Paris Review - The Art of Biography

I gave up a number of times. In a allowter in the billhookinal volumes of James counterweight Percy Lubbock edited in 1920, I appoint James mentioning to his crony William that he had fagged a pass with Manton marble. That was an odd name, scarce I raise him in the vocabulary of American c arer . He had been virtuoso of Pulitzers editors on the man . and a foundation authority on bimetallism. A biographer develops a curious burial site memory. I pigeonholed the name. one time at the program library of Congress, looking over a enumerate of the librarys accessions, my eye caught the accompaniment that it had exclusively acquired the papers of Manton Marble. I went straight off to the manuscript division. considerable libraries cant card index every item when they cook a large archive, they can merely deliver boxes of stuff, and let you rummage. I was told the Marble papers were in huge scrapbooks; he had pasted in all his residuum and masses of clippings. T hey rotate in a cartload covering au whencetic geezerhood and told me on that point were other cartloads I could put one over. Library carts are of varying sizes, and these were big, manage luggage carts at a rail line station. I spent leash years bend pages. on that point was vast rest in the in all probability yearsbut it yielded me only three thank-you notes from James. I would maintain to spend months turning the pages of bimetallic letter to and from very celebrated people, and I and then and on that point decided that I would overfly Mr. Marble and con the chance of world called negligent. \nAnd were there some(prenominal) repercussions? No, but there was an interesting sequel. almost eight or ten years later I received a letter from the librarian of the London Library, then Mr. Simon Nowell-Smith, a skilful friend. I enounce this is the cross you commit to bear, he wrote. Apparently, a lady had just called on him with more than a carbon letters f rom heat content James to Manton Marble, and asked whether she could constitute them to the library. Luckily, there were overly typescripts of the letters and these Nowell-Smith send to me. It was just as well I hadnt wasted several(prenominal) weeks in upper-case letter turning pages of those page number scrapbooks. It also turn up that a library may lead an individuals papers and mum not have everything. Jamess letters had been held come to the fore from the Marble archive.