Earlier this year I had the great pleasure of showing Peter Blau around the greater Williamsburg area. We spent a little time in one of the last used bookshops in the region, enjoyed an hour or so at the Yorktown Battlefield visitor’s center, then had oysters for lunch.

Peter Blau, BSI, being initiated into the LORE chapter of SPODE.

Those of you who know the rather esoteric traditions that are associated with Sherlock Holmes and oysters, also know there are small groups scattered around the country known as spinoffs of SPODE, The Society for the Prevention of Oysters Destroying the Earth. (See “The Adventure of the Dying Detective.”)

The LORE chapter of SPODE is here in the Williamsburg, and after lunch we visited Studies in Starrett World Headquarters where we sipped a bit of LORE, a fine expression of Laphroaig whisky.

Naturally, we discussed book collecting. Peter’s collection is incredible, something that would be impossible to duplicate today. And while mine is far more humble, we have always found common ground in sharing tales of our various wins and losses, which makes these the most pleasant of conversations.

Somewhere during the afternoon, Peter asked a simple question: “What is your white whale?”

At the time, I had no good answer. To be blunt, my collecting days are drawing to a close. I have the major items I once wanted and felt there was nothing out there that I could want and had a chance of obtaining.

One wall, largely of Starrettian interest, at Studies in Starrett World Headquarters. There are other shelves.

After all, I’m retired and the cash to plop down for extremely rare books just isn’t there anymore. And, as many of those who have visited my little library will attest, I am already surrounded by Starrettiana. What more could there be to find?

Many weeks later, I was working on another Starrett-related project and the answer to Peter’s question came to me.

I want the lost chapters of Born in a Bookshop, Starrett’s 1965 memoir.

A mighty manuscript.

We know that the initial manuscript was huge.

A few paragraphs from Fanny Butcher’s Jan. 4, 1943 column for the Sunday *Chicago Tribune*.

In her column for the Sunday Chicago Tribune that ran on Jan. 4, 1953, Fannie Butcher reports on a talk Starrett gave while being honored by the Society of Midland Authors. Starrett shared anecdotes from the manuscript, which sounded fine from the lectern, but then Butcher dropped a bombshell. The manuscript at the time measured 750 typed pages and came in at some 250,000 words.

Just to give you an idea of that size, think of this: A ream of paper normally has 500 sheets. Starrett’s manuscript was 1-1/2 reams of 8.5X11 typed pages.

By anyone’s definition, that is a huge book. And that was the problem. The sheer size of Starrett’s opus overwhelmed publishers. His pitch letters to publishers always drew a “Yes, please let us see it” initial response. But after the manuscript landed with a thud on the editor’s desk, it was summarily sent back with a very polite, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Taking a pass

A carbon copy of a letter to the University of Chicago press, from the University of Minnesota’s Andersen Library archive.

For one of the rare times in his life, Starrett contacted a literary agency and had them ship the book around. Their initial assessment, according to correspondence in the University of Minnesota’s Andersen Library archive, was that the manuscript would need to be cut down if it was ever to find a publisher. Even so, mainstream publishers continued to pass.

Going to the academic press market was the next logical step. In a September 13, 1958 letter to Carroll G. Bowen at the University of Chicago Press, Starrett explains that he had written the memoir several years earlier and received rejections from a number of publishers who questioned its financial viability .

“Once, Random House, actually accepted the book and offered a handsome advance; but so much cutting was demanded that I decided against the offer,” he wrote Bowen. “Later, I did cut the manuscript, perhaps to its advantage, I don’t know.”

He then tells Bowen he’ll offer the University of Chicago the uncut version to consider, “and get the benefit of your advice on it.”

Reducing the bulk by a goodly measure

Letter from the University of Minnesota’s Andersen Library archive.

In April of the next year, Bowen responded that he felt the manuscript had possibilities.

“I would like to extract from this which would reduce the bulk of it by a goodly measure,” he wrote in an April 16, 1959 letter.

Bowen wanted him to add a chapter on the Baker Street Irregulars, and the remainder to focus on Starrett’s life with books.

“All else is ancillary and it becomes a relatively simple matter to go through the manuscript and make something reasonably close to a sequence if not a chronology from your wonderful childhood memoirs (memories?) right up to and through the Baker Street Irregulars.”

Bowen’s plan to “reduce the bulk of it by a goodly measure” must have felt too much like Random House’s proposal to Starrett.

In the end, he went with another academic press, The University of Oklahoma. Correspondence with them is hard to locate, but it appears they were willing to keep more of than the University of Chicago Press.

(click on the images below to see a larger version.)

In a letter to Harry Hansen dated December 9, 1965, Starrett discussed some of the cuts that were made along the way. “I tried to get everybody in who seemd to rate a place; but even so I missed a few.” He goes on:

I was a little leery of some of my judgments; but since you think well of them, I’m glad I didn’t tone any of them down. The cuts I made for Oklahoma—there were a few—were made in the interests of space, and as a matter of fact they proabalby tightened the book to its advantage. As it is, I’m afraid I left in too much family stuff in the early chapters.

Hints and clues

The frontispiece to Albright’s book of poetry, published in 1942 by the Bookfellows in Chicago.

We don’t know for sure just what material was cut from the manuscript, although we can reasonably assume there were major edits and some which came at the very last minute. For example, it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the Index in the back of Born is often in disagreement with the text. That’s a sign of cuts that took place late in the process.

But we also have hints from another source: The poet Patricia R. Albright, who published under the name Rachel Albright. I have only a few of her letters, written to Starrett’s niece Bette Jean Hiles in the weeks following Starrett’s death in 1974, but one in particular is relevant to our discussion today.

First Albright relates a humorous story from Starrett’s youth, which took place while he visited Toronto with his brothers after the family had moved to Chicago. (Read it. It’s worth a moment.)

Then, Albright notes that when Born “was cut drastically” many family anecdotes were lost. She also points out the inconsistencies in the Index.

My white whale

What Albright doesn’t say is that she typed a great deal, if not all, of the biography’s manuscript for Starrett. So she was well positioned to know what was cut.

But Albright is long gone, having passed away two years after Starrett. (She, like Starrett is buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.) Anyone else who worked on the manuscript with Starrett or at the University of Chicago Press, is also long gone.

So where, oh where are those lost stories about Starrett’s youth, those chapters where he expresses “his deep affection for and interest” in his family? Those tantalizing hints from Albright (what DID happen at the end of the prank in his grandfather’s bookshop?) only make me more eager to find the lost pages of Born in a Bookshop.

Until then, I’ll take my harpoon and head for deeper waters.

But before we go, here’s a poem from Rachel Albright about Starrett, expressing her admiration for his work.