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The Arthur Livingston Papers include typescript and holograph
manuscripts, correspondence, postcards, printed sheets, invitations, programs,
page proofs, galleys, photographs, contracts, an exhibition catalogue, and
clippings. The collection is organized in four series: I. Works (2.5 boxes,
1907-1939); II. Correspondence (5.5 boxes, 1904-1944); III. Miscellaneous (10
boxes, 3 galley folders, 1 oversize folder, 1494-1986, bulk 1903-1944); IV.
Personal (4 boxes, 1883-1944). |
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The collection offers a rich record of the process of bringing
foreign-language authors to the American public. The collection is almost
equally divided between English and Italian language materials, with a few
additional materials in French, German, Latin, and Spanish. Livingston's own
writings emphasize the strength of his commitment to promote European authors
in the United States, especially his reviews of books such as Giovanni Papini's
Gog and
Dante Vivo, Guglielmo Ferrero's
Four Years of Fascism, and Luigi
Lucatelli's
Teodoro the Sage. Furthermore,
Livingston's articles on Luigi Pirandello and Sem Benelli introduced writers
such as these to an American audience. There are, moreover, Livingston
translations of important authors, including the correspondence of
Niccolò Machiavelli, Alonso de Ercilla y
Zúñiga's
La Araucana, and several works by Vicente
Blasco Ibáñez. |
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Livingston's position with the Foreign Press Service was a boon to his
efforts on behalf of European authors. Trying to satisfy the financial demands
of writers while allaying the fears of American publishers concerning the
untested American appetite for foreign literature, Livingston convinced a large
number of American publishers that a sustained market for the work of European
authors could be created in the United States. The collection contains
plentiful correspondence between Livingston and American publishers, ranging
from discussions of the minutiae of publishing to trends in American reading
taste. More important, much of the correspondence comments on important
authors, their viability in an American market, and their interactions with the
world of American publishing. At the same time, much correspondence reveals the
authors' frustrations with American publishing and its aversion to risk as well
as the unpredictability of American readers. |
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As a result of Livingston's work at the Foreign Press Service,
original manuscripts by writers whom he courted are present. These range from
opinion pieces and journalism to novels and literary criticism. Examples
include Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's
La tierra de todos, Guglielmo Ferrero's
Liberazione, Alberto Moravia's
La cospirazione, ovvero, La mascherata,
and Vittorio Racca's
"Working With Pareto." Luigi
Pirandello, whose correspondence to Livingston offers an unusually detailed
example of Livingston's working relationships with authors, is represented by a
one-act play,
L'Imbecille. In addition, there are four
early Italian documents, dating from 1494 to 1637, which were apparently
obtained by Livingston during his research on the Venetian poet, Giovanni
Francesco Busenello. |
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Another important aspect of the collection is its illumination of
international politics in the early twentieth century, above all, of the rise
of Fascism in Italy after World War I. Throughout the collection, both American
and Italian writers discuss Benito Mussolini and his disavowal of early leftist
sympathies in favor of the authoritarianism of the extreme right of the
political spectrum. Invariably, Mussolini provokes either uncritical support or
acid dissent among figures such as Lauro de Bosis, Guglielmo Ferrero, Giovanni
Gentile, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Gaetano Mosca, and Giuseppe Prezzolini.
Even Americans were not immune to the divisiveness of Fascism, as Livingston's
own professional difficulties--the result of his unapologetic and strenuous
opposition to Fascism--at Columbia University affirm. Among the more potent
testaments to the effects of Fascism are Gaetano Salvemini's correspondence,
documenting the trials of living in Italy as an opponent of the Fascist Party,
an interview with the prominent Futurist, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, conducted
by Francesco Luigi Ferreri, in which the artist extols Fascism as the natural
and desirable outgrowth of Futurism, and Lauro de Bosis's
"Histoire de ma mort," the open letter
in which he defends his final defiant gesture against the Fascist government,
which would cost him his life. |
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Livingston's academic responsibilities underlie the balance of the
collection. A quantity of correspondence evokes the vicissitudes of academic
life, the aspirations and the frustrations of both teacher and student, and the
political intrigues inevitably to be found in any academic environment.
Although much of the correspondence concerns similar academic matters, some
notably casts light upon larger issues, such as pedagogical methods in the
early twentieth century and the effects of Fascism on university life, both in
the United States and in Italy. |
