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+--- Thread: A Sandburg Stumper (/thread-316.html)
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 08-28-2019 12:19 PM
Who wrote this to Carl Sandburg in 1938?
"Don't let the flight of time, the passage of the wild geese, the shortening of the daylight, or the coming of ice on the lake, at your feet, hurry this masterpiece. Dry bones don't get up in the valley and walk till the artists and the poets tell them to, and as your greatest work nears its end it must sing and rise to orchestral symphonic proportions. You are the only living man who can make Lincoln's biography rise up at the end and in full chorus. You may be the only American since Lincoln who could do this. So think of it as the Trojan Wars and yourself as Homer. The first part is great and the last part will be greater."
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - RJNorton - 08-28-2019 01:44 PM
W. A. Evans?
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 08-28-2019 02:36 PM
Good guess, Roger, but it isn't Evans.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 08-28-2019 05:21 PM
Clue #1, he was a writer as well.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - RJNorton - 08-28-2019 05:46 PM
James G. Randall?
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - AussieMick - 08-28-2019 07:07 PM
William Faulkner?
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 08-28-2019 07:27 PM
Sorry gentlemen, but neither guess is correct. Randall and Sandburg didn't begin their friendship until after Abraham Lincoln The War Years was published (Randall wrote a review of it, and he later told F. Lauriston Bullard that he had been too easy on Sandburg). Faulkner did write a letter to Sandburg, but there is no record of when the letter was written, and it doesn't appear that Sandburg ever wrote back.
That leads to the next clue (and the last for the evening). Sandburg and this person were regular correspondents.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 08-29-2019 09:55 AM
Next clue. One of his sidelines was sheep ranching.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - RJNorton - 08-29-2019 10:46 AM
Charles J. Finger?
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 08-29-2019 11:32 AM
Interesting guess Roger, but it's not him.
This will likely give it away, but he was raised a Quaker.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Joe Di Cola - 08-29-2019 03:52 PM
Rob,
You are causing me to break a vow!
Lloyd Lewis--whose Myths After Lincoln is one of my prized Lincoln books as well as the first volume of the Grant biography. After Lewis's death, the bio was completed by Catton.
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 08-29-2019 05:03 PM
Once again, Joe sneaks in for the win. It was Lloyd Lewis who wrote that to Sandburg.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - L Verge - 08-29-2019 07:31 PM
(08-29-2019 05:03 PM)Rob Wick Wrote: Once again, Joe sneaks in for the win. It was Lloyd Lewis who wrote that to Sandburg.
Best
Rob
Lewis's Myths book was one of the first ones I remember reading when I finally started to collect assassination books. It is packed away in my bassement storage area as I speak...or type.
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - LincolnMan - 08-30-2019 08:37 AM
Yes, I love that book!
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 09-02-2019 07:07 PM
In 1931, Carl Sandburg was asked by this author to write a preface for a book the author wanted to publish. Sandburg did, but the author didn't find it appropriate to the work, and it never appeared in print. Who was the author and what was the book?
Best
Rob