Please Continue: Literary Correspondence as Conversation

Navigation Menu+

In Summary

The letters in this exhibit span a century of English literature, from the 1880s to the 1980s, and each one was sent with the hope that it would bring a response in return, continuing the conversation. Because the fiction writers and poets who wrote this correspondence were all devoted to the craft of writing, their missives are works of art in themselves, albeit more personal and playful than their published volumes had the freedom to be. Each author’s epistles express personality not only through the chosen text, but also through paper color, handwriting, choice of writing utensil, and the many other physical details required to complete and mail a letter. The messages also hint at the lives on the receiving end of the correspondence, prompting us to imagine responses to the questions asked, praises doled out, and affections expressed.

[Photograph of Ezra Pound]

Yale University undergraduate James Angleton took this photograph of Ezra Pound in Milan, Italy, during the summer of 1938. Later that year, Angleton co-founded the Modernist literary magazine Furioso, where he published Pound, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings, and others. Pound used this photograph on the cover of his Selected Cantos, published in 1967.

Title	[Photograph of Ezra Pound]
Creator	James Angleton
Date	1938
Source	Ralph Morrissey Collection