Dreaded Yellow Sign Language Too

Research on the Life and Times of: ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

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Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 13:57:06 -0500

Dear Larry Loc,

I was talking to Hugh Lamb the other day and he mentioned the correspondence he's had with you over Robert Chambers. I believe he mentioned to you my interest in any connections between Chambers and Algernon Blackwood. I have no proof of any, just a suspicion, and would be happy to explore it with you if you're interested. I gather you have quite an interest in Chambers and it may be that you have some references that could help me make the connection.

I hope to hear from you,

Cheers

Mike Ashley

Dear Mike Ashley,

At this point I have no knowledge of a connection but Hugh was saying that you found hints in the writing of Chambers so who knows. If Blackwood was in and around New York City between 1894 and 1930 there is a good chance that their paths crossed. Chambers was a member of one of the 400 families and was a man about town.

Here is a list of some of the clubs RWC was a member of:

Chambers was a member of the National Institute of Arts, and Letters, and belonged to numerous clubs, including the Century, Metropolitan, Authors, Triple Island, Broadalbin Game, Union, Saratoga Gulf [Golf?], and Rockwood Hall.

Authors might be a connection, is there any way you can find out is Blackwood was also a member?

Maybe they have a friend in common? I have a list of some of RWCs famious friends that might help:

John Philip Sousa, Director of the famous Sousa Band was a friend of Mr. Chambers. When presenting concerts in this area he always visited Mr. Chambers.

Major Bowes who for years broadcast a radio program similar to one now MC�ed by Ted Mack was a close friend of Mr. Chambers and occasionally visited the Chambers family in Broadalbin.

Don't know if any of this will help. You can also check out my web site. Almost all of my research goes right on my site. The URL is at the bottom of this page.

I really havn't read that much Blackwood, do you happen to know if there is any eTexts of his work on the web?

If I find any connections between Chambers and Blackwood I will let you know.

Take Care

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Mike Ashley,

Here is a little P.S. on my last message. I just pulled the list of dedications from my RWC data base. This gives a list of people that Chambers thought a lot of, since he dedicated books to them. Maybe you can find a connection to Blackwood from this list? It's a long shot but who can tell.

�������������������� ���������� ������������������������������������
Title DatePub Dedication
The King in Yellow 1895 My Brother
�������������������� ���������� ������������������������������������
The conspirators 1899 To Elsie (poem)
Cardigan 1901 My Father and Mother
Maids of paradise 1902 To E.M.C. (inside a heart)
�������������������� ���������� ������������������������������������
The maid-at-arms 1902 Miss Katharine Husted
(RWC's son's middle name is Husted)
The reckoning 1905 To my friend J. Hamblen Sears
Whose Unselvish Friendship and Sound
Advice I Acknowledge in this Dedication
�������������������� ���������� ������������������������������������
The fighting chance 1906 My father
The tree of heaven 1907 To my Friend Austin Corbin
�������������������� ���������� ������������������������������������
The younger set 1907 My Mother
The firing line 1908 Margery Chambers
Special messenger 1909 George F. D. Trask in memory of our
first martial exploits in the nursery
Ailsa Paige 1910 To the Conquerors Who Won Immortal Victory
�������������������� ���������� ������������������������������������
The common law 1911 Charles Dana Gibson a friend of many years
The streets of
Ascalon		 1912 Eulalie Ashmore
Athalie 1915 My Friend Messmore Kendall
�������������������� ���������� ������������������������������������
Barbarians 1917 To Lyle and Madeleine Mahan
In secret 1919 Eleanor and Wheaton Vaughan
The crimson tide 1919 To Margarent Illington Bowes
and Edward J. Bowes (3 hearts below)
�������������������� ���������� ������������������������������������
The little red foot 1921 My Son Robert H. Chambers

Larry,

Thanks for such a quick response. I'm tied up at the mo' so can't give quite such a long response as I'd like, but I shall later.

The obvious connection is Charles Dana Gibson for whom Blackwood modelled on occasions. This was in the 1892/3 period, perhaps a little early for Chambers. I didn't say I'd found a connection in Chambers's writings - though i did say to Hugh it's worth looking for one. What I said was that both of them were in New York living a rather bohemian existence at the same time and that I'd be surprised if their paths hadn't crossed. Blackwood was there from 1892 to Feb 1900. He was a reporter for some of that time, tho' with next to know money, but later became Private Secretary to James Speyer so was much more in the money and likely to be involved in society gatherings -- not that he particularly liked that. Someone said something to me once about the way both Blackwood and Chambers used a certain type of sentence construction - something, I fear, I've had no time to check out. What I'm interested in knowing is whether they met and exchanged ideas for fiction. Blackwood must've known THE KING IN YELLOW yet he doesn't comment upon it in any of his writings. It would certainly have appealed to him, at least at that time in 1895, though his later fiction veered away from this. I'd love to discover that the two shared story ideas perhaps in some artist's salon, but that's just wishful thinking. I have no proof or even a hint of this. Just my musings.

I'll check out the dedication names against my own records sometime. Apart from Gibson none of the others were instantly recognisable.

Thanks again. I'd be interested in swapping thoughts and ideas from time to time over this as things develop.

Cheers

Mike

Mike, Bingo!, We have them in the same room at the same time. Chambers and Gibson where best of friends from their days in the Art Student's League, before 1886. Chambers went to France for 7 years to study art and would have gotten back to the states in late 1892 or early 1893, (most sources say '93. "In the Quarter" came out in '94 and Chambers was living at 60 Washington Square South at the time and Gibon was the first person he would look up. If Blackwood was a model for Gibson between '92 and '93 then they met. Below are some excerpts from an article you can find in whole on my web site.

>

> Thanks for such a quick response. I'm tied up at the mo' so can't give
> quite such a long response as I'd like, but I shall later. >
> The obvious connection is Charles Dana Gibson for whom Blackwood modelled
> on occasions. This was in the 1892/3 period, perhaps a little early for > Chambers.

=========================================================

Source Material:

Our Short Story Writers
by
Blanche Colton Williams, Ph.D.
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company - 1929

....................................

Mr. Arthur Bartlett Maurice has pointed out, in The New York of the Novelists, that Mr. Chambers was living at 60 Washington Square South when he wrote The King and that not only the Square but its environs are used in a number of the early stories. But �The Robert W. Chambers of the later books, so far as the Borough of Manhattan is concerned, is essentially associated with the vast expanse of city which comes under the head of Tea, Tango, and Toper Land -- in a work, the great hotels, clubs, and theaters; the sweep of Fifth Avenue from Murray Hill to the Plaza, and beyond along the east side of the Park, the Park itself, and the structures that line the Riverside Drive.�

.................................

Robert W. Chambers was born in Brooklyn, May 26, 1865. He shares with his brother, Walter Boughton Chambers, the artistic gift: he was in Julian�s Academy from 1886 to 1893; , his brother, after taking a degree at Yale, studied architecture with Blondel in 1889. Before going to Paris, Robert was at the Art Student�s League in New York, where he has as classmate, Charles Dana Gibson. At the age of twenty-four he had painted pictures acceptable to the Salon. There is a legend that after returning to America in 1893 he and Gibson submitted sketches to Life and that his were taken but Gibson�s returned. Urged by the writing instinct and by a desire to express himself more rapidly than the medium of the brush would allow, he produced his first novel, In the Quarter (1893). [1894 most sources say but I have never seen a copy yet] The King in Yellow (1895) made his reputation and determined his career.

--

Larry Loc --

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Reply-To:

From: "Christophe Thill"
To:
Subject: Re: re-write: Why did Chambers write TKIY -by Larry Loc
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 12:28:34 +0100

Dear Larry,

I have now finished to translate your text. It is mightily interesting and, although it's only a set of hypotheses, I found them so convincing that

they really entered my way of looking at Chambers. Actually, the 3 romance pieces concluding "The King in Yellow" don't look so bad now, as I see more clearly their autobiographic side. I advise you to re-read "The street of our lady in the fields", as I just did: it seems to indicate that Chambers' French girlfriend was a model, and that he was fascinated, not only by herself, but also by the fact that she was so close to "the greatest artists of the time" (double-quotes, because the names she mentions, Bouguereau and the like, are now thought to be pretty awful, and I certainly won't disagree).

Now I think that we can read a lot of things in the tales from "The King in Yellow". For instance I think that it's pretty safe to assume that he took a trip to Brittany with her, that left him lots of memories, that her name was probably Sylvia (or Sylvie), that she possibly died (but it's very difficult to tell, the death of the girls in the tales might just be a dramatization of reality - on the other hand, tha false death of Genevi�ve in "The Mask" might be a sort of wishful thinking, to avoid believing that the loved one is gone for real...)

My own research at the moment leads me to think that it is a serious mistake to study the influences of Chambers without delving deep into the symbolist and decadent movements that were the "hip" thing in the 1880. The Belgian poet Maurice Maeterlinck, in particular, wrote a few symbolist plays that may be the inspiration for the play "The King in Yellow" (nobody

ever asked why it's a play in the first place!). Chambers had to know about this, if he was interested in art and literature, and I think he was. Along with Edgar Poe, I consider that the symbolists are the main influence he received, a far greater one than Bierce's (actually limited to four names and almost no themes).

You can expect to receive something in your mailbox pretty soon... that is, if you don't forget to give me your address.

Yrs,
Chris