Steven Millhauser: Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954

I FIRST MET JEFFREY CARTWRIGHT in the sixth grade. I can barely remember him. He was the sort of vague industrious boy who gets A in everything and excels in nothing. He was the sort of boy who wears eyeglasses and sits in the front row. He knew all the countries of Central America and their capitals; he liked to draw maps of South America showing the major products of each country. On the playground in the morning before the bell he stayed by himself, staring at his toes or gazing through the diamond-shaped spaces in the tall wire fence; during recess he joined in games only when Miss Thimble required everyone to play; after school he walked home by himself, carrying his books girlishly in the cradle of his arms. I can recall nothing physical about him except his tremendous eyeglasses, which seemed to conceal his eyes; somewhere in the dark attic of memory I have preserved an image of him turning his head and revealing two round lenses aglow with light, the eyes invisible, as if he were some fabulous creature who lived in a cave or well. I never spoke to him. Indeed I rarely thought of him; and after the sixth grade, when I moved from Newfield to another town, I promptly forgot him.

Ten years later while browsing in a gloomy secondhand bookstore near Columbia University, on one of those dark and rainy New York afternoons when all the colors of the world seem washed away, I came across a book called Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer (1943–1954), by Jeffrey Cartwright. A vague image stirred. Could it possibly be …? The preface left no doubt: “Newfield, 1955.” I immediately purchased the book, vowing to live on gingerale and potato chips for the next two days, and hurried back to my snug cell in Livingston Hall, where locking the door and preparing a cup of steaming black coffee with my forbidden aluminum heating coil and my smuggled cup, I settled at once into the comfortable leather chair, clicked on the double-barreled fluorescent light, and accompanied by a soothing sound of rain against glass and a hushed swish of traffic on Amsterdam Avenue six flights below, I read from cover to cover the astonishing book which it is now my privilege and my pleasure to introduce. Only in the final pages did I realize that Jeffrey must have been writing it during the very year I went to school with him (1954–55). I deeply regretted never having struck up an acquaintance. But who could have guessed that the quiet boy who wore eyeglasses and sat in the front row was secretly composing one of the most remarkable documents ever recorded in the annals of biography?

Such was my modest connection with Jeffrey Cartwright, that vague industrious boy with his secret fever; and such was my first acquaintance with a work that I have no hesitation in proclaiming to be a modern classic. Interested readers are referred to my definitive article in the Journal of American Letters, XXII (1966), 22–43, which compares Jeffrey’s very American life of Edwin with Boswell’s very British life of Johnson; and to my recent article in JAL, XXVII (1971), 1–17, which takes issue with a number of lively misreadings of Jeffrey’s pellucid work. But this is no place for academic polemics and ivy beleaguering. The proof, after all, is in the pudding — and the pudding is piping hot. This new edition of a major American biography, long overdue, reproduces faithfully and without abridgment the original (1956) edition, long out of print, written by a marvelous boy. It is my fond, my sober hope that this handsome and happily priced volume will win for Jeffrey that wider circle of readers which his masterpiece so richly deserves.

Meanwhile the search for Jeffrey Cartwright continues. I, for one, hope they never find him. Edwin’s novel, some will recall, was discovered in 1969 by the daughter of Professor Charles William Thorndike of Harvard: in a children’s library, of all places! One fondly imagines Professor Thorndike — who has written so well about Elizabethan children — poring over the text in a room frequented by little girls in pink frocks and yellow pigtails. The fate of Cartoons has proved a strange one indeed. Published by some grotesque mistake as a children’s book (ages 8 to 12) in 1958, it has remained unreadable by children and unread by adults. Professor Thorndike has called it “a work of undoubted genius,” and he is not a man given to hyperbole. I myself have sternly resisted the temptation to read Cartoons, knowing full well that the real book, however much a work of genius, can no more match the shape of my expectations than the real Jeffrey could, should he ever materialize. I shall probably succumb, one sad day. Meanwhile Edwin’s genius lives undimmed for me in the shining pages that follow. One can only regret that his work has proved less popular than his life.

WALTER LOGAN WHITE

New York, 1972

EDWIN MULLHOUSE IS DEAD. I shall not qualify the noun of his memory with the insolent adjectives of insufficient praise. Edwin Mullhouse is dead. He is as dead as a doornail.

I have studied them carefully, those smug adult prefaces. With fat smiles of gratitude, fit thanks are given for services rendered and kindnesses bestowed. Long lists of names are cleverly paraded in order to assure you that the author has excellent connections and a loving heart. Let me say at once that in this instance there are none to thank besides myself. I am not thankful to Dr. and Mrs. Mullhouse for moving away with the remains. I am not thankful to Aunt Gladys for mislaying eleven chapters. I have always done my own typing myself, using both index fingers, and I have never received any encouragement at all from anyone about anything. And so, in conclusion, I feel that grateful thanks are due to myself, without whose kind encouragement and constant interest I could never have completed my task; to myself, for my valuable assistance in a number of points; to myself, for doing all the dirty work; and above all to myself, whose patience, understanding, and usefulness as a key eye-witness can never be adequately repaid, and who in a typical burst of scrupulousness wish to point out that the “remains” mentioned above are, of course, literary remains.

J.C.

Newfield, 1955

Year

Age

Aug. 1 1943

0

Aug. 1 1944

1

Aug. 1 1945

2

THE EARLY YEARS

(Aug. 1, 1943-Aug. 1, 1949)

Aug. 1 1946

3

Aug. 1 1947

4—

Nursery School begins Oct., lasts 14 days

Aug. 1 1948

5 —

Kindergarten begins Sept.

Aug. 1 1949

6

THE MIDDLE YEARS

Aug. 2, 1949-Aug. 1, 1952)

Aug. 2 1949

6 —

1st grade begins Sept.

Aug. 1 1950

7—

2nd grade

Aug. 1 1951

8—

3rd grade

Aug. 1 1952

9

THE LATE YEARS

(Aug. 2, 1952-Aug. 1, 1954)

Aug. 2 1952

9—

4th grade

Aug. 1 1953

10—

5th grade

Aug. 1 1954

11