VARIOUS PROPERTIES
FAULKNER, WILLIAM. Eight typed letters signed and one autograph note signed (all "William Faulkner") to Harold E. Howland of the International Educational Exchange Service of the State Department in Washington, written from Oxford, Miss., New York, and Charlottesville, 16 August 1954 - 12 February 1957. Together 9 pages, 4to, the typed letters single-spaced, all with fold creases, several a bit wrinkled, four with a few marginal tears, one with two paper-clip stains, another with slight marginal discoloration, all with marginal receiving date stamps, some with docketing in ink, with two of the original envelopes (defective), one of them with Faulkner's holograph return address.
Details
FAULKNER, WILLIAM. Eight typed letters signed and one autograph note signed (all "William Faulkner") to Harold E. Howland of the International Educational Exchange Service of the State Department in Washington, written from Oxford, Miss., New York, and Charlottesville, 16 August 1954 - 12 February 1957. Together 9 pages, 4to, the typed letters single-spaced, all with fold creases, several a bit wrinkled, four with a few marginal tears, one with two paper-clip stains, another with slight marginal discoloration, all with marginal receiving date stamps, some with docketing in ink, with two of the original envelopes (defective), one of them with Faulkner's holograph return address.
"I AM NOT A TRUE 'LITERARY' MAN"
Interesting -- and very rare -- letters concerning Faulkner's trips for the State Department to Brazil (August 1954), Japan (July-October 1955), and Greece (March 1957), and his role as a goodwill ambassador for America. 16 August (after returning from the International Writers' Conference in Sao Paulo): "...I am too inexperienced yet to judge what my visit as an unofficial representative of the U.S. accomplished...I wish to say that I became suddenly interested in what I was trying to do, once I reached the scene and learned exactly what was hoped from this plan of which I was a part, and that I shall be in New York this fall and can hold myself available to call on you to make a verbal report or discuss what further possibilities, situations, capacities, etc., in which I might do what I can to help give people of other countries a truer idea than they sometimes have, of what the U.S. actually is...Mr. John Campbell at Sao Paolo wants 24 copies of my last book, A Fable [just published on 2 August]..." 10 May 1955 (regarding the planned trip to Japan): "...Is the Japanese one the more urgent? [rather than a discussed possible trip to Rome]. That is, is there anything of that nature, or in my capacity, that I could do in Europe instead? I myself have, or think I have, more confidence in accomplishing something valid with Europeans, a warmth, at least something of a common humanity with Occidentals even of different language, than I feel toward the Japan trip..." Despite his trepidation, Faulkner's Japan visit turned out to be a great success.
8 July 1955: "...Let me repeat...that I am not a lecturer, no practice at it, and I am not a true 'literary' man, being a countryman who simply likes books, not authors nor the establishment of writing and criticising and judging books. So if I go anywhere as simply a literary man or an expert on literature, American or otherwise, I will be a bust. I will do better as a simple private individual, occupation unimportant, who is interested in and believes in people, humanity, and has some concern about man's condition and his future, if he is not careful. About rights to any read or spoken material being property of the [State] Dept., I have in progress a book composed of chapters, the subject being What has happened to the American Dream. I read one chapter at Univ of Oregon and published it in Harper's Magazine [the July 1955 issue, the piece entitled "On Privacy. The American Dream: What Happened to It"]. I have another chapter [published as "On Fear: The South in Labor" in Harper's, June 1956] which I could read in Japan; I may even compose still a third one to read there. I would expect to retain rights to these to include in the book. Though naturally I should consider the Dept. had rights to use them in any way it saw fit to further whatever work in int. [international] relations they might do, once I had used them under Dept. auspices. Can this be done?..."
[18 November 1955]: "I didn't say this yesterday [at a State Dept. debriefing in Washington after his return from his Japan trip] because it would have sounded too cocky, an amateur purely literary specialist, criticising foreign policy to professional foreign service people. I got this impression while I was in Europe..." Faulkner devotes the rest of the letter to discussing Russian fear of German unification, concluding: "...I wonder what would happen if we took publicly a high moral plane and said that a un-unified nation is such a crime against nature and morality both that, rather than be a party to it, we will allow Germany to withdraw from promise of NATO troops, and be unified under any conditions they wish..." The first and last two letters quoted from above, and two unquoted letters, are published in Selected Letters, ed. J. Blotner; the other four are presumably unpublished. (9)
"I AM NOT A TRUE 'LITERARY' MAN"
Interesting -- and very rare -- letters concerning Faulkner's trips for the State Department to Brazil (August 1954), Japan (July-October 1955), and Greece (March 1957), and his role as a goodwill ambassador for America. 16 August (after returning from the International Writers' Conference in Sao Paulo): "...I am too inexperienced yet to judge what my visit as an unofficial representative of the U.S. accomplished...I wish to say that I became suddenly interested in what I was trying to do, once I reached the scene and learned exactly what was hoped from this plan of which I was a part, and that I shall be in New York this fall and can hold myself available to call on you to make a verbal report or discuss what further possibilities, situations, capacities, etc., in which I might do what I can to help give people of other countries a truer idea than they sometimes have, of what the U.S. actually is...Mr. John Campbell at Sao Paolo wants 24 copies of my last book, A Fable [just published on 2 August]..." 10 May 1955 (regarding the planned trip to Japan): "...Is the Japanese one the more urgent? [rather than a discussed possible trip to Rome]. That is, is there anything of that nature, or in my capacity, that I could do in Europe instead? I myself have, or think I have, more confidence in accomplishing something valid with Europeans, a warmth, at least something of a common humanity with Occidentals even of different language, than I feel toward the Japan trip..." Despite his trepidation, Faulkner's Japan visit turned out to be a great success.
8 July 1955: "...Let me repeat...that I am not a lecturer, no practice at it, and I am not a true 'literary' man, being a countryman who simply likes books, not authors nor the establishment of writing and criticising and judging books. So if I go anywhere as simply a literary man or an expert on literature, American or otherwise, I will be a bust. I will do better as a simple private individual, occupation unimportant, who is interested in and believes in people, humanity, and has some concern about man's condition and his future, if he is not careful. About rights to any read or spoken material being property of the [State] Dept., I have in progress a book composed of chapters, the subject being What has happened to the American Dream. I read one chapter at Univ of Oregon and published it in Harper's Magazine [the July 1955 issue, the piece entitled "On Privacy. The American Dream: What Happened to It"]. I have another chapter [published as "On Fear: The South in Labor" in Harper's, June 1956] which I could read in Japan; I may even compose still a third one to read there. I would expect to retain rights to these to include in the book. Though naturally I should consider the Dept. had rights to use them in any way it saw fit to further whatever work in int. [international] relations they might do, once I had used them under Dept. auspices. Can this be done?..."
[18 November 1955]: "I didn't say this yesterday [at a State Dept. debriefing in Washington after his return from his Japan trip] because it would have sounded too cocky, an amateur purely literary specialist, criticising foreign policy to professional foreign service people. I got this impression while I was in Europe..." Faulkner devotes the rest of the letter to discussing Russian fear of German unification, concluding: "...I wonder what would happen if we took publicly a high moral plane and said that a un-unified nation is such a crime against nature and morality both that, rather than be a party to it, we will allow Germany to withdraw from promise of NATO troops, and be unified under any conditions they wish..." The first and last two letters quoted from above, and two unquoted letters, are published in Selected Letters, ed. J. Blotner; the other four are presumably unpublished. (9)