“Elinor Wylie’s closest literary kinship, which began in early childhood and lasted throughout her lifetime, developing as an obsession in her life and work, was [English poet] Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]. The best and greater part of her prose and poetry reflect his subtle influence,” (“Wylie’s Shelley Obsession,” PMLA, Cluck). In fact, Wylie may have been drawn even more to the life of the poet – known for his love affairs and who famously fled his creditors and eloped with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin to the Continent – after she eloped with Horace Wylie while both were still married to other people in 1910 and fled to England to escape the ensuing scandal. After returning to New York (where her marriage to Wylie also fell apart), she found herself part of a literary circle that included John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, Carl Van Vechten, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet William Rose Benét, who became her third husband. Her 1921 poetry collection Nets to Catch the Wind earned her effusive critical praise including the admiration of Louis Untermeyer and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and she went on to publish additional works of verse and prose, becoming an editor at Vanity Fair, Literary Guild and The New Republic.
Our letter discusses her 1926 novel, inspired by Shelley, The Orphan Angel. Her longest work, which contains poetry throughout, “recreates Shelley in all but his name,” and imagines what would have happened if, instead of drowning off the coast of Italy, Shelley had been rescued by a ship bound for Boston, (ibid.).
Critic, editor and Pulitzer-Prize winning author Carl Van Doren (1885-1950) called Wylie the “queen of poets” and “one of the most arresting women of this or any age,” and, after her death, stated “she was a legend before she was a fact,” (“A Legend Revisited: Elinor Wylie, The American Scholar, Gordan)
Tracy studied science at Oberlin and the University of California, Berkeley, becoming a high school teacher in Hollywood, California. His 1930 work American Naturists examines the written works of naturalists on their literary merits and is considered a seminal work of eco-criticism.
Written on recto and verso. Folded and in very good condition. With the original envelope. Uncommon.
