Selected Letters of Langston Hughes: Edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel

Carmel, California,
Box 1582,
November 6, 1933.

Dear Blanche,

I am sending you shortly, at the end of this week, in fact, as soon as copies are ready, ten of my black and white short stories which, with the five others I expect to finish by the end of the month, I hope you will consider as a book.¹ Most of them are written from the Negro view-point concerning situations derived from conditions of inter-racial contacts with which we are all familiar, but which have seldom been used in fiction, if at all. The writers here at Carmel who have read them seem to feel that they would make an interesting and provocative collection.…. The new magazine ESQUIRE has bought one. And Edward O’Brien has written me for my life story. It seems he has selected Cora Unashamed from THE MERCURY ².…. I’d appreciate knowing the opinion of your readers on them as a book.

The weather here at Carmel is great. It is still warm enough to swim. I don’t think I’ll be coming East this winter. I like it too well out this way. And I’m really getting some work done.

Sincerely,
Langston

TO COUNTEE CULLEN [TLS]

[On National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners stationery]

Carmel, California,
P.O. Box 1582,
November 19, 1933.

Dear Countee,

We are trying, out here, to work up an intensive campaign for Scottsboro Funds, and for interest in the general problems of the Negro in the South. The remoteness of this part of the world to all that is amazing. But aside from a series of meetings, concerts, etc., here on the coast, we have sent out an appeal from here to all those white writers like Julia Peterkin, |Eugene| O’Neill, etc. who have written so much about Negroes, to contribute to the Fund, and to send us a press statement about Scottsboro. The response so far has been most gratifying. Checks and swell statements have come from Paul Green, Carl Van Vechten, DuBose Heyward,³ and others within the first week after the letters went out air-mail. We shall probably raise at least a thousand dollars for the defense.…. Another plan (that really originated with our John Reed Club at Carmel) was that each person having famous artists or writers among their acquaintances, request said friends to donate a picture or original manuscript to an exhibition and sale-benefit <for> Scottsboro. This, too, has gotten underway very well. John Howard Lawson ⁴ and others are giving canvasses, Steffens offers part of the original draft of his autobiography,⁵ etc. We hope to have this exhibition in a San Francisco gallery next month. (There are several wealthy collectors there—one of whom may buy all the manuscripts outright for his collection.)….. I took it upon myself to write to all the Negro writers and artists I knew asking for their contribution. (You probably have your letter by now.) But aside from sending us a manuscript, you could help us out greatly being in New York, if you would yourself personally ask the artists and writer friends you know to send what they will to me here, or to the Committee address above, as soon as possible. Get Aaron Douglas, Jimmy Allen to give a camera study,⁶ Augusta Savage a small figure, etc, in Harlem.⁷ And your white writer-friends to give you manuscripts (or parts) of first drafts. Perhaps in some cases you could take them directly yourself and send them out to us.…. Only because of the great urgency for help in the Scottsboro Defense, and because I know how you feel about those nine boys, would I or our Committee group here, ask you to undertake this work in New York …… But we feel that not only will this exhibition and sale out here help financially, but it will also attract and interest a great many people in the case who have not heard of it this far West before …… With greetings to you,

Sincerely,
Langston

TO NOËL SULLIVAN [ALS]

Christmas.

Dear Noël,

These stories are for you.⁸ You helped me with them, have listened to many of them before they were even written, have read them all, have given me the music, and the shelter of your roof, and the truth of your friendship, and the time to work. You’re a swell fellow. And having cast your bread upon the waters, it comes back to you (this time)—manuscript. My first drafts.

Happy Birthday!

Merry Christmas!

And a glorious New Year!

Langston

Carmel,
December 25, 1933

TO BLANCHE KNOPF [TLS]

Box 1582
Carmel, Calif.
January 22, 1934

Blanche Knopf,
730 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y.

Dear Blanche,

I posted to you yesterday four stories, BERRY, SOMETHING IN COMMON, IN ALL THE WORLD, and REJUVENATION THROUGH JOY. I don’t know how you feel as to the length of the book. If all four are needed to make it a decent size, then use them. If only two more are enough, then kindly use BERRY and REJUVENATION THROUGH JOY.⁹ The other two, we will save for a later collection,¹⁰ as this group is only about half of those I have outlined to write this year.

In any case, please let my agent, Maxim Lieber, know which of these last stories are being included in the book, so he can regulate his magazine sales accordingly. Also, in regard to the story HOME, which he has sold to Esquire, and which it appears they cannot use before their May number (out in early April): It seems they are withholding payment of the story until they find out whether the publication of the book will scoop them on it. Since I very badly need the money from this sale, and since I have the excellent opportunity of selling other stories to Esquire (I suppose you saw the full page of letters in their present issue devoted to my first story) I hope the publication date of the book can be made not to conflict with the Esquire publication of HOME. Will you kindly have your office confer by phone with Lieber on this at once, as he has just air-mailed me about it.

I wrote Lieber about your wish to have THE MERCURY see the group of stories I have just sent you for the book, submitting them at the same time through him for magazine sale, since I have promised to let him handle all my magazine sales—and he has certainly done very well so far. So if THE MERCURY feels that it could use some of them before the book publishes them, I am writing him to that effect, and trust he will communicate with you.

Now as to details about THE WAYS OF WHITE FOLKS: Dedication to Noël Sullivan.…. Revised order of contents enclosed. If either of last two stories are not used, simply omit them and continue with the listed continuity.…. I trust you will attend to the formality of securing the copyrights from the magazines where the stories were first published.…. On a single page following the list of contents, I wish a quotation from BERRY:

“The ways of white folks,

I mean some white folks.…”

to set the tone of the book, and to indicate that I do not consider my portraits of white people in this book as a final and complete picture of the whole white race. The ones I portray are only “some white folks.”….. I am enclosing some notes as to my ideas about the book which may help your publicity staff in the preparation of blurbs, etc. I would like, if possible, to see the jacket blurb before it is printed, as we must be careful to offend neither Negroes or whites—on the blurb!.… I am glad you are bringing out the book this spring.

With best wishes to you,

Sincerely,
Langston

TO COUNTEE CULLEN [TLS]

Feb. 22, 1934.

Dear Countee:

Yesterday at an invitational preview of the Scottsboro manuscripts and pictures held for society and the press at Noël Sullivan’s house in San Francisco, your poem was one of the first things to be sold. It brought $25. We have more than a hundred items from almost all the best writers from Robinson Jeffers to Julian Huxley. The public Sale opens Monday at the Western Women’s Club.¹¹

Sincerely,
Langston

TO BLANCHE KNOPF [TLS]

Box 1582,
Carmel,¹² Cal.,
June 5, 1934.

Dear Mrs. Knopf,

Thank you for sending A NEW SONG¹³ down to |Maxim| Lieber.

I think it might be amusing for your publicity department to send a copy of my new book to John Gould Fletcher ¹⁴ and also to Allen Tate,¹⁵ as both of them have been creating a lot of anti-Negro discussions this winter in the magazines and papers. Maybe my book might make them mad. Then they’d give it a good bad boost, and lots more people would read it, to see what it says about the white race! <Please!>

Also maybe this might interest you, I don’t know: A very fine trainer of horses here, and riding master—a former jockey who has taught riding and polo all over the world from Paris to Melbourne to Shanghai—has written a book on riding and on training horses. Not being a writer, it probably needs a lot of going over—but I am sure the material is good, as he has often been employed to teach in Hollywood, Gloria Swanson, Chaplin, and others. And is a marvel at teaching children. If you’d be interested in that sort of book, you might write him: Elder Green, Green’s Riding Stables, Pacific Grove, California. (Box 632.) He has just asked my advice on where to send it.

Sincerely,
Langston
Langston Hughes

TO SYLVIA CHEN (LEYDA) [ALS]

Box 1582
Carmel, Cal.
July 7, 1934.

Darling kid,

You know what would happen if you came over here? I would take you and keep you forever, that’s what would happen. And even if you didn’t come over here and I ever found you anywhere else in the world—I’d keep you, too. So you see, I love you!

Swell to have your letter. But listen—were you any more serious than I was? And how did I know I was so much going to miss the hell out of you after you went South to dance or I came half a world away from you? But I do miss you—lots more than you miss me, I guess,—and I want you, Sylvia baby, more than anyone else in the world, believe it or not. I love you.

But to change the subject, (so you won’t think I’m kidding) I’ve seen quite a little of the Soviet consul out here Galkovitch.¹⁶ He’s a grand little fellow. I had dinner with him once down here at Ella Winter’s (who knew you in Moscow), met the family at the opening consulate reception, and tonight have just come from a party for them at the seashore here.

That’s great news about your success in Norway. Wish I could put you in touch with New York managers. If I were there, I’d hunt them up, but way out here one can’t do much. See Oliver Sayler ¹⁷ when he comes over with the next American group in September for the theatre festival. He’s done publicity for so many foreign attractions. He’d know the ropes about Broadway.

I’m hard at work on a play now. Intend sending it to Moscow, too. If it has any luck there, I’ll be back over.

My book of stories is just out. I ordered one sent you a month ago. Trust you have it by now. Some of the reviews are excellent. Here’s hoping it sells so I can take you out for supper when you arrive. (And don’t eat so little.)

Please, dear kid, believe what I say about how much I like you. If you want me to say it over and over and more and more, just act like you don’t believe it in the next letter you write me.

How’s Yolande and Jack and Lucy and Shura and Walt and Rose?¹⁸ I’m pretty awful at writing letters.

Two tons of love to you,

Write soon,
Langston

Wish I could kiss you! Do you?

TO MAXIM LIEBER [TL]

Carmel, Cal.,
Box No. 1582,
August 8, 1934.

(San Francisco)¹⁹

Dear Maxim,

Our play is finished and a copy went off to you this morning. Its title at present is BLOOD ON THE FIELDS,²⁰ although I am sending a list of other suggestions as to its name.…. Ella Winter, when I last saw her ten days ago in Carmel, did not want her name used on the script—although it is copyrighted in our joint names. The Red Scare in Carmel and the vicious rumors put out concerning my associations with whites there and the fact that the Steffens home was branded as a nest of Reds and a meeting place for Negroes and Whites, etc. etc. prompted this move on her part. After all she does have to live there and send her kid to a school headed by a Legionnaire and get her milk from a dairyman who declared he was just waiting for the day when he could get behind a machine gun and drag all the members of the JRC |John Reed Club| out in Ocean Avenue and shoot ’em. And lots of good citizens visiting the City Council and urging them to do something about the Steffens. And one Jo Mora,²¹ a sculptor, (And a banker’s son-in-law) heading a Committee of 110 to do active duty against the 24 members of the JRC. And not a hall to meet in any more as the landlords are all threatened with destruction of property if they rent to us. And a great frothing at the mouth from the New Dealers when Steffy issued from his sickbed a statement to the press, saying among other things, “Let them come and get me. Let them send me to jail. I’d rather go there than to the White House. It’s more honorable!”….. A good time was had by all. And if Ella Winter changes her mind about her name on the play, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, she has no objection to having the Theatre Union know she is co-author, and we are to share equally in any proceeds. She will also probably come East for rehearsals should anybody decide to do the play …… At the moment I cannot locate the Theatre Union’s address. But please go ahead and submit the play to them, saying that we realize it is probably too long, and that we are perfectly amenable to suggestions as to cutting and revision, etc. If you think it wise to, have several copies made in play form, etc., do so, and charge to us. I’d be very pleased to have your reaction to it as a play, too, if you have a chance to read it yourself.…. If the Theatre Union or anyone else does the play, we have a huge scrap book of newspaper pictures and clippings covering the whole strike in the San Joaquin Valley last October, as well as many photographs and handbills, etc. that will be of use to the producer, and which we will send on when needed. Jennie, the heroine of the play, is of course, Caroline Decker ²²—and most of the happenings and situations in the play come directly from the things we ourselves saw in the Valley last fall, or from what the participants, both growers and strikers, told us. The play follows the strike almost exactly. We hope it is dramatic as well as historical and true. Having worked so intensely on it the last few weeks, I am too close to it to read it critically now. Let’s hear what you think of it. And the Union.…. As to details, had Ella Winter and I better draw up a legal agreement out here on our half-and-half share in royalties? And should she join the Dramatist Guild, etc?

Send me the BALLAD OF ROOSEVELT.²³ I haven’t got a copy. And I will send you another NEW PEOPLE²⁴ when I go back to Carmel next week …… Enclosed is a note from THE FORUM, so if you ever have anything.…. Now that the play is done, I’m going to finish my Soviet book, which means you’ll be getting more articles shortly.

Sincerely,

TO SYLVIA CHEN (LEYDA)

[On Postcard of Bronco Rider]

Reno ²⁵
Sept. 12.|1934|

Dear Sylvia,

This is where the West is wild, Indians and cowboys and all. Quick divorces, too. I’ve been up in the mountains, but am flying back to San Francisco tomorrow. Wish I could see you. Consider me the answer to your last letter. Will write soon.

L.

TO AMY SPINGARN [ALS]

Carmel, Cal.,
Box No. 1582,
September 19, 1934.

Dear Mrs. Spingarn,

I’ve enjoyed both your letters so much, and have been meaning to write you for the longest while. I’ve had an interesting summer, and lately have been for the first time in the California mountains—at Echo Lake, and on to Tahoe, then down to Reno for a week. And I flew back—my first time in the air. This I really enjoyed, crossing the Sierras in 40 minutes—that it takes a train five hours to do—and coming straight into the sunset when the plane landed in the late afternoon at San Francisco. If I could afford it, I’d fly all the time from now on.…. On Saturday I lectured in San Francisco on my book of short stories—the first time I’ve ever spoken on my prose. I was very much interested in your reaction to the stories. But I’m sure you know I don’t hate white people. And I greatly regret that some critics got that impression from the book. In the stories I wanted only to show the various forms, from the subtle to the violent, that race relations in this country very frequently take, and to indicate the difficulties that even the best of white people face under our present society in their friendships with Negroes. But I realize now that I should have included one or two stories in which there was no tragedy, just to show that not always do inter-racial contacts stumble on seen or unforeseen snags. But I thought the little quotation from “Berry” at the beginning would indicate that I was not writing about all whites, anymore than I have ever been writing about all Negroes. I wonder how one can write a book that will not immediately be taken as a generalization of the whole race problem? Martha Gruening’s ²⁶ review in the New Republic is typical of several that I have received, in which she says that I “find white people either silly or cruel.” In “Poor Little Black Fellow,” “Little Dog,” and “Home,” I didn’t mean to picture the main characters in that light. And certainly in the other stories, I didn’t mean the whites to be taken as prototypes of their whole race. But, I suppose, my problem is to write more clearly in the future—and such criticisms make me realize that.

You must have had a marvelous time in Guatemala. Is Ruth Reeves ²⁷ back yet? I’ve wanted to write her and thank her for the lovely drawing she sent me. Here are two snaps I took of Mr. |Noël| Sullivan that I thought she might like. Please give them to her, or send them, if you are writing.

Krishnamurti²⁸ is at Carmel now, and I have attended two interesting groups with whom he has held discussions. His talks are like clear running water—a great deal goes by that nobody seems to understand—but ever so often there is a glimpse of something beautiful and sound beneath—like a lovely and solid rock at the bottom of the stream. I am interested in hearing a further development of his ideas of non-acquisitiveness, which seems to be one of the bases of his way of life—but, so far, unexplained in terms of our physical world.

I went recently to a marvelous anti-war and fascism meeting at which Bevan of the British Labor Party spoke,²⁹ and an exiled Jewish lawyer from Prussia. Such excitement and enthusiasm in an audience, I’ve never seen.…. The Upton Sinclair campaign ³⁰ out here is exciting, too. I hope he wins. His opponents are so terribly reactionary and intolerant. The police and vigilante brutality and intimidation in California these last few months is unbelievable. The Carmel paper even launched a long attack on me and The Woman’s Home Companion because of my article on the end of the harems in Soviet Asia in the Sept. issue.…. In the new Asia (October) my piece on the Soviet Theatre in Asia has just appeared.³¹ They will probably attack that, too.

I’ve several exciting writing projects set for myself this winter. And in the spring I want to begin the second part of “Not Without Laughter,” developing it eventually into a trilogy. But I do not want to begin so sustained a piece of work without some financial security to allow me several uninterrupted months of work—so I think I shall apply shortly for a Guggenheim Fellowship. May I use your name? (It was largely through your kindness and the years at Lincoln, that “Not Without Laughter” was begun.) Although I’ve sold a dozen or more articles this year, my mother being unemployed (and for a while ill) and my kid brother still in high school, I’ve been able to save nothing as a reserve for future writing. So my first application to the Guggenheims. Wish me luck!

Please remember me to Mr. Spingarn and to the family. I’d love to hear about Hope’s ³² experience with the theatre in Virginia.

All my best to you,

Sincerely,
Langston

TO SYLVIA CHEN (LEYDA) [ALS]

October 18, 1934.
Box No. 1582,
Carmel, Cal.

Dearest Sylvia,

I got all your letters and was mighty glad to hear from you each time. Carmel was pretty exciting for a while (California has turned Hitler on us since the general strike was broken), but I am still about. I stayed away from Carmel about a month (not wishing to be tarred and feathered) but am back again now, and have but lately written an article on our village terror for the New Masses ³³—so you can read all about it there. I have to stop the story to tell you how much I love you, and if the vigilantes (100% California Americans) had chased me all the way to Moscow and you, then everything would be O.K. As it is, I’m still half a world away from the sweetest little girl I have ever ever seen! I wish I could have come to the Writer’s Conference, but I wanted to finish my book and play first. (Before I was so rudely interrupted by the Red Scare—and had to hide my manuscripts, as did other Carmel writers.) See just one of the articles they had in the papers about me. (Enclosed.) And they wrote even worse ones against Ella Winter (who met you once in Moscow) and others of our John Reed Club members. But the club meets right on, altho we can’t any longer rent a public hall—but we put out a bulletin. All of which has interrupted me again from telling you I love you. And what else is important? Say, when are we due to meet again? Where will you be next spring? And suppose I came back to Moscow? Or are you still thinking maybe of touring our part of the world or something? How would you like to go to Brazil? So would I, if had the ¢ £ $, etc. Anyhow, we’ve got to pick out a meeting place. California and you are too far apart. So tell me what you think? Maybe I’ll have some money by spring. I’m broke now. I’m jealous of all those other writers seeing you dance at the Conference! But I liked your picture. Send me another one. I can’t get enough—of you—Lovin’ You The Way I Do—do you know that song? Ethel Waters sings it on the records. (I’ve got a lot of new ones I’ll try and bring you, if I ever get back.) I’ve sent you some dance programs and things recently. Did you get them—2 or three envelopes of stuff. I was sorry I missed seeing the Chinese dancer. She performed during all the Carmel excitement.…. Are you going to dance in the Dance Festival? When is it to be? And will you be Chinese-Japanese-Negro-Uzbek or Anti-Fascist? I don’t care which, and we’re too far apart to talk politics—as you put it. Who wants to talk anyhow. Will you kiss me next time or not? Heh? You better! What nationality would our baby be anyhow? Just so he or she is Anti-Fascist! (I got a long letter from Pat, of our group, and Vera.³⁴ Their baby is a year old and nearly walking—Ours would be dancing by this time, wouldn’t it?) But since when did you make up your mind that way? You hate to have Jack and Lucy ahead, I’ll bet? Give them my regards, and send me back theirs. And be a good girl and a great dancer, and Sylvia. Don’t be nobody else—cause I don’t want nobody else—but you. Love and—kisses. XXXXXX These are the kisses XXXXXX Lang

TO NOËL SULLIVAN [TLS]

October 24 |1934|,
521 Elko Street, Reno, Nevada, U.S.A.³⁵

Dear Noël:

Thank you so much for all your letters and for sending me so much mail. There was a nice note from Robin³⁶ saying that I might use his name for the |Guggenheim| fellowship, and that it was about to rain in Carmel.…. And I guess you saw Carl |Van Vechten|’s card saying that he was sending me photos of Bricktop³⁷ and two tap dancers, which you may open if you’d like to look at them. One is Louis Cole formerly of New York’s basement night clubs, now of Paris, Biarritz, and the Cote d’Azur—whom Carl thinks is about the grandest in the world.…. My agent writes that the new NEW JERSEY magazine METROPOLIS published a story of mine, SPANISH BLOOD, in its first number last week and that ESQUIRE is considering DEATH IN HARLEM.³⁸ He also says, “You are certainly sending me some grand stuff—I was bowled over by ON THE ROAD³⁹ and at the same time I cried Where in God’s name can I sell it? It’s too darned good.” But I hope he does sell it. He says the MERCURY turned down the Vigilantes article, so he then sent it to the MASSES, all before my wire arrived, having decided to try on the MERCURY first himself. Checks, so far, are conspicuous by their absence, but there ought to be one in his next letter.…. It is certainly nice of you to send what you did for my mother,⁴⁰ and certainly right now it is a great help. Nevertheless, I hate to take it. There’s no reason why you should take care of 90% of the troubles of the world. No wonder you never have any money for yourself anymore. The last letter from mama says that she intends to keep the house all winter now, and it seems that my brother is becoming famous in Oberlin as sort of Cab Calloway, conducting a jug band at the high school—a jug band being the kind of band that I think originated with the colored kids of New Orleans, in which they play jazz on washboards, jugs, combs, mouth organs, and tin cans, a terrific but rhythmical racket.…. I am having a grand time writing, I have again started the |Soviet| book over—for the third time. I didn’t like what I wrote when I first got here, but now I think it is beginning to “sound like me.” I think my real métier is protesting about something, so I now begin the first chapter by protesting about Paul Robeson’s lawyer living in a hotel that doesn’t want Negroes to use the front door, and how I go from that experience to have dinner with Louise Thompson |Patterson| in Harlem and get my first news of the picture they are going to make in Russia. So it gets off now with an emotional bang! that I trust Knopf’s will feel “sounds like me.” Since that is what they desire.…. I have also written two stories—one white one and one colored one. The colored one is about a professor who sells out his ideals for a big salary. And the one white one is about a man who writes a letter every day to his dead wife who died in childbirth taking their baby with her. And after twenty years, he gets an answer. It’s called MAILBOX FOR THE DEAD.⁴¹ (But don’t tell anybody I’m writing white stories. They might think I was trying to pass!) I am going to put all these stories (the first drafts) in my suitcase, and when I get about a dozen, go over them and send them up to Roy⁴² to copy for me. Revision takes so much time that I think I’ll put that off and do nothing but straight writing for about a month—or until the book is done. Then revise everything at once.…. It is grand sunny weather here, with snow on the mountains.…. Did you see the Profiles of Bill Robinson (Bojangles)⁴³ the tap dancer, in the October 6 and 13th numbers of THE NEW YORKER? Very amusing, and I think worth your reading. Ask Marie ⁴⁴ to lend them to you, as she usually gets the magazine every week. I’m sending you a clipping from there, too, called “Little Dog.”….. Tell me about STEVEDORE⁴⁵.…. And give my best to Mario⁴⁶.…. It would be fine if you happen to have time to telephone or look up Arna Bontemps. His address is 10310 Wiegand Avenue, and the telephone number is under the name of P.B. Bontemps. Tell him I’m “in the mountains” and communing with the Muses, but will come down in a few weeks, and maybe we can work together.

Affectionately Yours,
Langston

TO NOËL SULLIVAN [TLS]

Dear Noël,

Please give the enclosed letter to Peter.⁴⁷ You can read it, too, if you like. It’s some good advice about writing our play.…. And if any other letters should come from the Theatre Union, please let Peter read them first before sending them on to me.…. Did you have a good time in the South?….. And did Elsie⁴⁸ get home O.K.?….. And are you still going to Mexico maybe for Christmas?….. I think I will probably be here, the way the book is going, but it is going, so that is some consolation.…. Reno is still amusing, but they are going to close up the little colored club, as they are not making enough money to keep it going. It was a grand little tough place where you could hear marvelous blues. Now there will be nothing left but a couple of gambling joints for the Race to go to. But no doubt the Race will get along.…. Thanks for sending me the SPOKESMEN. I hadn’t seen any colored news since I got here.…. The article about the dancer is in THEATRE ARTS for November with two nice pictures.…. It is autumn over here and all the trees are red and gold. The first American autumn I’ve seen for a long time. Almost every day I go climbing up the mountains to the North of us and you can look down on the whole valley. The mountains are full of rabbits jumping up from behind the sage brush. Tina and Greta would have a grand time here running them down …… Did you see STEVEDORE, and was it well done?….. THEATRE ARTS says Paul Green’s new Negro play was marvelous in New York,⁴⁹ but failed as a box office success, and closed.…. I have sent |Maxim| Lieber and mama my address here, so they can write direct—but nobody else. There might be a letter occasionally from Knopf in a blue envelope that you might send on, and one from Sylvia |Chen Leyda| in Moscow, otherwise I can’t think of anybody else I need to hear from, or that you need bother about forwarding, unless they are airmails, specials, or something of the sort. It is a great relief not to have a lot of mail on one’s mind. Out of sight is out of mind is only too true in this case. That’s one good reason for you to go to Mexico. Nobody would expect you to answer their letters, if you didn’t get them.…. Love and greetings to Marie |Short|, Steffy |Lincoln Steffens|, Douglass,⁵⁰ the Jeffers, Pat, and Leslie Roos,⁵¹ if you see her.…. Don’t let the witches or the black cats bother Tina or Greta or Boz or Diana on Hallow’ene night.…. And write soon—but don’t worry if you don’t. I’ll know you mean to! And that will be O.K …… Have you gotten into the second volume of THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN?⁵² If the Guggenheims give me that Fellowship, I will write a second volume of NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER, too. Authors ought to be ashamed of themselves, just writing and writing—but then I guess it’s the system!!!.…. Will Upton Sinclair give us all a typewriter and a quiet place? What will he do about writers? And especially letter writers? If I thought he would help us any there, I would certainly vote for him.

Sincerely,
Langston

October 29, 1934,
521 Elko Street,
Reno, Nevada.

TO MAXIM LIEBER [TL]

521 Elko Street,
Reno, Nevada,
“The Biggest Little City In The World,”
November 3, 1934.

Dear Maxim,

Your recent kind letter received—but just as checkless as it can be—and authors must eat! This particular author must also send money home to pay the rent of a family that strangely enough insists on not going on relief, having a son who is a “great” writer—although I am about to go on relief myself. Not wishing to rush you at all, but do you suppose you could maybe sell some of my Soviet articles to the colored papers, CHICAGO DEFENDER, DEBATE, anybody for seven or eight bucks so that I might with complacency greet my landlady, until TRAVEL, METROPOLIS, or Death In Harlem bring in a few dollars?

I have a half a dozen new stories all ready for you but the copying. Most of them, however, are not very “commercial” in theme, leaning mostly to the left, so they will probably end up in THE NEW MASSES or THE ANVIL.⁵³ Therefore, I have hit upon an idea. Tell me what you think of it: to do every week one story with sentiment, love, romance, and a happy ending, under a pen name; the race, the colored race, conspicuous by its absence, and no problems involved except the all-eternal problem of LOVE. Maybe we could even sell them once in a while to the movies. I have in my note book a number of themes that do not need color or Negroes to make them true, and that could work up into good American short stories about ladies and gentlemen. I have already put down a couple and find them easy and amusing to do, and probably salable. Would you be willing to handle them for me? Give me your opinion on the project?⁵⁴ And not tell anybody about it? Etc. Wallace Thurman, as you probably know, has made a fairly good living for years doing True Stories about people 20 shades lighter than himself, writing under various names. Since I must make a living by my pen—typewriter, to be exact—and since the market for Race and Russian stuff is distinctly limited, I see no reason why I should not weekly turn to LOVE, and Love in the best American Caucasian 100% slick paper fashion. Do you? I shall await your reaction, and advice.

I suppose you have received by now a story called BIG MEETING that I sent you last week.

Also I see that my article on Tamara Khanum has appeared in the THEATRE ARTS MONTHLY,⁵⁵ and I wonder if you would do me a very great favor in regard to it. Since I cannot buy the magazine out here, would you kindly ask them (or your office) to send a copy to Tamara Khanum herself so that she can see what I said about her. The address is:

TAMARA KHANUM, UZBEK MUSICAL THEATRE, TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN, U.S.S.R.

marking the page number on the front so she’ll know what it’s all about, as she does not read English, but can get it translated there. Deduct the cost from your next check due me—if they charge you for it.

Sincerely,

TO NOËL SULLIVAN [TLS]

November 5, 1934,
521 Elko Street,
Reno, Nevada.

Dear Noël,

Thank you so much for the package of mail you’ve sent me.…. Among the letters was one from Señorita Patiño in Mexico City advising me that my father is gravely ill there and requesting that I come at once. It seems that he has been in the sanitarium for twenty-two days (in his last letter he told me that he was going) and that he is getting steadily worse, paralysis of the intestines, and they fear that even before their letter reaches me, he may be gone.⁵⁶ Apparently, it is certain that he cannot get well. I have just wired for further information, as their letter was dated the 22nd of October, quite a long time ago. If there is in Carmel any communication from Mexico, perhaps you had better open it and wire or telephone me the contents. Of course, if my father is still living, I would like to go to him if he wishes it, and give him that evidence of friendship. On the other hand, if he is no longer here, I have no idea how important it might or might not be that I go there. In a recent letter he spoke of expecting a sum of money due in payment for a ranch, and that he might then fly up to Los Angeles for a trip. But I have no idea what other assets he might have, or what disposition he may have made of them, or what Mexican law in regard to inheritances may be, or whether I might not be stranded there forever in case I did go down there now.…. Of course, I am as broke as usual, having this morning only six dollars in the world. But I am airmailing Knopf’s to see how my book royalties stand and what they could advance me in case I should have to go to Mexico.…. |Maxim| Lieber’s letters report two articles sold but payment to be made on publication—TRAVEL and METROPOLIS, neither of which have appeared yet.…. And the New York Times would probably consider one of my articles on Samarkand if I would re-do it with more color and less statistics. So I wouldn’t be so much worried about getting back. In case my father is no longer living, however, it may not be at all necessary that I go there, as surely he had legal advisors who would take charge of his estate—and it would be of concern to me only if he has so instructed them. If you see Douglas |Short| or anyone who might know, please ask them about Mexican inheritance laws, etc. in regard to foreigners. And I’ll let you know what answer I receive <from the> wire.…. I guess you got my letter to Los Angeles, and also one more recently to Carmel with an enclosure for Peter |Ella Winter|….. I’ve written seven short stories this week, and am about to revise and send them off. I thought I ought to give Lieber something to sell for me, so I could write the book with an occasional rent-check in view. Three of the stories are “white” stories. It will be interesting to see how they go. One is serious, the others are sort of smart and humorous—about mistaken love affairs in a New York setting.…. I worked all day long yesterday getting them ready to mail off. Still have three to revise. And am doing all my own typing myself!

Best of good wishes to you,
Langston

TO NOËL SULLIVAN [ALS]

[On El Correo Aéreo llega primero stationery]

San Ildefonso 73,
Mexico ⁵⁷, D.F. Mex.,
December 14, 1934.

Querido Noël,

I arrived safely yesterday after a not-so-bad trip—except that I only got 3 chapters of Nijinsky read—and I meant to read it all! I don’t seem to have done anything in the train except repack my baggage, and dine, and then go back and dine again. In Nogales where the Immigration held me over the weekend because my entrance permit did not state that I was colored, I had a fine time. The porter introduced me to two colored fellows who have a little ranch nearby, and on Sunday we (or rather they) roped three horses and we went riding into the hills. I had a big white horse that had the smoothest gallop you’ve ever seen—just like a rocking chair. The next day I was hardly sore at all. Afterwards, being colored, we had chicken to eat, and I went around and met a number of old colored soldiers, and two on the Mexican side, who had been generals in the Mexican revolution. (I must get their stories when I come back through.) On Monday, the Immigration compromised and put down “mestizo” on my permit—which apparently means mixed. And I had to put up in cash a $250 peso bond, about $75 dollars—so once again I returned to my natural state of being broke. But it is nice to know that that sum awaits me on my return to Nogales. Also held up at Nogales was Mr. S. E. Woodworth who is a near neighbor of yours. But he went on before I did.

Concerning affairs here, apparently my father left a will bequeathing everything to the three nice old maids who took care of him in his last years of semi-invalidism, which I think was pretty decent of him. But they, in turn, wish to divide four ways with me, which is again mighty nice of them, I think. So far as I can tell, the estate consists of not more than 8000 pesos, more than half in amounts still unpaid on property sales. Government tax is 21%. So, por fin, I think I shall have just about enough to repay my Uncle for the trip,⁵⁸ and quien sabe how many weeks it will take to get that, things move so slowly here. The first thing we have to do is go to Toluca and find the original copy of the will. I am sure that will take days, if not years. Then the rest begins.

The three Patiños are still just the same, age, ear-rings, and all, as they were 25 years ago when I first saw them. They have already taken me to church three times—one very lovely benediction with music and hundreds of candles. They were delighted to know about you, and about your sister, la Carmelita, and they want to know how it is you have not gotten me to come into the church.… Now, they are spending all their time preparing gifts for los pobres at Christmas time, making little dresses for the children, and putting by packets of food. We are going to give all my father’s clothes, too, to the poor.…. They are all three in heavy mourning for my father. (And as fate would have it, the train laid over two hours in Guadalajara where I intended to buy a black tie—but it was a Saint’s Day and every store was closed—so I had to arrive without one.) All three of the sisters wept when they saw me—and in general it was very sad. But now the house is quite lively again, there are lots of birds and flowers, and they are darling old ladies who try to do everything they can to make it pleasant for me. Already they’ve introduced me to a young aspirant to the priest-hood, and a young guitar-player, an orphan of the streets, who is their god-child—so between the two, I am sure I shall meet some interesting Mexicanos, and won’t be bored.…. The only thing is—they close, lock, and bar the door every night at nine, take their candles and retire—and nobody (save one of the Saints) need ask to get in or out! I see where I shall get plenty, plenty of sleep.

Your package of mail just came. Thanks so much. The maid says the mail man was very drunk, and pronounced Hughes, Jesus! and wanted her to sign that way for the package.

Why don’t you come down and sing the Cesar Franck in one of these lovely cathedrals? Best to Marie |Short|, Peter, Eulah |Pharr|, Billie.⁵⁹

Siempre,
Langston

TO CARRIE CLARK [TLS]

San Ildefonso 73,
Mexico City, Mexico,
January 10, 1935.

Dearest mama,

It was awfully sweet of you to send me your picture for Christmas and nothing could have made a nicer gift. The Patiños were delighted to see it, and want you to send them one, too. New Year’s day I had dinner with Cholie and her daughter and son-in-law. (I think I told you they have a very cute little baby.) In the afternoon, I went to the boxing matches with her daughter’s husband, who has a sporting goods store here.

I hope Gwyn |Clark| had a good time in Richmond. Too bad you did not go to Cleveland for Christmas, and I hope you got to go for New Year’s. I received a lot of cards, and the Patiños gave me a white silk scarf and little purse for presents. And I went to one party that the people who live in the flat below had.

Not having any money, I have been staying at home and working most of the time. I have written three stories since I have been here. We went to Toluca and got the will legalized, but it will take a couple of months to get it probated and all, so I guess it will be about March before I get my part of the money. Since I have no expenses here (it will all come out of the estate) I think I had just as well stay here and wait for it to be settled. In the meantime, I am studying Spanish and gathering material for some stories about Mexico.

Oh, yes, I saw my father’s German wife ⁶⁰ and she has agreed not to fight the will. There is hardly enough to make it worth while.

I have your letters and the account. You did not say whether or not you received a check for forty dollars from my agent. (I have a letter from him saying that he sent it, as I hoped, in time for Christmas.) During December then I sent you

Money Order...........................$20.00

Check........................................16.20

Cash (Gwyn)................................5.00

Agent’s check.............................40.00

$81.20

which I hoped would help you catch up a little. I trust you received all these amounts, and I wish that in the future you would acknowledge each check so that I will know if you have received it or not, because traveling around as I have been, sometimes a letter might get lost or something. You don’t need to send me accounts or anything like that. I only want to be sure that nothing is lost in the mail. Gwyn didn’t say if he received his five or not, nor did you let me know if the $40 came from Maxim Lieber—but I hope you all got both these sums O.K.…. I won’t be able to send any more money until I sell another story, or get paid for one. Two are now sold but do not pay until they are published. Let’s hope that will be soon.…. If there is any of my father’s money left after expenses of my board and trip are taken out, you shall have it.

Did you see the fine article about Oberlin in the December CRISIS with quite a little about your father in it?⁶¹ If not, be sure to look it up and read it. I guess I told you a story of mine was in the January ESQUIRE, and I have gotten several nice letters from people about it.

Lots of love to you,
Langston

TO NOËL SULLIVAN [TLS]

San Ildefonso 73,
Mexico City, D. F.,
February 1, 1935.

Dear Noël,

Remembering last year and Robin and Una |Jeffers|’s picnic at the Big Sur and your party in the evening, I thought I would write you all a line to let you know what’s happening to me here, now that my thirty-second year of life is beginning—I mean ending, and my thirty-third beginning. As amazing as it may sound, I get up now at six o’clock and go to gym, and sometimes to mass! So this morning I went to the gym, and when I got back the dear old ladies with whom I live had prepared two huge bowls full of buñuelas, a kind of gigantic pan cake fried to a crisp in a big skillet, and served especially on dias de fiesta. And real hot chocolate for breakfast. And for dinner (we dine at mid-day here) there were all sorts of amazing Mexican dishes, starting off with a delicious bean and herb soup into which one squeezes lots of lime juice; after that, what they call a dry soup of macaroni and tomatoes; then several kinds of fish, for today is Friday, and potatoes in patties, and a big mixture of green vegetables; then candied squash, a marvelous paste of zapote, and fruit. And with all, a bottle of old Rioja wine that they’ve had for years in some dark closet. So you can imagine how well filled I am. On my Saint’s Day they assure me that there will be an even bigger dinner, but I haven’t looked on the calendar yet to see when Saint Jaime comes. And if the dinner were any bigger, I don’t know what I would do.…. Tonight I am going to the rosario (which I guess you would call vespers) to see the big procession they have on the first Friday of every month, when they carry the host under a canopy and most of the parishioners march with lighted candles. There is music and singing, and when they come out almost everyone stops to kiss the feet of an image of Christ near the door wounded and bleeding as He was the night He was taken in the Garden and beaten by the soldiers. The church is just across the street from us, and is one of the twenty-five still permitted a priest in the Federal District. Curiously enough, the Catholics and the Communists, among others, both participated in an anti-fascist mass meeting after the Coyoacán shootings.⁶² (I wish we could achieve a similar united-front in America.) And the other day, El Hombre Libre, a Catholic paper, quoted almost a column of Lenin to prove the fake-Socialism of the present administration! It’s an awfully interesting situation here.

For no good reason at all, I haven’t been to call on Jose Mojica⁶³ again. Nor have I looked up my friend in the Cuban embassy. You know how the days just seem to pass by and nothing gets done—except eating and sleeping. Somehow, miraculously, that is achieved. Walter White’s sister-in-law, too, I still must visit. But, withal, I’ve been having a swell peaceful time. And it’s a great relief not to be known, or to have to go to literary teas, or make speeches, or read anybody’s manuscripts, or worry about engagements ten days in advance. I’m having great fun with DON QUIXOTE. And belong to a hiking club of fellows and girls called Los Dragones who make excursions to nearby mountains and deserts and out-of-the-way places. And go every Sunday to the bull fights, but have just discovered that the novilleros are much more astounding performances than the de luxe fights in the big ring. For at the novilleros the young and unknown fighters are out to make a name for themselves, and the stunts they pull off in front of the bull’s horns are hair-raising. Butted, trampled, and gored Sunday after Sunday, thus they try to make a reputation that will bring them—if they live long enough—to the main ring, El Toreo, to South America, to Madrid, and to 20,000 pesos a week. Now they get 50 and have to pay their helpers from that. Sunday, a youngster called El Ajiado del Matadero had his trousers ripped wide open up the left leg on his first bull, only to get them sewed up behind the barrera and again ripped wide open by the second bull, on the other leg. This made him angry, and when he went to kill, he got too close and was tossed way up in the air, landing flat on his back. But with all this, he got up, shook the darkness out of his head, picked up his red cloth and went ahead with the kill. They gave him the ears and the tail when he finished, and the crowd carried him around the ring on numerous shoulders, ragged and bloody as he could be.

Nothing has happened yet with the estate, except that it is now in the fiscal, whatever section of the court that is where it is supposed to be. So I thought I might as well stay here and see what happens. My ticket is good for six months, and living here is awfully inexpensive. Anyway, I had just as well stay until March or April, as by that time they expect the bank account anyway to be released, and I can pay my uncle back for the trip.…. Knopf’s are publishing this month Kisch’s book on Soviet Asia,⁶⁴ so I think I’d just as well give up the idea of writing mine. Whatever material is still timely, I might do in the form of articles when I come back, and let the Friends |of the| Soviet Union ⁶⁵ make a little booklet of the best of them, (as they have recently written me.)….. There are now almost enough short stories for another book. I’d like to do about a dozen more to have a little income for my mother, and then start work on my next novel, Guggenheim or no Guggenheim.…. My brother has had the flu lately and is still out of school, it seems.…. How about Rhys⁶⁶ and his book? I hope it is finished by now?….. Today I’m writing Una and Robin, too.…. Greetings to everybody else. And you’d better send on my mail, I guess. With DON QUIXOTE to finish, (3 volumes to go) I’ll be here a while!.….

<All my best to you, and write soon.>
Langston

TO NOËL SULLIVAN [TLS]

San Ildefonso 73,
Mexico, D.F.,
March 28, 1935.

Dear Noël,

Comme toujours, I have been meaning to write you for weeks, but now that I have good news, I have to tell you. I’ve just been notified that I am to receive a Guggenheim—$1500 for nine months—and I am sure yours and Robin’s and Ben’s letters helped a lot, and I want to thank you for them.⁶⁸ So I hope to begin work on the novel in the summer.

Lately I’ve been translating some Mexican short stories, but haven’t got very much done. I know too many people, and have been going to too many parties and dinners. I was lunching in Las Caszuelas the other day with a bull fighter when I ran into Tirzah⁶⁹ for the first time. She was with a gentleman and the place was awfully noisy so I didn’t get much news of California, but I am going to look her up some day this week. She has taken an apartment here for a while.

Last week-end I went down to Cuautla, which is just over the mountains in Tierra Caliente. There are some fine warm sulphur springs there and lots of palm trees and sunshine. About five miles away in Huastepec, there is a big pool in the heart of the woods where nobody goes except Indians and where you can bathe as God made you in the same sulphur water as in town—without the city crowds. On Sunday there was an Indian rodeo with about a hundred horsemen and lots of bulls. Sunday night I went to a cantina and drank beer with a French photographer ⁷⁰ and Mexican truck driver until a military man pulled out his pistol and threatened to shoot the orchestra if they didn’t dedicate a piece to him. Then I thought it was time to go. Coming back in the bus on Monday morning, there were wrecks all along the road. I don’t think the Latin-Americans are very good drivers.

The street cars went on strike yesterday, otherwise everything seems quiet here right now. The professional wrestlers say they are going on strike next week, too. There was to have been a railroad strike, too, but that seems to have blown over for the moment. The dear old ladies with whom I live say that things were much better in the days of Porfirio Diaz,⁷¹ and that such goings on were never heard of then.

Of course, nothing has happened about my father’s estate yet. That is nothing tangible. And, as I probably told you, my step mother has decided to contest the will, so it will probably go on for years now, although some efforts are being made to settle out of court. The conferences are so long drawn out and uninteresting that I usually cannot keep my eyes open. But every<one> else seems to take a few thousand pesos as seriously as if it were a billion. My only pain is that I’m ashamed to come back to California until I have enough to pay my uncle back for the trip. I have had a swell time—but I am sure my relatives expect something more<!>

Anyway, I think I shall stay here only about a month more. I want to finish translating a dozen Mexican and Cuban stories and articles that I think we ought to know about in the States. And if I get a check from |Maxim| Lieber, I hope to go for a week or so down to the coast where there are thousands of Mexican Negroes living, about whom very little has been written, even in Mexico. Once in a while you see one in the city here, perfectly jet black. My friend, Jose Antonio, of the Cuban Embassy,⁷² is interested in making a study of them, too, for comparison with the Cuban Negroes, so he and his wife and I will perhaps all go down to the coast together.

Peter |Ella Winter| sent me a copy of the Pacific Weekly with Marie Welch’s ⁷³ poem in it. Evidently the feud with By Ford is still on, judging from the leading editorial.⁷⁴

They have formed a marvelous committee in New York to get the poet, Jacques Roumain,⁷⁵ out of jail in Haiti: Joel Spingarn, Carlton Beals,⁷⁶ and people like that are on it. At a party here the other night, I saw an American painter who had just come back from Haiti, and he says it is on the road to becoming another Cuba, another little island of terror.

This week I’ve been kept busy buying the New York papers to read about the riots in Harlem. Only a week or so ago I had a letter from a friend of mine there saying that people were awfully hard up.…. I had a note from Roy |Blackburn| saying that he had driven Roland Hayes down to Carmel. I hope you succeeded in getting the Scottsboro money from him.…. They are doing my play about the case over the government radio down here shortly, so they say, and afterwards in one of the portable theatres.

With best regards to all, and tell Marie |Short| I am going to write her soon. How is Eulah |Pharr| and where? And Colonel |Charles Erskine Scott| Wood? And the children at Santa Cruz? and Eddie |Pharr|?….. I had a nice card from Matthias in N.Y.⁷⁷.…. If you write soon, please send me Emily Joseph’s address. I’d like to send her a card while I’m here.…. Pat Greta and Tina for me. And old Boz if he is still there.

Sincerely,
Langston

TO NOËL SULLIVAN [ALS]

Santa Fe,⁷⁸
August 31, 1935

Dear Noël,

I arrived Santa Fe last night just in time to miss seeing Myron⁷⁹ who left the same evening for the coast. Bynner is in New York, but Bob Hunt⁸⁰ received me and altho he was just about to leave for a Fiesta party, he asked a number of folks, who weren’t going to the party, over to meet me, including Ida Rauh and her son (Max Eastman’s boy) and some other left-folks, including Frieda Lawrence’s son-in-law, a most amusing Scotsman.⁸¹ Mrs. Rauh told me that Mrs. |Mabel Dodge| Luhan was in Albuquerque and probably hadn’t received my wire, but that she was motoring back today, and that she (Ida Rauh) was going to Taos with her to escape the Fiestas, and that I could perhaps come up with them. They would telephone me.

This morning, however, her son, young Eastman, and the Scotsman, came to tell me that Mabel had just passed through in an awfully bad humor, picked up Mrs. Rauh, and gone on, saying that she would call me from Taos. So far she hasn’t called (5.P.M.). And the town is full of stories of how badly she has been receiving guests lately (Edna Ferber, for one;⁸² and more recently, Thomas Wolfe,⁸³ who it seems, never did get in the house (after having been especially invited) so from the outside, he flung all sorts of bad words at her through the bed-room window, enlivening the night and out Jaime-ing Jaime D’Angulo!⁸⁴ He came back to Santa Fe, feeling that America’s greatest novelist had been outraged!|)|….. I guess Mabel probably feels like you did after that hectic Bach week—that you hoped “never to have another guest.”⁸⁵.…. Jean Toomer, who lives just outside Santa Fe, was most evasive on the phone as to when I might run out to see him, or just when he would be in town, or just where or when, anywhere!⁸⁶.…. Bob Hunt came in, high as a kite in the early morning hours, but was very nice the few minutes I saw him around noon. He has now gone back to bed after saying how awful he feels and showing me his dark-brown tongue to prove it.…. So I have sort of come to the conclusion that most of the inhabitants of this region must be possessed of devils, or else the Kundalini ⁸⁷ isn’t working right these days (the town is full of tourists from Texas who have America’s position at San Diego beat a thousand miles for prejudice) so I’ve decided to take the evening train on East, and am at the bus station (to Lamy) now (so excuse this letter in pencil) because, anyhow, the floods are rising, trains are getting later and later, and all the Rain Gods know I don’t want to have to stay here very much longer. (It was raining last night when I arrived. The day was sunny. But it’s raining again, now that I’m leaving.) Certainly, that Thunder of the Rain-Gods part of my poem was right; concerning the rest of it about a house in Taos, I’m afraid I’ll never know.⁸⁸ Me for no. 24, Kansas City, St Louis, and the East.…. This month’s high spot was the trip to the Fair with you. To paraphrase Dr. Locke, “I had the Harmon award. What more do I want?”….. Look for a letter from farther down the road. The bus is off, the skies weep, and I am on my way.

Bien à toi and Elsie |Arden|, Langston

Some awfully amusing things to tell you about the Mexican maids at Bynner’s next time I meet you.