James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence, Photo Essay

Locating Lawrence: June 1924

Lawrence has five horses and twelve bottles of smuggled whisky to keep him company in the Lobo Mountains.

Keeping the Lawrence’s company in the Lobo Mountains were two French bulldog pups[i] and five horses[ii] that acted like ‘devils,[iii]’ refusing to be tamed. The horses were vital to their survival, enabling Lawrence to fetch milk and butter, and on one occasion, ’12 bottles of smuggled whisky.[iv]’

Horses are a recurring theme throughout his letters in June. The Hawks family, who owned the Del Monte Ranch, ‘had three horses struck by lightning[v]’ that month. In gifting the ranch to Frieda, Mabel Dodge Luhan now had nowhere for her own horses to graze, which was a source of irritation to her husband Tony. As tensions mounted, horses become a symbol for Lawrence’s deteriorating relationship with Mabel Dodge Luhan: ‘Instead of being all wild like the horses. We’ll all chew the cud of contemplation in our little corrals, then trot out for a reunion.[vi]’

Luhan had a chair made for Lawrence. In her memoir she proudly details its creation: ‘I carved it a little and cut up a fine old blanket to upholster it, with shining brass nails. It was intended to become Lawrence’s very own chair. I fancied him always sitting in it and always writing in it…one of those dedicated pieces of furniture that would slowly become associated with him.’

She fancied it. Lawrence didn’t. He was happier writing under a tree than in a grandiose piece of furniture clearly designed with posterity in mind. He subsequently nicknamed it the Iron Maiden after the infamous torture cabinet. Then Luhan made the cardinal mistake of forcing him to dance at a social gathering. He was seething.

Lawrence was mentally exhausted after his latest excursion in Europe which was soured by memories of the war which ‘changed me forever.[vii]’ He was also physically exhausted renovating the ranch, as this letter from the 4th June indicates: ‘I’ve done one of the hardest days work in my life today – cleaning the well. All the foul mud of the Thames – and stank like hell. Now it’s excavated and built in with stone, and the pipe sunk two feet deeper – Lord, this is the week we promised ourselves rest. I’ve still got to go to the Hawks’ for milk – and it’s 7pm. Wish we had a cow.’

The renovations meant he hadn’t written for awhile and instead was enjoying the natural rhythms of evening treks through the mountains with Frieda and Brett. ‘I don’t know why,’ he confessed to his mother-in-law ‘but words and speech have become a bit boring to me. We understand so well, without saying anything (…) Here, where one is alone with trees and mountains and chipmunks and desert, one gets something out of the air: something wild and untamed, cruel and proud, beautiful and sometimes evil, that really is America.[viii]’

To see previous video essays from 1924 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

[i] Jerome and Alfred were the pups of Bibbles, Mabel Dodge Luhan’s French bulldog who lived with the Lawrence’s in the Winter of 1923.

[ii] The horses were called Contentos, Cequa, Poppy, Azul and Bessie. 

[iii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 4 June (L3137)

[iv] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 23 June (L3194)

[v] Letter Thomas Seltzer, 19 June (L3147)

[vi] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 7 June (L3141)

[vii] Letter to Frederick Carter, 3 June 1924

[viii] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 28 June (L3150)

James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence

Locating Lawrence: May 1924

Literature’s greatest DIYer has replaced his pen for a trowel…

Lawrence spent the winter of 1923 on the Del Monte Ranch as tenants of the Hawk family. So on his return to the Lobo mountains, he gets in contact with William Hawk for ‘a wagonload[i]’ of timber to begin work on the 160 acre ranch gifted to Frieda by Mabel Dodge Luhan. Mabel is also good for tools and in accessing ‘a sack of fine straw[ii]’ so that he can begin work on plastering a new chimney. Lawrence loves hard graft and signs off his letter to Luhan with ‘been a very busy day – very satisfactory.[iii]’

Mabel Dodge Luhan wants to keep Lawrence happy because she still hopes he will record the lives of the Pueblo Indians, so she sends him some topical reading in the form of The Delight Makers (1890) by the anthropologist and explorer Adolf Bandelier (1840-1914).

Lawrence is in his element at an altitude of 8,600 ft. He’s got four horses, a two-room cabin for Mabel, a one-roomer for Brett and ‘with three Indians and a Mexican carpenter[iv]’ he begins work on a three-room log cabin for him and Frieda. No wonder Geoff Dyer claimed Lawrence was ‘perhaps the first great DIYer in English literature.[v]’

But the graft takes its toll: ‘I don’t write when I slave building the house – my arms feel so heavy, like a navvy’s, though they look as thin as ever.[vi]’ The isolation of cabin life has left him detached from the world. He’s not ‘seen a newspaper for two months[vii]’. He has replaced paper and pen for hammer and trowel and is only interested in disappearing into ‘the big, unbroken spaces round me[viii]’ that are ‘almost Arcadian.[ix]’

What I love about Lawrence is his lack of interest in possessions. He just likes making home. And as he will only be here for the summer, hopes to find someone who might enjoy the fruits of his endeavour when he leaves, ‘so that the place needn’t be abandoned in the winter.[x]’

His writing in May is full of the colours of spring and you can feel him awakening too. He does this by connecting to the natural rhythms of his immediate environment: ‘The sun is setting, the pines are red, the Indians are just started drumming.[xi]’ Not for the first time, he is happiest when ‘right away from the world.[xii]’

To see previous video essays from 1924 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

[i] Letter to William Hawk, 2 May (L3120)

[ii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 12 May (L3123)

[iii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 12 May (L3123)

[iv] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 18 May (L3129)

[v] Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage (p 141-2)

[vi] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 18 May (L3129)

[vii] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 18 May 1924 (L3130)

[viii] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 18 May 1924 (L3130)

[ix] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 18 May (L3129)

[x] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 18 May (L3129)

[xi] Letter to John Middelton Murry, 16 May (L3125)

[xii] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 2 May (L3118)

James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence

Locating Lawrence: April 1924

In April 1924, the Klu Klux Clan shot 22 people in  Lilly, Pennsylvania, Hitler was found guilty of treason and imprisoned for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch, and the BBC broadcasts its first educational radio program.

Lawrence is happily away from it all in Taos which ‘alternates between hot sun and birds singing, and deep snow and silence.’ But his main focus is sorting out the various loose threads of his writing.

Mollie Skinner sends through some last-minute adjustments for The Boy in the Bush, her cowritten book with Lawrence. ‘If there is time,’ he asks Martin Secker, ‘please make these little changes to please her.[i]’ Curtis Brown is sent three short stories and instructed to find them a home anywhere other than John Middleton Murry’s The Adelphi. The stories have a cathartic function for Lawrence, helping him ‘work off some of the depression of that Europe.[ii]’ Brown is also sent the essay ‘Indians and Entertainment’ which would be published in The New York Times Magazine before being collected in Mornings in Mexico (1927).

In 1921, Lawrence was forced to write the school textbook Movements in European History as he faced destitution. He used the pseudonym Lawrence H. Davidson, so as not to cause controversy, given he had been prosecuted for alleged eroticism with the publication of The Rainbow (1915). Now there were plans for new editions with illustrations.

Things seem to be going well with Mabel Dodge Luhan, but these are early days. Although Lawrence didn’t appreciate being ‘bullied by kindness,’ Luhan was incredibly supportive, giving Frieda ‘the ranch above Lobo[iii]’ which she had previously gifted to her son. Not one for accepting gifts, Lawrence would eventually give Luhan the original manuscript to Sons and Lovers in exchange[iv].  

Ever conscious about money, Lawrence urges Willard Johnson to accept payment for typing out a story for him and insists on settling the finances of Maurice Magnus, who had recently committed suicide after getting into debt with Michael Borg. Martin Secker is less magnanimous, insisting on one third of royalties – given nobody else was interested in publishing Magnus’s memoir of life in the Foreign Legion.

Things seem to be going remarkably well. Even Dorthy Brett, who had accompanied the Lawrence’s to Taos, has settled into the pioneer life and ‘rides like an amazon in a cowboy hat, on a huge old brown mare. You never saw such a thrilled female.[v]’ What could possibly go wrong with three females – Frieda, Mabel and Brett – all vying for Lawrence’s attention…

To see previous video essays from 1924 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

[i] Letter to Martin Secker, 4 April (L3099)

[ii] Letter to Curtsi Brown, 4 April (L3100) ‘that’ is my emphasis.

[iii] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 4 April (L3098)

[iv] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 3 July (L3152)

[v] Letter to Mark Gertler, 10 April (L3105)

James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence

Locating Lawrence: March 1924

Europe has become a ‘weariness’ to Lawrence, but will America lift the spirits of literature’s angriest writer? Think we all know the answer to that one…

‘Thank goodness we are getting out of Europe. It is a weariness to me. I prefer to be on the American continent,[i]’ Lawrence informs Bessie Freeman on the 1 March, a few days before he sets sail to New York to sort out his income tax and unpaid royalties from his publisher Thomas Seltzer. From there, he’s off to Taos, but it’s just a ‘jumping off place’ as he really wants to go back to Mexico because he has a novel he wants ‘to finish off there.[ii]’

Dorothy Brett is joining them on their trip. Lawrence gives a reductive outline of his fellow traveller: ‘She is deaf – and a painter -and daughter of Viscount Esher.[iii]’ But this is no jumping off spot for her. Taos will become Brett’s home for the rest of her life.

The final contractual agreements are made with Mollie Skinner and Lawrence is as thorough as ever in outlining how sales work: ‘Statements are made on June 30th and Decm. 31st. and payments are made on 1st Oct. and 1st May, each year. Curtis Brown is very strict in business, so you will be quite safe.[iv]’ His objective is for her to ‘get some money as well as fame.[v]’ The least he can do after rewriting her book.

The R.M.S Aquitania does about ‘580 – or 585 sea miles a day.’[vi] ‘The unending motion irritates’ Frieda but ‘I rather like it.[vii]’ Lawrence’s main problem seems to be with the size of the ship ‘rather too big – like living in a Town Hall[viii]’ and, of course, his fellow travellers. ‘Most people are unpleasant nowadays, particularly those going to America to make a fortune.[ix]’

Despite his aversion to wealth, he knows an opportunity when he sees one. Customers are issued with a Daily Mail each day and consume it cover to cover. But what if his friend, S.S. Koteliansky, were to publish ‘an ‘important’ daily on a liner’. ‘It would command attention’ and provide an ‘opportunity of making oneself heard![x]’ Koteliansky had been doing a stint at The Adelphi and was keen on setting up some form of publishing of his own. But to succeed, he must ‘go at it like a lion, serpent, and a condor.[xi]’    

When they arrive at passport controls, Lawrence is disgusted by an official who mocks Dorothy Brett for travelling alone. ‘I got so mad,’ they soon ‘quieted up sharp.’ Then it’s time to face the winter. ‘We struggled up to 100th St buried in luggage, in a taxi, in half a blizzard, snow and rain on a gale of N E wind. New York looking vile.’

He is greeted by Thomas Seltzer, the publisher who had been ignoring his letters, only to discover his business ‘has gone very badly’ and he’s suffered ‘sleepless nights.[xii]’ Perhaps he should have heeded the advice of his former American agent Robert Mountsier, who warned him against Seltzer. But Lawrence fell out with him in February 1923.  

To see previous video essays from 1924 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

[i] Letter to Bessie Freeman, 1 March (L3081)

[ii] Letter to Bessie Freeman, 1 March (L3081)

[iii] Letter to Witter Bynner, 3 March (L3083)

[iv] Letter to Mollie Skinner, 3 March (L3084)

[v] Letter to Mollie Skinner, 3 March (L3084)

[vi] Letter to John Middleton Murry, 10-11 March (L3090)

[vii] Letter to Mark Gertler, 10-11 March (L3089)

[viii] Letter to Mark Gertler, 10-11 March (L3089)

[ix] Letter to Catherine Carswell 16 March (L3094)

[x] Letter to Mark Gertler, 10-11 March (L3089)

[xi] Letter to S.S. Koteliansky, 13 March (L3092)

[xii] Letter to John Middleton Murry 11 March (L3090)

James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence, Photo Essay

Locating Lawrence: February 1924


One hundred years ago this month, D.H. Lawrence waved goodbye to Europe and headed off to America to pay his tax.


February provides a whistle top tour of Europe, with visits to Paris, Frieda’s family in Baden Baden and then back to the UK. ‘Am quite ready to be on the move again[i]’ he informs S.S. Koteliansky.

‘Paris has been quite entertaining for the two weeks: good food and wine, and everything very cheap.’ But he is ‘about ready to go.[ii]’

Lawrence is remarkably upbeat and reasons, ‘what’s the good of gloom, anyhow![iii]’ echoing his previous declaration to Mabel Dodge Luhan that ‘the last days of life are for living, not for knowing or insisting.[iv]’

One thing determining Lawrence’s travel plans is an income tax bill that must be paid in New York in March. Having not heard from his publisher Thomas Seltzer in six weeks he becomes increasingly agitated. Seltzer is a ‘dog,[v]’ ‘hateful[vi]’ and someone who makes him ‘anxious.[vii]’

He doubts whether John Middleton Murry really wants to follow him to Taos and warns ‘a man like you, if he does anything in the name of or for the sake of (…) somebody else, is bound to turn like a crazy snake and bite himself and everybody, on account of it.[viii]’ In a letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan a few days later he confesses he hopes Murry won’t come and that he doesn’t ‘trust him very well.[ix]’

You sense that he might be regretting his planned rematch with Mabel Dodge Luhan when she begins bombarding him with her latest theories regarding extroverts and introverts which she had gleaned from conversations with the anthropologist Jaime de Angulo (1887-1950). He dismisses her ‘long letter’ and purist ‘classifications’ and instead offers up some domestic advice, ‘wash just a few windows and dishes, till you can do it rhythmically and with grace. It’s good for you’ and to abstain the vice of ‘knowing’ because ‘there’s no end to it, like a bottomless pit: which swallows every human relation.[x]’

For Lawrence, the obsession with mental consciousness leads to imbalance which is a ‘sin’ and ‘unpardonable.[xi]’ But he puts up with her eccentricities, presumably, because he craves the pioneer life once more. ‘I would be very glad to be cutting down a tree and sawing it up, or cutting the ice in the stream.’

During his stay in Germany, he notes there is ‘terrible poverty[xii]’ and that Germany is ‘beginning to get her back up.[xiii]’ We all know how that turned out.

He returns to France but finds little comfort at Versailles. ‘It is stupid (…) much too large for the landscape. No, such a greatness – or size – is only like the puffed up, self puffed up frog, who wants to make himself larger than nature, and naturally he goes pop.[xiv]’

But the discontent, as always, has a purpose. It propels him to move on. Next stop is the Aquitania to New York.

To see previous video essays from 1924 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

[i] Letter to S.S. Koteliansky, 5 Feb 1924 (L3034)
[ii] Letter to Dorothy Brett, 4 Feb 1924 (L3030)
[iii] Letter to Dorothy Brett, 4 Feb 1924 (L3030)
[iv] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 22 Jan 1924 (L3006)
[v] Letter to S.S. Koteliansky, 12 Feb 1924 (L3050)
[vi] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 12 Feb 1924 (L3051)
[vii] Letter to John Middleton Murry, 13 Feb 1924 (L3053)
[viii] Letter to John Middleton Murry, 7 Feb 1924 (L3040)
[ix] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 9 Feb 1924 (L3045)
[x] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 9 Feb 1924 (L3045)
[xi] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 10 Feb 1924 (L3047)
[xii] Letter to S.S. Koteliansky, 9 Feb 1924 (L3042)
[xiii] Letter to Frederick Carter, 9 Feb 1924 (L3044)
[xiv] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 23 Feb 1924 (L3070)
James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence, Photo Essay

Locating Lawrence: January 1924


In these monthly videos we are locating D.H. Lawrence 100 years ago via his letters. After a brief stint in England he heads to Paris. But the weather is rubbish…

On the 1 January 1924 Lawrence is in his hometown of Nottingham and planning a trip to Pontesbury to meet Frederick Carter. ‘Don’t bother meeting me’ he nonchalantly advises ‘unless you have something else to go to Shrewsbury for,’ and if he does meet him, ‘you will know me by my red beard.[i]’ This will result in Carter’s essay, ‘The Ancient Science of Astrology,’ being published in the April issue of The Adelphi. 

Not for the first time in his life, one of Lawrence’s books – this time, Kangaroo – is dismissed as ‘a book no one should read[ii]’ but this is counterbalanced by a review in The TLS that there has ‘never been more of an artist in vision and word.[iii]’

No matter what our feelings on the content of Lawrence’s work, nobody can dispute his commitment to fellow writers, be that through reading manuscripts or equity in collaborations. He informs Mollie Skinner that he will cover ‘the preliminary expenses[iv]’ of typing out The Boy in the Bush and then splitting the royalties 50/50.

But an intermediary is required with Thomas Seltzer who he feels is ‘so frightfully busy, I can’t bear to worry you anymore.[v]’ Curtis Brown is given the task. Seltzer’s career was full of controversy, from his early editorship of the socialist monthly The Masses (1911 – 17) with its publication of radical politics to the two successive obscenity trials defending publication of Women in Love. Quite rightly, then, Lawrence reassures Seltzer that Curtis Brown will ‘comply’ with his demands.      

England is as disappointing as he had imagined. ‘Still disliking it here[vi]’ he informs Willard Johnson who had sent him a copy of the December 1923 issue of The Laughing Horse which included Lawrence’s essay ‘Au Revoir, U.S.A.’ – another place he disliked but was planning to return to.

This time, strict rules of engagement are negotiated with Mabel Dodge Luhan to ensure there is no repeat of the ‘vileness of 1923.’ ‘You must learn not to care, not to think, and simply to laugh (…) I am sure seriousness is a disease, today (…) One has to put a new ripple in the ether.[vii]’ The plan is to bring John Middleton Murry and Dorothy Brett with him, though only the latter would make the trip across the pond.

He arrives in Paris towards the end of the month and writes a series of unconvincing letters on the 24th claiming that ‘Paris really is nicer than London[viii]’ then that it is ‘better[ix]’ and a day later it is ‘very like London. There really isn’t much point coming here. It’s the same thing with a small difference,’ he acknowledges that it ‘has great beauty’ but is ‘like a museum.[x]’

The reason for his discontent is the weather. ‘We had one sunny day,’ he laments ‘now it’s dark like London.[xi]’    

To see previous video essays from 1923 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

[i] Letter to Frederick Carter, 1 Jan 1924 (L2998)

[ii] 11 November 1923 Perth Sunday Times.

[iii] 20 September 1923, TLS

[iv] Letter to Mollie Skinner, 13 January 1924 (L3003)

[v] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 22 January 1924 (L3005)

[vi] Letter to Willard Johnson, 9 January 1924 (L3000)

[vii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 9 January 1924 (L3001)

[viii] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 24 January 1924 (L3009)

[ix] Letter to Knud Merrild, 24 January 1924 (L3012)

[x] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 25 January 1924 (L3017)

[xi] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 29 January 1924 (L3019)

James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence, Photo Essay

Locating Lawrence: December 1923

In these monthly videos we are locating D.H. Lawrence 100 years ago via his letters. He’s just returned to Blighty and feels like a ‘caged coyote.’ Christmas is going to be fun, then…

Lawrence is living in the leafy suburb of Hampstead. He’s glad to be reunited with Frieda but feels like a ‘caged coyote[i]’. England seems ‘dead and dark[ii]’ and he feels ‘buried alive, under the yellow air and vast inertia.’ He is so unhappy he would ‘rather be in New York, and I don’t like New York either.[iii]’

He goes on to describe England as a ‘tomb’ and that it is ‘like being among the dead of ones previous existence[iv].’ Clearly the ‘Day of the Dead’ fiestas he had recently experienced in Mexico were having an impact on him.

To make matters worse, he’s ‘in bed with a bad cold[v]’ and hasn’t received correspondence from his publisher Thomas Seltzer for over six weeks. In September 1922, the case against Seltzer for publishing salacious literature had been dropped. But the dogged Judge John Ford had revived the case in July 1923 and Seltzer was released on bail pending a new trial. He had a lot on his mind. Although Lawrence is concerned, this is not altruism as he realises ‘if something has gone wrong with him or his business (…) that would dish me in another direction.[vi]’

He saves all of his warmth for Mabel Dodge Luhan, offering to submit a story on her behalf[vii] to The Adelphi, but was this because he had his eye on returning to Taos in Spring, and what’s more, with a guest, Dorothy Brett ‘who paints, is deaf, forty, very nice, and daughter of Viscount Esher.[viii]’   

But no matter what his mood, he always has time to help people and writes to Mabel Dodge Luhan and Witter Bynner to see if they could put up Curtis Brown’s son who has ‘lung trouble[ix].’

He would later acknowledge to Robert Mountsier that the reason ‘there seems to be a deadness everywhere, in the people, in everything’ and that he felt like he was living ‘under a paving-stone of sky’ was ‘probably’ down to ‘the change from brightness of Mexico.[x]’   

To see other video essays from 1923 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

[i] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 14 December 1923 (L2975)

[ii] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 14 December 1923 (L2977)

[iii] ibid

[iv] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 17 December 1923 (L2982)

[v] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 17 December 1923 (L2980)

[vi] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 27 December 1923 (L2995)

[vii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 17 December 1923 (L2982)

[viii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 19 December 1923 (L2984)

[ix] Letter to Witter Bynner, 20 December 1923 (L2985)

[x] Letter to Robert Mountsier, 24 December (L2990)

James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence

Locating Lawrence: November 1923

Lawrence’s opening correspondence in November is very upbeat. William Hawk, his former neighbour at the Del Monte ranch, is congratulated on the birth of a son and Knud Merrild is advised to ‘get someone to insure you against yourself[i]’ after recently setting himself on fire and quitting his job. Adele Seltzer is sent a ‘native Tlaquepaue’ vase, a bargain at four pesos and he shares his amusement of the fiesta days of Todos Santos and Todos Muertos where ‘they make All Souls Day a great feast: and sell toys of skeleton men on skeleton horses, skeletons in coffins (…) skeletons of marzipan – skeleton bull-fighters fighting skeleton bulls[ii]’

The tone changes when he writes to Mabel Dodge Luhan warning her she cannot save the Indians due to her ‘salvationist but poisonous white consciousness.’ He then reminds her that in terms of their own friendship ‘your will was evil masquerading as good’. And as if oblivious to the offence caused, signs off with ‘before very long I hope to come and see you again.[iii]’ Bet she can’t wait.  

He has to return to England because Frieda ‘cables me I must go there.[iv]’Although eager to see her, he begrudges it somewhat and has a right moan to his schwiegermutterr. ‘You are nice and old and understand’ that ‘today a man needs to be a hero, and more than a husband.’ It his destiny to ‘go back and forth, through the world’ and so he ‘does not ask for love from his wife.’ Instead ‘one needs strength and courage and weapons.’ He then starts ranting about ‘battle-strength, weapon-strength, fighting-strength,’ before realising ‘I don’t know if my German can be understood.’

He finishes The Boy in the Bush on the 14 November[v] and sends it to Curtis Brown the next day to be typed up. Now all that’s left to do is book his place on the Toledo Hamburg-Amerika boat which leaves Vera Cruz towards the end of the month, though he is certain ‘Mexico will feel my tread once more – unless a bolshy bullet stops me.’

Now his affairs are in order, he treats himself to a serape ‘dark brown with big white stripes and boca – eleven pesos[vi]’ and in a letter to Bessie Freeman, even manages to pay Mabel Dodge Luhan a compliment, ‘I know there is something bigger in her than in most folks.[vii]’ Indeed, Luhan later receives a stroppy and uncharacteristically defeatist confession that ‘I don’t want much to go to England – but suppose it is the next move in the battle which never ends and in which I never win.[viii]’    

To see other video essays from 1923 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References     

[i] Letter to Knud Merrild, 3 November 1923 (L2952)

[ii] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 3 November 1923 (L2953)

[iii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 8 November 1923 (L2954)

[iv] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 8 November 1923 (L2954)

[v] Letter to Mollie Skinner, 15 November 1923 (L2957)

[vi] Letter to Willard Johnson, 19 November 1923 (L2965)

[vii] Letter to Bessie Freeman, 19 November 1923 (L2966)

[viii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 20 November 1923 (L2972)

James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence, Photo Essay

Locating Lawrence: October 1923

In these monthly videos we are locating D.H. Lawrence 100 years ago via his letters. It’s October 1923, and he’s heading down the West Coast of Mexico on a mule and stagecoach...

When Lawrence trundles down the West Coast into Navojoa, Mexixo, he resorts to familiar tropes that capture his intrigue. There are ‘lonely inhuman green hills’ it is ‘not quite of this earth’ and it has had ‘the door of life shut on it[i]’. If he’d described it as ‘pre-history’ we would have had a full house of signifiers that represent his desire not merely to travel but to travel back through time.

But there is great humour too, such as this wonderful description of Alamos: ‘A once lovely little town, lost, and slipping down the gulf in the mountains, forty miles up the awfullest road I’ve ever been bruised along. But somehow or other, you get there. And more wonderful, you get out again.[ii]’

There are two reasons for his discontent, though he may not be aware of it. Firstly, Frieda is not with him, and he doesn’t know where she is. His loneliness is compounded by going three weeks with ‘no letters[iii]’ since leaving Los Angeles. Secondly, as his companion Kai Gótzsche later observed, he is without purpose: ‘He needs, in a high degree, something else to think about, and something else to do besides his writings. I am absolutely sure that he would (…) live more happily if he could go out for a few hours a day, and have some work to do, milk a cow or plough a field.[iv]’ 

Although Mexico is occasionally ‘like living on Mars[v]’ he does find time to relax at Minas Nuevas where ‘we did nothing but drink beer and whisky cocktails.[vi]’ But this is no Grand Tour, more like an endurance contest as ‘there is no railroad in Tepic, so we shall have to go by stage and a day on mules, across the barranca, if we are to get to Guadalajara.[vii]’ They certainly won’t be as fast as the cockroaches in the dilapidated ‘half-built buildings’ who are ‘running on the floor full speed.[viii]’

When he arrives in Jalisco ‘it has a definite fascination[ix]’ for him and he begins selling Rananim to his friends. Earl Brewster is told ‘I should be happy if I could have a little ranch, and you and Achsah and the child a house two fields away[x]’ and Catherine Carswell may like his plans for ‘a little centre – a ranch – where we could have our little adobe houses and make a life.[xi]’  

He even makes up with Mabel Dodge Luhan: ‘Yes, I was pretty angry. But now let us forget it.’ He even gives her a compliment for teaching him how to ride a horse which has recently come in handy. Then he offers her some advice on how to ‘let life slowly drift into you.[xii]’

When reviews are unfavourable, he tells his publisher Thomas Seltzer, ‘I’d much rather be printed in Vanity Fair than in these old high-brow weak-gutted Nations’ and thus his love affair with America begins to wane: ‘I don’t mind if America doesn’t like me, because I feel great disgust for America.[xiii]’ There is only one thing for it. ‘I suppose I shall go back to England. They all press me so hard. But I shan’t hurry.[xiv]’

However, this journeying across the globe has had an impact on his world view and in places he seems to echo sentiments we now associate with decolonising the canon. ‘Sometimes I am driven to hating the white-white world, with its whiteness like a leprosy. Murry declares England will again lead the world. But I myself know that England alone cannot. She must be juxtaposed with something that is in the dark volcanic blood of these people. One thing alone won’t work: nor one spirit alone. It needs a polarity of two.[xv]’

To see other video essays from 1923 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

  • [i] Letter to Witter Bynner, 5 October 1923 (L2926)
  • [ii] Letter to Witter Bynner, 5 October 1923 (L2926)
  • [iii] Letter to Margaret King, 10 October 1923 (L2934)
  • [iv] Merrild, Knud. 1938. A Poet and Two Painters: A Memoir of D.H. Lawrence. (George Routledge & Sons, London). P.341.Taken from letter from Kai Gótzsche to Merrild, 10 Nov 1923.
  • [v] Letter to Knud Merrild, 5 October 1923 (L2928)
  • [vi] Letter to Knud Merrild, 5 October 1923 (L2928)
  • [vii] Letter to Adele Seltzer, 9 October 1923 (L2933)
  • [viii] Letter to Adele Seltzer, 9 October 1923 (L2933)
  • [ix] Letter to Earl Brewster, 17 October 1923 (L2937)
  • [x] Letter to Earl Brewster, 17 October 1923 (L2937)
  • [xi] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 17 October 1923 (L2938)
  • [xii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 17 October 1923 (L2939)
  • [xiii] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 20 October 1923 (L2943)
  • [xiv] Letter to Adele Seltzer, 28 October 1923 (L2948)
  • [xv] Letter to Adele Seltzer, 28 October 1923 (L2948)
James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence, Photo Essay

Locating Lawrence March 1922

Lawrence is never happier than when in the middle of the sea, between journeys, with the excitement and expectation of what lies ahead fuelling his enthusiasm.

Out on the sea, Lawrence has time to inform friends of ‘our great plunge![i]’ A little exaggeration is required, though, to convince him he’s made the right decision. Taormina, he informs Norman Douglas, ‘would have been the death of me after a little while longer[ii].’

Lawrence loves the liminal state of the sea, observing that ‘time passes like a sleep’ creating ‘the curious sense that nothing is real except just this ship[iii]’ This is because they are travelling along the 88 miles of the Suez Canal at five miles an hour. He occasionally spots black porpoises ‘that run about like frolicsome little black pigs[iv]’ which is a more pleasing image than the one reserved for Mount Sinai which is ‘like a vengeful dagger that was dipped in blood many years ago.[v]’

He stops off for a few hours in Port Said and observes it’s ‘still just like Arabian Nights, with water-sellers and scribes in the streets, and Koran readers and a yelling crowd[vi].’ His description of female Muslims in veils as ‘black women parcels’ would offend modern sensibilities, so take some comfort in that ‘one of the women drew back her veils and spat at us’ which he believes is because ‘we were hateful Christians.[vii]’

He remains optimistic ‘that once beyond the Red Sea one does not feel any more the tension and pressure one feels in England.[viii]’ But when he arrives in Kandy on 13 March, it is so hot that ‘if one moves one sweats.[ix]’ This leads him to worry ‘I don’t believe I shall ever work here[x]’ and before you know it, the familiar doubt kicks in: ‘I do think, still more now I am out here, that we make a mistake forsaking England and moving out into the periphery of life (…) I really think that the most living clue of life is in us Englishmen in England.[xi]’

To see other video essays from 1922 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References   

  • [i] Letter to Lady Cynthia Asquith, 28 Feb 1922 (L2467)
  • [ii] Letter to Norman Douglas, 4 March 1922 (L2468)
  • [iii] Letter to S.S. Koteliansky, 7 March 1922 (L2469)
  • [iv] Letter Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 7 March (L2470)
  • [v] Letter to S.S. Koteliansky, 7 March 1922 (L2469)
  • [vii] Letter Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 7 March (L2470)
  • [viii] Letter to Rosalind Baynes, 8 March 1922 (L2472)
  • [ix] Letter to Emily King, 24 March 1922 (L2476)
  • [x] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 25 March 1922 (L2478)
  • [xi] Letter to Robert Pratt Barlow, 30 March 1922 (L2480)
James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence, Modernism, Photo Essay

Locating Lawrence: Feb 1922

On the 2 February James Joyce published his modernist masterpiece Ulysses. Meanwhile, Lawrence was preparing to set sail on the R.M.S Osterley for his slow detour to America.

After negotiating a 20% commission for signing copies of Women in Love[i], Lawrence realises his other books could be earning him a bit more and suggests a similar rate after the first 2000 copies of Sea and Sardinia ‘or at least after the first 3000.[ii]’

He reads the poems of Jean Starr Untermeyer (1886-1970) ‘most of them aloud to my wife.[iii]’ He seems impressed, suggesting ‘the greatest achievement is when pure speech goes straight into poetry, without having to put on Sunday clothes.[iv]’ These were both published by Benjamin W. Huebsch (1876 –1964) who was also the first American publisher of Sons and Lovers and James Joyce’s Dubliners.

Lawrence gets very excited about the arrival of a fountain pen from Mary Cannon, a ‘wildly expensive gift’ which he hopes will ‘stay with me all my life, and seal all my affairs of state and solemnity.[v]’

It will come in handy as he’s on the move again, departing from Naples on 26 Feb via the RMS Osterley. Although leaving ‘our home and the people of Sicily[vi]’ gives him ‘a sinking feeling[vii]’ he must ‘forget it’ and instead ‘only think of palms and elephants and apes and peacocks.[viii]’

He begins packing up stuff at Fontana Vecchia and getting his affairs in order. Curtis Brown is sent the manuscript of Studies in Classical American Literature and asked to confirm copyright law between England and America, given the recent passing of Giovanni Verga, the Sicilian author Lawrence is currently translating.[ix]

The Lawrence’s were relatively light travellers; their worldly possessions consisting of ‘four trunks, one household trunk, one book trunk, Frieda’s and mine – and then two valises, hat-box, and the two quite small pieces: just like Abraham faring forth into a new land.[x]’

The Osterley is ‘so comfortable’ and ‘quite perfect’ because ‘the people are so quiet and simple and nobody shows off.[xi]’ And then he gives a detailed breakdown of why: ‘Mornings, 7 o’clock, the steward comes with a cup of tea and inquires whether one wants to take his bath (…) At 8 o’clock breakfast is sounded: and such a menu: stewed pears, porridge, fish, bacon, eggs, fried sausages, beefsteak, kidneys, marmalade (…) eleven o’clock the steward comes with a cup of Bovril[xii]’ and on and on he goes. Not showing off at all.

Still, the food does sound more appetising than the ‘thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards,’ and ‘the inner organs of beasts and fowls[xiii]’ that Leopard Bloom ate with relish in James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, published on the 2 Feb 1922 by Sylvia Beach. Together, but in very different ways, the two writers would define modernist literature.   

To see other video essays from 1922 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

  • [i] Letter to Martin Secker, 21 Jan 1922 (L2427)
  • [ii] Letter to Curtis Brown, 1 Feb 1922 (L2437)
  • [iii] Letter to Jean Starr Untermeyer, 2 Feb 1922 (L2439)
  • [v] Letter to Mary Cannon, 12 Feb 1922(L2444)
  • [vi] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 19 Feb 1922 (L2455)
  • [vii] Letter to Mary Cannon, 12 Feb 1922 (L2444)
  • [viii] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 19 Feb 1922 (L2455)
  • [ix] Letter to Curtis Brown, 18 Feb 1922 (L2453)
  • [x] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 19 Feb 1922 (L2455)
  • [xi] Letter to Mary Cannan, 28 Feb 1922 (L2465)
  • [xii] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 28 Feb 1922 (L2466)
James Walker literary locations, Locating Lawrence

Locating Lawrence: January 1922

Another year, another home. But will literature’s most notorious fidget end up in America as planned or will he find a detour? I think we all know the answer to this one…

‘I am weary of Taormina, and have no desire to stay in Sicily or in Europe at all.[i]’ Lawrence informs Earl Brewster on the 2nd January 1922. One source of frustration with Sicily is the recent collapse of Banco di Sconto, meaning ‘it is impossible to cash anything here in the village[ii]’ although to be fair, that’s still a problem today.

Earl Brewster tries to lure him over to Kandy, but he’s not ready for the inner tranquillity offered by the Buddha. ‘Meditation and the inner life are not my aim (…) I do not want peace nor beauty nor even freedom from pain (…) I want to fight and to feel new Gods in the flesh (…) even the influenzas and the headache are part of the fight and the fulfilment.[iii]’

Mountsier is sent manuscripts of The Ladybird – ‘quite new’ , England, My England – ‘all rewritten’ and handwritten versions of The Fox and Captain’s Doll ‘so that I needn’t cart them about[iv]’.  With no major new projects on the horizon, he is unwilling to begin ‘anything else,[v]’ except, perhaps, a translation of Giovanni Verga’s Mastro-don Gesualdo which he deems it to be ‘one of the genuine emotional extremes of European literature: just as Selma Lagerlof or Knut Hamsun may be the other extreme, northwards[vi].’

Thomas Secker requests Lawrence signs 50 copies of a special edition of Women in Love. He is happy to oblige but ‘wants to be paid for the signatures[vii] and negotiates a 20% commission on sales. This would help offset the ‘Heseltine blackmail money[viii]’. Phillip Heseltine had taken exception to the portrayal of him in Women in Love, forcing Lawrence to rewrite passages. The edited version was republished in November 1921.

Having experienced so much poverty in his life, Lawrence is always fighting for his brethren. His latest cause is J.W. Nylander who is ‘very poor[ix]’ and so he sends Robert Mountsier Seevolk – a volume of his short stories  – to see if he can get them published in magazines. He tries to butter up Catherine Carswell to translate the stories but she’s having none of it[x].       

If he wasn’t a writer, Lawrence would have made a brilliant travel agent. Cecily Lambert is advised on travel times across Italy, when to tip – ‘a porter at the station gets about a Lira for every piece of luggage he carries for you’ and why you should ‘never arrive in a place like Rome without having your hotel room ready booked[xi]’ – they book up quickly in Spring.

But his own travel plans are all over the place, changing every few days or so. Jan Juta, who had illustrated Sea and Sardinia, asks him to go to Nyasaland (Malawi) and trek across Lake Tanganyika[xii] which Lawrence turns down, instead requesting him to join him on a proposed trip to Taos in March.

But wherever he goes next, he must leave Sicily, no matter how beautiful it may be. ‘We sit in our salotta, warm and still, with the lamp on the table. Outside, through the door I see (…) the moon through the begonia leaves of our terrace: and all quite still, only from time to time the stove crackles. When I think of going away, I’m also a bit melancholy. But inwardly I am certain that I must go. This is a lovely end, but better a difficult beginning than an end only.[xiii]’

‘I feel it is my destiny at least to try the States, if only to know I hate them.[xiv]’ Then a week later he changes his mind and takes up Earl Brewster’s offer to visit him. ‘We had almost booked our passage to America, when suddenly it came over me I must go to Ceylon.[xv]’ Perhaps it was the realisation that what awaited him in Taos was arty and literary types, or as Lawrence put it, ‘smoking, steaming shits[xvi]’.   

To see other video essays from 1922 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

  • [i] Letter to Earl Brewster, 2 Jan 1922 (L2405)
  • [ii] Letter to Robert Mountsier 9 Jan 1922 (L2407)
  • [iii] Letter to Earl Brewster, 2 Jan 1922 (L2405)
  • [iv] Letter to Robert Mountsier 9 Jan 1922 (L2407)
  • [v] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen 10 Jan 1921 (L2411)
  • [vi] Letter to Thomas Seltzer 9 January 1922 (L2408)
  • [vii] Letter to Martin Secker, 11 Jan 1922 (L2413)
  • [viii] Letter to Robert Mountsier, 18 Jan 1922 (L2422)   
  • [ix] Letter to Robert Mounstier, 20 Jan 1922 (L2425)
  • [x] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 24 Jan 1922 (L2429)
  • [xi] Letter to Cecily Lambert and Miss Furlong, 14 Jan 1921 (L2419)
  • [xii] Letter to Thomas Seltzer 9 January 1922 (L2408)
  • [xiii] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen 10 Jan 1921 (L2411)
  • [xiv] Letter to S.S. Koteliansky 14 Jan 1921 (L2418)
  • [xv] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 24 Jan 1922 (L2429)
  • [xvi] Letter to Mabel Dodge Sterne, 27 Jan 1922 (L2435)