PUBLISHED: May 12, 2008
On July 14, 1959, the Richmond News Leader ran an editorial by Ezra Pound entitled “Keynes Brainwashed Electorate with Economic Hogwash.” It was his first and last publication in the Virginia newspaper—despite a yearlong stint as its foreign correspondent in Europe. Jon Schneider unearthed the story of how Pound came to hold such an unlikely position, and in the current issue of VQR we publish Schneider’s narrative and Pound’s submissions to the paper. We also have a collection of Pound’s communications with VQR about the publication of “Canto 99” at the same time, which includes some correspondence overlapping with the News Leader communications.
I sat down with Jon a few days ago to discuss how he came across these letters and manuscripts, and what they tell us about Pound’s life at the time.
