letters/ephemera

In this issue we offer a look at a note written in 1969 from Edward Gorey to Peter F. Neumeyer, included in the book Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer, published by Pomegranate this month.

British poet and novelist Thomas Hardy, author of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Return of the Native, among other literary classics, wanted his personal papers burned after his death. In 1928, a bonfire was dutifully lit but not everything was consigned to the flames. Hardy’s second wife, Florence, saved at least 12 notebooks filled with information and sources on which the author based his later works of fiction. Thomas Hardy’s ‘Facts’ Notebook, edited by William Greenslade and released this month by Ashgate Publishing, is only the most recent to appear.