FPK to Edna Hale, October 3, 1923
Dublin Core
Title
FPK to Edna Hale, October 3, 1923
Description
October 3, 1923
My dear Cousin Edna:
I found your letter of September 9 awaiting me on my return from Europe last week and have read it with the deepest interest. Of course I have often thought of Aunt Nancy this summer and realized that I, two generations later, was doing much the same sort of thing that she did with such success in those early days when it was so much more of an achievement for a woman to be an author, especially a journalistic author. I wish I could say yes without hesitation to your proposition. I can imagine how interesting her Letters must be and I should love to collaborate with you in an effort to make them see daylight.
If you are not in any hurry about undertaking this work, perhaps it would be possible for me to do it at some later date but I simply cannot undertake it just now for I have more on my hands than I can possibly swing just now. Why do you not write directly to Mr. Sedgwick, the editor of the Atlantic about them, perhaps enclosing copies of one or two as samples? He is a very kind person and would without the slightest doubt give the matter attention and offer good advice on the subject. If he is not interested, there is probably a field for them somewhere else. If you like, I should be glad to speak to some of the editors I know about them when I have the chance. I do not dare to offer too much encouragement because in endeavoring to edit my Father's Letters with very much the same plan in view, though the letters were extremely interesting, I found that it would be necessary to have them published at my own expense in order to have the appear in book form and that I felt I could not do. Perhaps conditions may have changed, however, since then. There are always fluctuations in the publishing market as there are in others.
It is entirely possible that another year will see me with much more leisure on my hands than I have at present and if that proves to be the case and you can wait that long to find out, let us take up the matter of colaboration again then. If you cannot wait, let me help you in any other way that you think I can.
I have had a very wonderful summer and would not have missed a single moment of it but it is goof to be back again and and I think the winter will be a very thrilling one in Washington.
With kind regards,
Cordially your cousin,
My dear Cousin Edna:
I found your letter of September 9 awaiting me on my return from Europe last week and have read it with the deepest interest. Of course I have often thought of Aunt Nancy this summer and realized that I, two generations later, was doing much the same sort of thing that she did with such success in those early days when it was so much more of an achievement for a woman to be an author, especially a journalistic author. I wish I could say yes without hesitation to your proposition. I can imagine how interesting her Letters must be and I should love to collaborate with you in an effort to make them see daylight.
If you are not in any hurry about undertaking this work, perhaps it would be possible for me to do it at some later date but I simply cannot undertake it just now for I have more on my hands than I can possibly swing just now. Why do you not write directly to Mr. Sedgwick, the editor of the Atlantic about them, perhaps enclosing copies of one or two as samples? He is a very kind person and would without the slightest doubt give the matter attention and offer good advice on the subject. If he is not interested, there is probably a field for them somewhere else. If you like, I should be glad to speak to some of the editors I know about them when I have the chance. I do not dare to offer too much encouragement because in endeavoring to edit my Father's Letters with very much the same plan in view, though the letters were extremely interesting, I found that it would be necessary to have them published at my own expense in order to have the appear in book form and that I felt I could not do. Perhaps conditions may have changed, however, since then. There are always fluctuations in the publishing market as there are in others.
It is entirely possible that another year will see me with much more leisure on my hands than I have at present and if that proves to be the case and you can wait that long to find out, let us take up the matter of colaboration again then. If you cannot wait, let me help you in any other way that you think I can.
I have had a very wonderful summer and would not have missed a single moment of it but it is goof to be back again and and I think the winter will be a very thrilling one in Washington.
With kind regards,
Cordially your cousin,
Creator
Frances Parkinson Keyes
Source
From the collection of Frances Parkinson Keyes Papers, Special Collections, University of Vermont Library.
Date
1923-10-03
Contributor
Hope Greenberg
Identifier
Box 1, folder 11