VQR Vault #7: Hayden Carruth

Hayden Carruth published work with VQR for nearly forty years, and he remains the only poet to have won VQR's Emily Clark Balch Prize more than once. In his long life in letters, he published literary criticism, essays, a novel, and more than thirty books of poetry. Here we offer some of the early correspondence between Carruth and editor Charlotte Kohler, along with the typescripts of three of his poems, including his classics "North Winter" and "Emergency Haying."

VQR Vault #6: Ezra Pound-"Canto 99"

Ezra Pound was in his twelfth year of commitment to the Chestnut Ward of St. Elizabeth's Hospital when he was given a copy of Virginia Quarterly Review. Impressed, he submitted "Canto XCIX" for publication. VQR editor Charlotte Kohler enthusiastically accepted the poem. In the meantime, the release of Pound became a cause celebre, and he was granted his freedom by the state. Here is the correspondence between Kohler, Pound, and Richmond businessman (and Pound advocate) Harry Meacham that that resulted in the publication of that work.

VQR Vault #5: Pablo Neruda in VQR: Two Poems

By 1961, Pablo Neruda had established himself as one of the most important and prolific Spanish-language writers of the twentieth century. His work had been translated into a dozen different languages, yet for most North Americans and other English-speaking peoples, Neruda was virtually unread and viewed more as a radical politician than South America's most explosive poet. So when Ben Belitt, VQR's self-proclaimed "hispanic Ear to the Ground," sent a few translations of Neruda to the journal, Charlotte Kohler, the editor at the time, quickly accepted.

VQR Vault #4: Nadine Gordimer's First Publication in VQR

Considered among the most important authors in the world, Nadine Gordimer began her international career in 1951, when she received her first letter of acceptance for publication in an American magazine from the Virginia Quarterly Review. Editor Charlotte Kohler chose her short story “The Catch” for publication in the Summer issue of that year. Presented here is the original manuscript of Gordimer’s story along with the original correspondence between Kohler, Gordimer, and Gordimer’s agent.

VQR Vault #3: Eleanor Roosevelt—"Keepers of Democracy"

Shortly after taking over as the new editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review in 1938, Lawrence Lee began sending letters to authors he hoped would help him advance the journal’s “new effort at liberalism.” High on Lee’s list of potential contributors were President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Their son, Franklin, Jr., had entered the Law School at the University of Virginia in Fall 1937, and Lee hoped that he might capitalize on that connection. That Eleanor Roosevelt contributed to VQR at all is a testament to Lee’s relentless pursuit as an editor; that the essay she eventually contributed has so endured is a testament to Roosevelt’s skill as a writer.

VQR Vault #2: T. S. Eliot's Suppressed Lecture

In May 1933, T. S. Eliot delivered three lectures at the University of Virginia, as part of the Page-Barbour Series. By Eliot’s own description, these lectures were intended as “further development of the problem which the author first discussed in his essay, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent.’” A number of critics have also noted the fact that Eliot had recently separated from his wife Vivien, and without her steadying hand, these lectures reveal his complete transformation from aesthete to self-described “moralist.”

VQR Vault #1: The Manuscripts of John Berryman

Among the staggering collection of literary manuscripts and letters in the VQR Archive in the Special Collections at Alderman Library, University of Virginia, are thirteen typescript poems and numerous letters to and from John Berryman. Taken together, they provide a snapshot of Berryman through the three main phases of his literary reputation: the struggling young poet, the tormented genius, and the tragic figure who took his own life at the height of his powers.