While Malcolm Cowley’s career as a critic, literary historian, and poet is well-known and highly regarded, one element of his long career remains relatively unexplored. He was a prolific correspondent—his letters reflect not only his personality but his discerning judgments about what he termed “the literary situation.” 

I saw a good deal of Graham Greene in the late forties and fifties. Once he mentioned that he was writing a film script. He told me the plot and it sounded pretty boring. I wondered who would want to see it. 

Little Tear-Vase

Other vessels hold wine, other vessels hold oil
inside the hollowed-out vault circumscribed by their clay.
I, as a smaller measure, and as the slimmest of all,

The great works are ageless, but their translations date; indeed, as Walter Benjamin remarks, the subsequent translations of great works mark their stages of continued life.

Pont de la Concorde: On the river below the Chamber of Deputies floated a restored barge made into a restaurant.

Stravinsky’s ballet Les Noces premiered on 13 June 1923, along with his Pulcinella, and to celebrate the occasion Geraldand Sara Murphy hosted a grand dinner on the barge the following Sunday, the 17th. Some forty artists, musicians, and patrons gathered for the event. 

What follows are the authors’ discussions on the first stirrings, the germination of a poem, or a work of fiction. Any number of headings would be appropriate: Beginnings, The Starting Point, etc. Inspiration would be as good as any.