So this is a bit queer.
For the past few days, I’ve posted info from an October 1891 article in “The Atlantic” by Thomas Wentworth Higginson entitled “Emily Dickinson’s Letters.” In it, of course, he shared letters he’d received from Emily Dickinson; however, he also discussed some of the poems Dickinson had enclosed with her letters.
The very first letter Dickinson sent to him was dated April 15, 1862 (it begins famously, “Mr. Higginson, Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?”).
Dickinson wrote to Higginson in response to an April 1862 article in The Atlantic entitled “Letter to a Young Contributor.” I’ve always known of that article, but I’d never actually seen it to read it. I subscribed to The Atlantic this year, so I delved into the back issues to find it.
His advice to any “Young Contributor” opens thusly:
“My dear young gentleman or young lady, —for many are the Cecil Dreemes of literature who superscribe their offered manuscripts with very masculine names in very feminine handwriting, —it seems wrong not to meet your accumulated and urgent epistles with one comprehensive reply, thus condensing many private letters into a printed one. And so large a proportion of "Atlantic" readers either might, would, could, or should be "Atlantic" contributors also, that this epistle will be sure of perusal, though Mrs. Stowe remain uncut and the Autocrat go for an hour without readers.”
Does anything in that opening paragraph strike you? My first thought was, “Who the hell is Cecil Dreeme.”
I Google-searched the name as was completely surprised by what I found:
For the past few days, I’ve posted info from an October 1891 article in “The Atlantic” by Thomas Wentworth Higginson entitled “Emily Dickinson’s Letters.” In it, of course, he shared letters he’d received from Emily Dickinson; however, he also discussed some of the poems Dickinson had enclosed with her letters.
The very first letter Dickinson sent to him was dated April 15, 1862 (it begins famously, “Mr. Higginson, Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?”).
Dickinson wrote to Higginson in response to an April 1862 article in The Atlantic entitled “Letter to a Young Contributor.” I’ve always known of that article, but I’d never actually seen it to read it. I subscribed to The Atlantic this year, so I delved into the back issues to find it.
His advice to any “Young Contributor” opens thusly:
“My dear young gentleman or young lady, —for many are the Cecil Dreemes of literature who superscribe their offered manuscripts with very masculine names in very feminine handwriting, —it seems wrong not to meet your accumulated and urgent epistles with one comprehensive reply, thus condensing many private letters into a printed one. And so large a proportion of "Atlantic" readers either might, would, could, or should be "Atlantic" contributors also, that this epistle will be sure of perusal, though Mrs. Stowe remain uncut and the Autocrat go for an hour without readers.”
Does anything in that opening paragraph strike you? My first thought was, “Who the hell is Cecil Dreeme.”
I Google-searched the name as was completely surprised by what I found:
| “Cecil Dreeme is a novel written by Theodore Winthrop and published posthumously by the author's friend George William Curtis in 1861, after author's death at the battle of Big Bethel on June 10, 1861. (The Battle of Big Bethel was one of the earliest land battles of the American Civil War which took place on the Virginia Peninsula, near Newport News.) The novel has been called ‘one of the queerest American novels of the nineteenth century.’” |  |
Then came this surprise about the novel’s protagonist, Robert Byng: “Byng meets his mysterious and reclusive neighbor Cecil Dreeme, and the two strike up what scholars…have identified as a romantic friendship” – AND – “It is finally revealed that Cecil Dreeme, Byng’s friend ‘closer than a brother,’ has actually been a woman in disguise all along.”
LOL – of course. It was 1861, after all.
Once I read through all of this, Higginson’s opening statement made more sense.
A little more detail on the novel is provided HERE. Info about the author can be found HERE. If you are interested in reading the novel, I found a complete edition online, HERE.
LOL – of course. It was 1861, after all.
Once I read through all of this, Higginson’s opening statement made more sense.
A little more detail on the novel is provided HERE. Info about the author can be found HERE. If you are interested in reading the novel, I found a complete edition online, HERE.
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