Ida a Novel (45 page)

I also off er my thanks to Alison MacKeen, my editor, for her expert resourcefulness; to her assistants, Christina Tucker and Niamh Cunningham, for the magic of turning questions into answers; to the staff at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, for making a scholar’s work seem like play; and to Jessie Hunnicutt, my copyeditor, for her graciousness and for reading everything so carefully, the novel in particular-her questions about it were very useful as I proofed the text.

I have four students to thank: Kathleen Douglas translated Stein’s "Film Deux Soeurs" from French to English, Tiff any Monroe produced transcriptions of many of the texts, Kathleen Alcott proofed the Mann review, and Jenifer Wiseman helped with the selection of Wilder letters. Working collaboratively with students makes me the student I hope always to be. I also want to acknowledge Chapman University for its help in funding research trips and permissions.

Having relied so much on family, friends, and colleagues for their dedication, interest, and willingness to read, I am thrilled to off er this book in return, as small thanks. And not long after I began work on this, my wife, Lara Odell, gave birth to our daughter, Ida-just Ida, no twins. So as she grew I was coincidentally tracing the development of
Ida
. Lara’s devotion to us both during this project has been remarkable and I feel very fortunate. Now I dream ahead to the day when Ida reads
Ida
.

Credits

I offer my gratitude for permission to reprint or use the following sources:

“Hortense Sänger,” “Film Deux Soeurs Qui Ne Sont Pas Soeurs,” “The Superstitions Of Fred Anneday, Annday, Anday A Novel Of Real Life,” “Ida,” “Lucretia Borgia A Play,” “A Portrait Of Daisy To Daisy On Her Birthday,” “How Writing Is Written,” and the unpublished drafts of
Ida
that appear in the “Genealogy,” by permission of the Estate of Gertrude Stein, through its Literary Executor, Mr. Stanford Gann Jr. of Levin & Gann, P.A.

The text of
Ida A Novel
, and along with images of the jacket cover, flap, title page, and first page, copyright © 1941, 1968 by Random House, Inc., from
Ida
by Gertrude Stein, copyright © 1941 and renewed 1968 by Daniel C. Joseph, Administrator of the Estate of Gertrude Stein. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

Excerpts from letters by Bennett Cerf, copyright © by Random House, Inc. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

Excerpts from Thornton Wilder’s correspondence as it appears in
The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder
(Yale University Press, 1996) or in the Thornton Wilder Collection, YCAL, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, published with permission of Tappan Wilder.

Thornton Wilder’s introduction to
The Geographical History Of America Or The Relation Of Human Nature To The Human Mind
(Random House, 1936), published with permission of Tappan Wilder.

Thornton Wilder’s article “Gertrude Stein Makes Sense,” from
‘47: The Magazine of the Year
(Oct. 1947), published with permission of Tappan Wilder.

Excerpts from letters by Carl Van Vechten, published by permission of Bruce Kellner, Successor Trustee, Estate of Carl Van Vechten, and by permission of Edward Burns, editor of
The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 1913–1946
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).

Earle Birney, Fiction and Diction,
Canadian Forum
21 (Apr. 1941): 28, by permission of Wailan Low.

Clifton Fadiman, “Getting Gertie’s Ida,”
New Yorker
(Feb. 15, 1941): 78. Copyright © Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

“Abstract Prose,”
Time
37.7 (Feb. 17, 1941): 99–100, by permission of Time Inc.

E. C. S., “Gertrude Stein as Novelist,” reprinted from the March 22, 1941, issue of the
Christian Science Monitor
. Courtesy of the
Christian Science Monitor
(
www .CSMonitor.com
).

W. H. Auden, “All about Ida,” currently collected in
The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Prose: Vol. 2, 1939–1948
(Princeton University Press, 2002), copyright © 1941 by W. H. Auden, used with permission of the Wylie Agency LLC.