+- Lincoln Discussion Symposium (https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium)
+-- Forum: Lincoln Discussion Symposium (/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: Trivia Questions - all things Lincoln (/forum-8.html)
+--- Thread: A Sandburg Stumper (/thread-316.html)
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - RJNorton - 09-03-2019 04:48 AM
Rob, did you mean Sandburg's preface did not appear in print or the book itself did not appear in print?
I'll assume the preface, so I shall guess Edgar Lee Masters' Lincoln: The Man.
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 09-03-2019 08:56 AM
Sorry for the confusion, Roger. I meant Sandburg's preface did not appear in print. Masters is an excellent guess, but unfortunately not the correct one.
Clue: the author has appeared on the site here before.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - RJNorton - 09-03-2019 04:18 PM
Emanuel Hertz?
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 09-03-2019 06:34 PM
Doggone it, Roger. I thought this would last longer. However, you've only answered half correctly. What is the book?
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Steve - 09-03-2019 09:42 PM
Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait?
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 09-04-2019 11:50 AM
Of course, Steve is correct. It was in the two-volume Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait.
Emanuel Hertz is one of those people, like Otto Eisenschiml, that just cries out for a biographer. The amount of dislike that Hertz engendered in the Lincoln community is legend.
In January of 1929, Hertz sent Sandburg a fawning three-page letter after Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years came out. He used more whitewash in the letter than appeared on Tom Sawyer's fence. To his credit, Hertz waited until November of 1929 before he sent another letter asking Sandburg if Hertz should publish a book on the many pamphlets that Hertz had collected, and then asked Sandburg if he would write Hertz a letter of introduction to Alfred Harcourt (Sandburg's publisher) to see if he would be interested in publishing it. Evidently Sandburg declined, because the book was published by Horace Liveright.
Sandburg did agree to Hertz's request that he write the preface for the book. As one might expect of a man as busy as Sandburg was, it took a while for him to put together the piece. On August 6, 1931, Hertz wrote Sandburg the following:
I have now had the opportunity of carefully reading the Preface which you were good enough to prepare, and I find that in your good nature you have dedicated practically all of the article to the author of the book and made little or no comment on the book itself. The article will probably serve your purpose, should you conclude to use it when you are ready to publish your book about the different "characters" you have met; but I fear that in justice to the book itself, when a Foreword or Preface is written, the author and his family should not be glorified, but be entirely forgotten.
Sandburg, in an understandable fit of pique, wrote two letters to Hertz on August 9. I'm not sure if only one or both were sent, but here are the complete texts of both.
In my estimation, this is the first letter that Sandburg wrote:
Your letter is here. Tell Liveright that publication of the praface I have done is without my consent or permission. When I have gone thru the complete proofs of the book I shall write a lavish, conventional piece, in accord with the wish of yourself and the judgement of Liveright, of which people will say, "Oh yeah." If the second piece is not up to requirements and shows that I am still off key from the chorale of the theme, it will be your privilege to again sit in with Liveright and give me your combined judgement.
In what I feel is a second letter that Sandburg composed (which he misdated as 1921) he writes:
Whatever else may happen you must not publish the preface I wrote. Your misgivings about it are such that if I could possibly have believed they would be as you express them, I surely would not have given three days of a hot summer to work on the job. Also if I had not submitted the piece to others who have only friendliness and admiration for you, I would not have committed it to you, for inclusion in the book.
This would not be the first time Sandburg and Hertz crossed paths. After Abraham Lincoln: The War Years appeared. Hertz was selected by Arthur Cole, editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, to review it, which angered a number of people in the Lincoln community. The following is from my article in the Illinois Historical Journal on the friendship between Sandburg and James G. Randall. Randall had written a review of The War Years.
While Randall wrote a fair review, another would bemuse Sandburg and anger both Randall and Angle. Arthur C. Cole, editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review assigned Emanuel Hertz, whose reputation among Lincoln scholars was far worse than Sandburg’s, to review the book. Angle fired off a letter to Sandburg, which prompted a reply dated March 21, 1940. “The news that little manny is executing gyrations in a journal of professional historians is not astonishing tho it is slightly surprising,” Sandburg said. “That this journal should pan THE WAR YEARS as it likewise did THE PRAIRIE YEARS is not so peculiar. But that an irresponsible reprobate, so widely known as such, should do the job, is one more laugh in this whimsical and temperamental realm of Lincolniana. That the irony of it should not occur to those responsible for it is a token and symptom of something.”*
Randall, in a letter written on March 28, told Angle that he felt exactly the same way. He was shocked by “Cole’s somewhat amazing selection of Hertz to review Sandburg.” Randall, in an attempt to rationalize Cole’s decision, wrote “Sandburg himself being no scholar, he does not rate being reviewed by a scholar; ergo Hertz might as well be chosen as anybody. Of course this is hooey. I simply cannot understand Cole’s action.”
The preface would eventually be written by Nicholas Murray Butler. While doing my research I never did find a copy of Sandburg's preface. Great job, guys.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - RJNorton - 09-04-2019 02:29 PM
(09-04-2019 11:50 AM)Rob Wick Wrote: The amount of dislike that Hertz engendered in the Lincoln community is legend.
Paul Angle called Hertz' work "fraudulent" and "worse than useless."
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Gene C - 09-05-2019 07:17 AM
Thanks Rob and Roger, I never knew that about Hertz
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 09-11-2019 01:01 PM
Since it's far easier to come up with trivia questions than it is to write an article, here's another.
Who said of Sandburg "Sure Sandburg was fooled. He never has had any critical sense."
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - RJNorton - 09-11-2019 01:51 PM
Edgar Lee Masters?
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 09-11-2019 01:59 PM
Excellent, and very logical, guess Roger, but it wasn't Masters.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Gene C - 09-11-2019 02:19 PM
Paul Angle ?
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 09-11-2019 02:23 PM
You know, I had a feeling this might be too easy. It was written in 1966 by Angle to a writer asking about the Wilma Minor affair.
Gene, as your prize I'll kick in for an extra order of onion rings Friday.
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Rob Wick - 10-20-2019 09:14 PM
The literary critic Edmund Wilson once wrote that the worst thing to ever happen to Abraham Lincoln after being shot by Booth was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg. Who said "But on the most single important question in American history – which is, of course, at the heart of Sandburg’s epic endeavor – Wilson was utterly wrong, and Sandburg was utterly right."
Best
Rob
RE: A Sandburg Stumper - Steve - 10-21-2019 12:02 AM
Former senator Paul Simon?