Jean Desbordes by Jean Cocteau

Jean Desbordes (c.1928)
Jean Cocteau (French, 1889-1963)  
Ink wash, watercolor and pastel on paper

 

Why Such a Strong Reaction? : Mary Jane Ward's Review of Fritz Peters' The World Next Door

TOP ROW: The World Next Door, New York : Farrar, Straus, 1949
with author, Fritz Peters. BOTTOM ROW: Author, Mary Jane Ward
and her novel, The Snake Pit, New York : Random House, 1946.

The World Next Door, Fritz Peters' freshman novel, was released on September 15, 1949 and was well received by the majority of reviewers. While some, particularly those from more conservative outlets, took issue with the gay aspect of the story, the consensus was that Fritz Peters had begun what could prove to be an extraordinary literary career.  In fact, the book's dustjacket highlighted advance praise from Jean Stafford, Eudora Welty and others.¹ When some of the country's top editors and columnists were asked in late 1949 about the best writers to have emerged in the post-war period, Fritz Peters was mentioned alongside other notables such as Norman Mailer, Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and John Horne Burns, to name a few.²

Reviews of The World Next Door often referenced and compared it to Mary Jane Ward's landmark The Snake Pit from 1946 due to its focus on the patient experience within a psychiatric hospital. While some reviewers suggested that it held its own against the standard-bearer of psychiatric novels, others thought that it was in fact superior. When The New York Times Book Review published its review of The World Next Door penned by Ms. Ward it became the talk of the literary world.^{3, 4} It was much discussed because it was so out of step with the consensus view of the work. In order to understand the source of this scathing review, one must first try to understand Mary Jane Ward's experience publishing her own novel based on her stay in a psychiatric hospital.

Excerpt from Nightmare Revisited, Mary Jane Ward's
review of Fritz Peters' The World Next Door.⁴

The Snake Pit, based on the author's own experience in psychiatric care, was quite successful after it was published, becoming a Book of the Month Club selection, and by 1948 being made into a successful film starring Olivia de Havilland. But it didn't find its way to being published easily. Ms. Ward struggled to publish for some time before the Snake Pit was picked up. Once published, her work was praised by Karl Menninger of The Menninger Clinic and she embarked on speaking tours—engaging psychiatric professionals with the aim of improving equity of conditions and treatment for patients of all races and classes. Ward had a platform and was affecting significant change. 

For all of the issues that Ward hoped to change in psychiatric care, she saw those doctors and staff providing treatment as generally good people trying to do good work. Peters' novel provides insight into the male experience, and the experience at a military hospital in the post World War II years in particular—a very different situation than the one Ward described.

Unlike, Ms. Ward, Fritz Peters appeared to become an overnight success—blurbed by major authors and also drawing attention to the shortcomings of psychiatric care at that time. The World Next Door, based on Peters' own experience, sees its protagonist, David Mitchell admit during the course of his treatment that he had a previous homosexual experience. Because patient records were available to staff of all levels on the ward, it became common knowledge. This knowledge was used against him by ward staff, culminating in a sexual assault. But because the word of a psychiatric patient can't be trusted, his accusation wasn't believed by the doctors.

Did Mary Jane Ward simply not find plausible the idea of staff behaving in this way? Or did Ward find Peters' characterization of hospital staff as not only unfeeling but as potentially sexually predatory a threat to all of the work that she had done in recent years to improve the patient experience? Was this simply a case of sour grapes for Peters' writing in a genre that she had dominated? Or was it more about the relative ease with which the literary establishment welcomed Peters' work after Ward had struggled for years to get published?  Was his relative ease of being published down to sexism? One thing is for sure, Peters certainly struck a nerve.

Note

This post is meant to highlight an anomalous review of Fritz Peters' The World Next Door, while giving the reader a sense of how the book was generally received and what Peters' literary future was perceived to hold. Mary Jane Ward's The Snake Pit is an extraordinary work and remains a favorite of early Cold War era psychiatric novels. Both authors and their novels, which offer different perspectives on a common theme, are well worth a read.

¹  Bixbi, G. (1980, Win.). Blurbs: Welty on Fritz Peters. Eudora Welty Newsletter, 4(1), p.2-6

²  Babcock, F. (1950, Jan. 1). Among the Authors. Chicago Daily Tribune, p.F6.

³  Kilgallen, D. (1949, Nov. 3). Voice of Broadway. Olean Times-Herald (Olean, NY), p.18.

⁴  Ward, M. J. (1949, Sept. 18). Nightmare Revisited. New York Times Book Review, p.6.

Henri Cartier-Bresson by George Platt Lynes

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1935)
George Platt Lynes (American, 1907-1955)
Gelatin silver print

The Welcome by Hubert Creekmore

New York : Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1948

Don returns home to Ashton, Mississippi after having left for New York and struggling there in the Depression of the 1930s. His mother needs him to care for her after his father's death and now that he's back, wants to monopolize his time to the exclusion of his friends and love interests. His best friend, Jim, had married Doris before Don left Ashton, thus closing off their relationship. Upon his return, unresolved feelings and societal expectations come to the fore. Can Don and Jim simply be friends after having loved one another in the past? Are they still interested in being friends?  How do they handle the expectation to marry and have children? Is it fair to any woman for a gay man to marry her?

Set during the 1930s in a small town, it is an environment where everyone knows everyone else's business while everyone simultaneously believes that their struggles are their own inner secret. Creekmore highlights the significant social changes during the interwar years and how various characters have adjusted at different speeds and to different levels. What do men's friendships look like? What is an acceptable level of closeness between men? What is the role of women? Must they marry? What does it say about them if they don't.

Tray, a childhood friend to both Don and Jim is seen by some as basic—certainly not among the elite of the town. He, on the other hand, accepts everyone for who they are and is depicted as both the everyman as well as the sage advisor to both of his friends. Tray offers these wise words that speak to the theme of the book and speak to the individual struggles of all of the characters: "If only people could forgive each other for loving." 

Written in close third person, the reader comes to understand how each character thinks of their place in the world and the few options they perceive themselves to have. Particularly in Part One, as the author introduces the characters, he uses that close third to excellent effect by focusing a chapter on a particular character, introducing another character during the action of the chapter who then leaves by the end only to show up as the focus of the subsequent chapter. It's a skillful way of creating the community of Ashton and assisting the reader in understanding the characters' relationships to one another. 

Creekmore doesn't rely on simple resolutions either—such as killing off one or both of the gay protagonists which might have been more typical of the time. Likewise he also doesn't give us a happily ever after ending. The lives he presents are complex and allowing the characters to be complicated, with difficult choices to make, results in a story that feels real— both relatable and believable. 

Jackson : University Press
of Mississippi, 2023

After being out of print and virtually unfindable for decades, Phillip Gordon has shepherded a 2023 reissue through The University Press of Mississippi to which he has also provided an introduction. Gordon places The Welcome within the context of what little is known about Creekmore's life, particularly his friendship with Eudora Welty. For those interested in early gay literature, especially as regards life in the rural south, Mr. Gordon has done the world a great service by reviving this lost gem.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (Primary 73, **); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (848,*)

Bibliographies & Ratings II: Austen (116); Gunn (American 41a); Levin (80); Slide (15)

Ilja (Portrait of Karl Edvard Holmstrom) by Gosta Adrian-Nilsson

Ilja (Portrait of Karl Edvard Holmström) (1911–12)
Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (Swedish, 1884-1965)
67 x 47 cm

 

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

New York : Knopf, 2023

It's 1914 and Henry Gaunt and Sydney Ellwood, still in boarding school, follow the news from the war with excitement, including the heroic deaths of their friends. Gaunt, half German, enlists as a way to limit the anti-German sentiment he and his family might experience and to leave behind the feelings for Ellwood that he can't acknowledge, much less act upon. Ellwood, also silently pining for Gaunt soon follows.

The author uses a variety of forms, including letters and issues of the school newspaper, The Preshutian, to follow Gaunt, Ellwood and their friends through the actions of the war, including the horrors of the Somme and the deaths of many. 

Boarding school novels set in the 1920s often discuss the 'Old Boys'—those former students who fought in World War I and sometimes return for cricket matches against the current students.  Winn has flipped this by constructing a boarding school novel that highlights the youth and excitement of the students but then follows them into the war. What is glorified in bravery by the school and its students is a horror laid bare through their experience of the war. 

Returning to the Trenches by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Returning to the Trenches (1916)
Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (English, 1889-1946)
Etching and drypoint
13.3 x 20.1 cm.
Victoria & Albert Museum

Undue Fulfillment* by Kathleen Coyle

New York : William Morrow & Co., 1934

"It is not a crime to be a poet."

"No ... it places one on a plane where crime is so sublimated that it has another name."

In the vein of Birabeau's Revelation (1930), Undue Fulfillment is focused on a mother dealing with her son's relationship with another man. Although in this instance we hear from the son, the primary focus of the action is on the mother and her thoughts and feelings about her adult son's life and whether she has been successful at raising him.

Agatha's late husband served in World War I and having struggled since his years of service committed suicide while their son Lawrence was still young. As Lawrence grew up, Agatha held him close—too close she decided. For  fear that he would not be able to disengage from his relationship with his mother enough to find a wife, Agatha returns to the convent in Ireland where she grew up, leaving Lawrence their home in Paris.

Upon hearing that Lawrence's relationship with Lena has ended, Agatha travels to Paris in hopes of bringing the two back together. Upon meeting with Lena, Agatha learns the reason for the split—Lawrence's new close relationship with Cesar Brak, a poet from Lawrence's parent's generation. While the relationship is not labeled as gay or homosexual, it is clear from what is said (and what is not said) that the relationship is sexual.

Structured around Agatha's connection to the convent and her brother Owen being a monk, there is a strong religious morality to the story. Lawrence's father who committed suicide was named Judas and appears to serve as a symbol of betrayal of his wife and child. This is juxtaposed with Cesar Brak and his generation having served in the war which was so devastating that it is hard to reconcile with the existence of any god. This is a philosophical novel about the nature of motherhood and how we reconcile our spiritual life with the challenges of being human in an ugly world. 

* Also published under the title Undue Fulfilment by Ivor Nicholson & Watson Ltd., London (1935).

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (P 50 *); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (839)

Conflict by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Conflict (c.1926-27)
Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (English, 1889-1946)
Drypoint, printed in red
34.9 x 26.1 cm.
Victoria & Albert Museum

 

Behind the Mirror by Robin Maugham

London : Longmans, 1955
Jacket design: John Minton

David Brent is a screenwriter for a film company based in London. The latest project about the life of Daphne Moore, a famous actress from the 1920s, has hit a snag. Norman Hartleigh, a former diplomat who was deeply involved with Daphne has ignored all correspondence from the firm regarding permission to depict him in the film. David journeys to Tanganyika (a British colonial territory that now makes up a portion of Tanzania) to secure Hartleigh's blessing.

Although it covers a significant amount of land, the fictional Aruna feels like a small town where rumors fly and everyone believes they know what everyone else is doing. Hartleigh is ostracized by the other residents for what they perceive as an inappropriate relationship with the young man, Bill Wayne, who lives with him. The colonists see the local residents as servants, not as equals so when Hartleigh moves an African girl into his home it creates another set of concerns for them.

While David negotiates permission from Hartleigh for the film, rumors are confirmed and secrets are revealed, endangering everyone. Hartleigh eventually reveals the truth of his relationship with Daphne Moore and their falling out, upending everything David thought he knew.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (III); Garde (OTP, **); Mattachine Review (III); Young (2559/2560)

Matelot accoudé by Frans Masreel

Matelot accoudé (1929)
Frans Masreel (Flemish, 1889-1972)
Oil on canvas
100 x 81 cm

 

Aubade by Kenneth Martin

London : Chapman & Hall, 1957

Aubade is a heartfelt coming of age novel written when the author was just sixteen. Paul Anderson has just finished school and has taken a job at a tobacconist's shop for the summer before beginning university. His mother is insisting that he attend university although Paul really doesn't know what he wants to do. He spends some time with friends but often quarrels with them. He is lonely and seems to prefer his own company. 

One day, the young man Paul has named Gary (we later find that his name is John Knight) enters the tobacco shop. Paul had noticed him in church sometime earlier and had thought about what it might be like to be friends with him. Those overwhelming feelings of wanting to spend time with him initially go unclassified, but when they do start spending time together it begins to be clear there is mutual feeling and also what those feelings mean. The battle between one's own feelings and desires versus what one's parents or society expects is ever present as is a pervasive loneliness.

The writing is straightforward, almost blunt. It is easy to judge the authorial skill based on the author's age. To do so, though, would be unfair. The straightforward style is in keeping with Paul's desire to keep people at a distance. Many of the things he says are harsh and in many ways they serve to insure that he will remain lonely. He even says at one point that there is joy in misery. Early on in the novel, the author uses the poem, Black Marigolds, foreshadowing  the feelings of sadness related to remembering a first love. Later in the novel, Paul says he "want[s] to remember Gary, and be sad, always."

Black Marigolds is a poem originally written in Sanskrit a portion of which appeared in John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (Primary, **); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (2539,*)

Bibliographies & Ratings II: Gunn (British 59a)

Playwright Christopher Adams to Adapt Screenplay for Undiscovered LGBTQ Classic ‘Finistère’

Christopher Adams

 

Playwright Christopher Adams to Adapt Screenplay for Undiscovered LGBTQ Classic ‘Finistère’

By Matt Donnelly
Variety : April 20, 2022 12:52pm PT

 

"Playwright Christopher Adams has been tapped to pen a screenplay based on the novel “Finistère.” While not widely known, the novel is a groundbreaking early tale of a gay man who falls in love with his tennis instructor at a French boarding school in the 1920s. It was written by Fritz Peters, whose entire catalogue was recently acquired by Hirsch Giovanni Entertainment. ... Adams is a noted English playwright who recently adapted the limited series “Aubade” for FilmNation. That series is based on a controversial 1957 queer Northern Irish novel [by Kenneth Martin]."

David by Eric Gill

David (1926)
Eric Gill (English, 1882-1940)
Intaglio print on paper
111 x 70 mm
The Tate

Leopard in the Grass by Desmond Stewart

London : Euphorion, 1951

The setting for Leopard in the Grass is Cyropolis, Media in the years after the second World War. The British have relinquished control of the Middle-Eastern country to the native peoples but still have a significant presence in business and industry. 

John Stirling, a young British archaeologist has arrived in Cyropolis with the intention of working for the local government on archaeological digs. The locals however, think of an archaeologist as the thinnest euphemism for British agent.

John meets Sophie Abbas, a Jewish divorcée returning home from the United States and they quickly fall into a sexual relationship. While Sophie is looking for a relationship, John seems to enjoy the sex for what it is but isn't interested in attachment. Instead, he often thinks of the relationships he had with other boys during his school days. 

Owing to Britain's former colonization of the area, British citizens living in Cyropolis continue to hang together within their own enclave and within their own clubs. It becomes clear to John that he is expected to follow along.

When John finds himself in the middle of a political demonstration on the streets of Cyropolis, he is rescued by a young local and brought to his employer's car. John becomes friends with Q, the gay British artist who saved him. Q hasn't joined with the others in their clubs and has been ostracized because they believe he has 'gone native.' To be clear, it isn't the fact that Q is gay that is a problem for the other British citizens, for there are others who are as well, but it's his embrace of the local culture that seems to be the issue.

When Nimr, a Bedouin man who Q took in as a child (and seems to have had a sexual relationship with), returns after having been dismissed by Q in favor of a younger choice, Q, Sophie, and John find themselves in the middle of a drama that is both personal and illuminates the terrible consequences of colonialism.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (III); Garde (OTP, a**); Mattachine Review (III); Young (3645)

Bibliographies & Ratings II: Gunn (British 45a)

Jerry (Jared French) by Paul Cadmus

Jerry (Jared French), 1931
Paul Cadmus (American, 1904-1999)
Oil on Canvas
Toledo Museum of Art

 

Riding by H. S. Cross

New York : Fox Books, 2008

As mentioned in an earlier post, Riding by H.S. Cross is an early version or draft of her novel, Grievous (2019). While Grievous tightens up the story and improves the writing, some of the original structure of Riding is unfortunately lost. The major headings of Lent, Easter, St. Stephen's (appearing at Trinity in Grievous), Summer, Michaelmas, and Christmas remain. The individual chapter titles have been dropped in favor of simple numbering. A nod to early boy's school fiction, the chapter titles suggest what is to happen in each chapter. Many early boy's school novels were originally issued serially in publications directed to school age boys and the individual chapter titles may be an artifact of this publication process. 

Below is the original table of contents from Riding. Grievous, has 57 chapters in six sections. Riding also has six sections but is comprised of 95 chapters and issued in two volumes. 

Riding : a novel, volume 1

ISBN: 978-0-6152-1366-8 — Fox Books 2008, 513p

Lent

They Longed for the Sheltering Sky

There Was a Book

Mr. Grieves Is Not Amused

Something to Remember

She Envied Her Own Pens

The Propagation of Knowledge

Cartomania

Forgive Our Foolish Ways

Eels, the West Wind, and People Like Us

The Boredom Is No Longer Exquisite

Why Does He Deserve It?

Night

Morning

Friend Indeed

Caveats

The Trial

Perfect Gifts

Triangulation

The Tower

The Doctor is In

That Hideous Recognition

The Chair Loft

Souls of Men

Easter

Passage

Curses

London

Zapped

The Channel

The Key

Paris

Mazes, Continental and Otherwise

Drought

The Weapons of Pacifists

Quicksand, With Beacons

St. Stephen's

Return

Winds of Change

I Write This Not to the Many, but to You

Code That Sets the Miles at Naught

Stratigraphy

Touch

Heartbeat, Heartburn, Heart Attack, Heartbreak

Pursuits, Intellectual and Otherwise

The Persistence of Memory

Orders of Magnitude

Patron's Day

The Exigencies of Time

The Cure

In Which the Geomaniac Ventures, and Is Lost

Progress

Pioneers

Riding : a novel, volume 2

ISBN: 978-0-615-26248-2 — Fox Books 2008, 550p

Summer

To Wake, as if From Dreaming

Irresistible

Messages, Direct and Indirect

The Quick and the Dead

Nothing Shall Be Impossible

The Lady From the Sea

Michaelmas

Rank by Rank

A World Gone Mad

Something in Their Midst

Hounded by His Adversary

Ely

Lamentation of Swans

Venture

Chariot of Fire

Experiences

The Contract

Hypnos and Son

Crime and Punishment

The Passage of Time Vexed Them

The Encircling Gloom

Orders of Magnitude, II

The Pillar of the Cloud

The World as We Know It

The World as It Has Known Itself

This Howling Insanity

Exeat

An Approximation of the Moon

Night, II

Another Gift

The Ninety-Second Day of Michaelmas Term

Keeper of a Hundred Secrets

A Kind of Mercy

The Coming Storm

Ice

As Bad as All That

What Girls Are Made Of

The Most Brutal of Punishments

Unfamiliar Sun

Christmas Tea

Christmas

The Future

The Present

The Past

Like the Wildness of the Sea

The Winters of Your Grief

And Christmas Comes Once More

Swimmer by John La Farge

Swimmer (1866)
John La Farge (American, 1835-1910)
Watercolor
32.5 × 28.2 cm (12 13/16 × 11 1/8 in.)
Yale University Art Gallery

 

Fritz Peters, Early LGBTQ Literary Icon, Coming to Screens and Bookshelves in New Rights Deal

Fritz Peters c.1965
Collection of Edward Field

Fritz Peters, Early LGBTQ Literary Icon, Coming to Screens and Bookshelves in New Rights Deal

By Matt Donnelly
Variety : February 23, 2022 12:32pm PT

"Peters’ most notable work was his second novel, “Finistére.” It is regarded as one of the first gay-centered novels to come out of the era not concerning WWII. It details the adolescence and homosexual encounters of its main character and is said to be inspired by Peters’ own life. Acclaimed by Vidal, it received an unheard of first-run printing of 350,000 copies, according to his estate.  It is also the first up for adaptation, with a screenwriter to be announced imminently."

Finistère by Fritz Peters

New York: Farrar, Straus, 1951

Finistère was promoted as a divorce novel—focusing on the detrimental effects of divorce on children. While that may have been the company line and no-doubt created an opening for larger acceptance of the work, it cannot be denied that the focus of the novel is a gay relationship—an adolescent's first love and his family's response to it. An odd sort of boarding school novel, the story of the tragedy of divorce, and a classic of gay literature, Finistère has appeared in more editions than any other fictional work by Fritz Peters.

Peters' second novel focuses on the tumultuous adolescence of Matthew Cameron. As Gore Vidal noted in his much quoted book review in The Saturday Review of Literature (Murder of Innocence, v.34:no.8, p.13, February 24, 1951), the first third of this book lays out the many betrayals experienced by young Matthew. The middle third lays out the story of Matthew's relationship with Michel, and the final third follows the rapid disintegration of Matthew's world. 

It is the summer of 1927. Thirteen-year-old Matthew's parents are divorcing and he and his mother are relocating to Paris. She has decided Matthew is too attached to her and to Scott Fletcher, a close friend of the family so Matthew is to be enrolled in the boarding school, St. Croix École des Garçons. Soon after Matthew's arrival at the school, André, a classmate, shares some dirty pictures with him and they become friends. The headmaster approves of them sharing a room and before long they are having a sexual relationship—a relationship about which Matthew feels quite guilty.

While with his family at the Christmas holiday, Matthew meets his mother's new 'friend', Paul Dumesnil. While Paul makes an effort to include him in conversations and activities, Matthew now feels like an outsider. As a condition of his parents divorce, Matthew isn't permitted to see his father until he reaches age 16. His father effectively disappeared from his life, and now he feels he is losing his mother as well. 

By the following fall 1928, his mother marries Paul. Scott, whom Matthew has idolized for years, has become engaged to Françoise. Scott, who had always been available to him is now focused on his relationship with Françoise and seems to have no time for him. Françoise seems to be the only adult who recognizes Matthew's attachment to Scott for what it is.

After a summer with his family, Matthew returns to school in the fall of 1929, to discover that André has gone, having moved to a different school. Alone and without support from any of his relationships, he feels lost. Michel Garnier, a new athletic coach, has joined the school and upon the boys' first outing for a swim in the Seine, Matthew swims too far and seems to give in to the current pulling him under. The relationship with Michel begins after he saves the drowning Matthew and helps to nurse him back to health. Their relationship brings Matthew back to life, feeling true love for the first time without all of the guilt he felt about his relationship with André. However, Matthew is innocent and this idealized first love can't insulate him from the cruelty of the world or of the adults in his life. 

It is no surprise that the ending of a gay novel from this time is likely to end tragically—most (but not all) did. As might be surmised by the many editions over the years, Finistère was popular among gay men despite the ending. The central message of the novel isn't that gay people are bad, or in this case, the problem isn't that Matthew is gay. The problem is that the adults in Matthew's life are incapable of supporting him. 

TOP ROW FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: [1] London : Victor Gollanz, 1951   [2] New York : Signet/NAL, 1952   [3] Fin de la Tierra, Spanish translation by A. S. Glanz, Buenos Aires : Editorial Dintel, 1953   [4] The World at Twilight, New York : Lancer Books, 1964
[5] New York : Lancer Books, 1966   [6] London : Victor Gollanz, 1966.
⸻
BOTTOM ROW FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: [7] New York : Lancer Books, 1968   [8] London : Panther, 1969   [9] Los Angeles : Seeker
Press, 1985   [10] New York : Plume/NAL, 1986   [11] Vancouver : Arsenal Pulp Press, 2006.

Matthew's Happy Ending

Tobias Schneebaum (1922-2005), in his introduction to the 2003 re-release of his 1979 work Wild Man (University of Wisconsin Press), discusses the reception of his early work's gay themes and the ways in which authors, such as Gore Vidal and Fritz Peters conformed to expectations of publishers of the time. In 1965, a new edition of the 1948 novel The City and the Pillar was released "in order to return to it the strength, the temperament and the animus that Vidal had wanted in the first place." Schneebaum further states that Fritz Peters was forced by his editor to change his original happy ending for Finistère to "an ending that was tragic, to conform with contemporary ideas concerning what interested the public and what was obscene." 

Fritz Peters correcting galley proofs of his second novel, Finistère
November 27, 1950  [cat 3119-0007]
Private Collection

As Fritz Peter's novels were published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, the business files related to his work are included in the Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. collection at the Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library. When I spent the day with the collection on December 14, 2002, I found that the collection did not include any manuscript material nor was there any correspondence that suggested a back-and-forth regarding the ending of Finistère. The files about this novel were limited to a copy of the original contract, lengthy and  ongoing correspondence regarding the republication of Finistère by publishers other than FSG, and correspondence with reviewers and prospective reviewers of Finistère.

Columbia University Libraries announced in the Our Growing Collections column in Columbia Library Columns (v.13:no.2 1964:February, p.55) that "Mr. Fritz Peters has presented the manuscript of his novel, Finistère, published in New York in 1951." Interestingly it was listed under the section for medical library gifts. It is now housed in Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript Library within the collection, General Manuscripts, 1789-2013. The type-written manuscript with minor changes in ink follows the published work, including the tragic ending.

If there was an original happy ending to Finistère, it appears to have been lost to history. What might Matthew's life have looked like, had Fritz Peters been free of the cultural and moral restrictions of mid-twentieth century American publishing?

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (Primary, **); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (3019/3020,*)

Bibliographies & Ratings II: Austen (174); Gunn (American 54a); Levin (121)