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4 typed letters on New Yorker letterhead, signed in type (one signed in pencil); three carbons. About 600 words in all. 4to and smaller. On New Yorker letterhead, A.J. Liebling writes a squib from the editorial offices, dated Tuesday January 4, 1938: Dear Feldkamp, Hastings is very sore about the delay on the check. I have tried my best to mollify him but you know what an irascible old sonofabitch he is. He says that when he wrote the piece you told him he would have the money before Christmas. Also he has a stubborn delusion that somebody connected with Form Men Only is betraying him to the columnists. he said "if this continues I will have to adopt a nom de plume, maybe William Faulkner. Then Winchell will have another item, William Faulkner is really Russell Hastings and has received thousands of bombs from secretaries " William Faulkner This choice clutch of Liebling correspondence includes another note on New Yorker letterhead: Dear Feldkamp, Russell Hastings writes the truth. Since you obtained a secretary I have called you six times without getting you once. Goodbye. Russell Hastings Fred Feldkamp (1914-81) was founding editor of For Men Only (later titled simply For Men), published by Fawcett. New Yorker writer par excellence A.J. Liebling honed his skills anonymously in newsrooms in Providence and New York City and under countless pseudonyms. This group of correspondence permits the confirmation of one pseudonym, Russell Hastings, for two pieces appeared in For Men Only with that byline: "Every Man a Kingpin" (September 1937), about the legend and lore of aphrodisiacs (mentioning baseball, boxing, and oysters withing the first few paragraphs); and "Gone with the Windbags" (December 1937), a comis satire on the South and ideas of Southernness. There are three carbons of lively, succinct notes about Hastings related topics, including payment; one is signed L and the other Russell Winchell. A more personal note, on New Yorker letterhead, dated Sunday night [January 9 1938], reads (in part): "I ve been a complete washout on funny stuff." He refers to their conversation on the preceding Tuesday, discusses a serious illness of his father, and continues "I had completely forgotten what the hell I thought was funny about secretaries. This is too bad, as I need the money, so I ll try to write you a story or two this coming week." The most substantial letter is undated, signed "Liebling" in pencil, and discusses at length the issues complicating his quick pieces for Feldkamp: "Dear Feldkamp, "As both these pieces are written in the first person, a fictitious first person, they have two sets of drawbacks. 1. Some of the incidents are inexact. 2. Some of them are too damned exact. I wouldn't want people to think that I was seriously advancing some of the sweeping damnations and yet there is so much underlying reason in the pieces that I don't think they're completely a burlesque. As to the Southern piece, there are incidents of Southern stupidity which are culled so directly from the wives of two of my good (non-Southern) friends, that I'm sure I'd have rows with both families. Also, I am technically supposed to submit to the New Yorker synopses of any manuscripts I intend doing for outside, a technicality which I skipped. And, since you had a good reaction on the other Russell Hastings piece, why not build him up? Frankly, if a piece ain't any good under one name it ain't any good under another. As to using my name on other pieces, it's quite o.k. with me. The John Law one for instance, or the Charlie Atlas one we talked about, both factual. You have my byline, whatever it may be worth, in your forthcoming issue anyway. Liebling." Liebling refers to "the Southern piece", indisputably "Gone with the Windbags," and to a bylined piece on boxing he wrote for Feldkamp, "The Boston Tar Baby" (March 1938). Liebling letters have been and remain notoriously scarce. This group of correspondence identifies a previously unknown pseudonym.
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