More Higginson-Dickenson

You’re right, of course, Cazzab, that the Wineapple book hasn’t been published yet. I discovered by the same means that it will come out in Britain next week, too.

(I don’t know why publishers do this. It used to be that reviews were embargo’d until publication. These days, we often read an interesting review and toil up the hill to Waterstone’s only to be told that they have never heard of the book. By the time it is actually published, we have forgotten all about it.)

Wandering about the web yesterday, virtuously not doing jigsaw puzzles, I found this on Knopf’s own website:

"White Heat Written by Brenda Wineapple HardcoverAugust 2008

The first book to portray one of the most remarkable friendships in American letters, that of Emily Dickinson—recluse, poet—and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, minister, literary figure, active abolitionist."

That certainly explains why reviewers seem to think that her book is the first in this field. My sister points out that Wineapple herself must have approved of this description, at least tacitly.

I sent the publishers this email:

Dear Sirs,

You say on your website that Brenda Wineapple's new book, "White Heat", is "the first book to portray one of the most remarkable friendships in American letters, that of Emily Dickinson—recluse, poet—and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, minister, literary figure, active abolitionist."

That is not true. Anna Mary Well's book "Dear Preceptor", published in 1963 by Houghton Mifflin, was the first (and, until now, only) such book.

I have not yet seen Ms Wineapple's book, which won't be published in Britain until next week, so I do not know in what terms she acknowledges Ms Wells' work.

(You published several of Ms Wells's murder mysteries in the '40's and '50's.)

Yours faithfully,

Jean Miles
Edinburgh

Maybe I’ll even write to the New Yorker.

The Drakes are here, and have grown exponentially since Christmas. The dinosaurs are not going to fit Fergus for long, if at all. Pic tomorrow, I hope.

Ron, thank you for that wonderful message.