term and headed west for his health
.
]

Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

[10 September 1941]

Dear Mother.

First the business before I forget and then the news. As you can see a typewriter ribbon will be welcome at the first opportunity, and then there is the problem of the desk lamp. They have nice ones like my room mate’s at the Coop for $5.98, but if you can get one and send it all right; any how I think it must be settled soon as classes start today and they are starting assignments off with a bang. Also I understand that note books seem to be required to some extent in many of the courses, so if you happen on one it will be welcome up here. I have been spending to a fair extent, having gotten all of my books and other little things such as writing paper, joining the Coop, etc., and so the latest contribution was very welcome. And speaking of contributions, have you heard anything from the Christy affair?

I’ve had two classes: in English and French, and you should see the assignments. Boy, they aren’t waiting for anything. The food is good so far, and with classes starting we are beginning to get settled down to a more regular life. Boy it is really some life, and promises to become more so to the nth degree. We are beginning to realize just about what the courses are going to be, how much work connected with them, etc. Although my course is not a stiff one, and the courses aren’t as hard as they are dry, uninteresting, and only requirements, I am looking forward very apprehensively to the Latin course, in which my classes start tomorrow. V (my room mate just did this—for Victory—in the November hour exams I guess).

I guess you got my card asking for the jacket; I was figuring I might take it down to this Max Keezer and get a trade in on that corduroy jacket which I think is going to be the thing to wear to classes.

Well, that’s about all, I guess; I’ll write and let you know how things are when we get really settled.

Love,

Bill