JAMES LANE ALLEN - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 12/17/1909 - HFSID 78446

JAMES LANE ALLEN
The Kentucky novelist thanks an editor for an unfavorable review.
Typed Letter signed: "James Lane Allen", 2p, 7¾x9¾. New York, N.Y., 1909 December 17. On personal letterhead to Hamilton Holt. In full: "On my return from Europe in the autumn I found in my long accumulated mail two very kind letters from you. Since my return, owing to the pressure of many matters, it has been impossible for me to take up and carry on my correspondence; and it is for this reason that I have not written to thank you. I sent you a copy of my book because you had sent me a copy of yours and because I had enjoyed both your book and your gift of it. Touching the review of my story which appeared in The Independent I felt and I feel nothing but satisfaction. The critic of the work was so good a critic, so courageous and so sincere and so far-seeing and in-seeing, that I naturally regretted that it did not appeal to his sympathies and win his good will. But to me the three indispensable things in all criticism are courage and sincerity and intelligence highly and directly trained for the execution of its work: all these I found in your critic; and it is not necessary for me to add that where you find them, you find fairness. It is a peculiarity of a hundred or more criticisms of this story that each critic has found something in it not found by any of the others. Your critic was notably among the few who found something generally overlooked. I am glad that the book fell into his hands through I regret that his hands were not cordial. I think they are trustworthy hands and I wish you well tell him so for me. I have assumed that the critic is a man; but if it is a woman, it is a woman with a man in her. Thanking you now so late for the fine consideration shown in your letters, I am Very truly yours". JAMES LANE ALLEN (1849-1925) wrote novels, short stories and nonfiction. His work was published in the popular periodicals, including Harper's and The Atlantic Monthly. His most popular novel was The Cardinal of Kentucky (1894). Although always influenced by his Kentucky upbringing, he did most of his writing from his adopted home of New York City. Hamilton Holt (1872-1951) was editor and later published of The Independent magazine, and for a quarter century (1825-1949) the President of Rollins College. In 1909, the year this letter was written, Allen published The Bride of the Mistletoe, a story which take place over 40 hours in the lives of a husband and wife in a Kentucky farmhouse. Pencil notations (unknown hand) in upper right of p1. Mailing folds. Minor tears at edges. Otherwise, fine condition.