The Diaries of Dawn Powell -- 43 volumes 1915

Woggs Diary 1915

Cover Woggs Diary 1915

Powell spent the summer of 1915 as a maid and waitress at the Shore Club in Painesville, Ohio. The notebook is copiously illustrated with Powell’s own caricatures, many of which are very funny. Approximately 100 pages. Never before published.

Woggs Diary excerpt A P04 24

Woggs Diary excerpt B P04 25

Woggs Diary excerpt C P04 26

Woggs Diary excerpt D P04 27

Woggs Diary excerpt E P04 28

Woggs Diary excerpt F P04 29

Woggs Diary excerpt G P04 30

Woggs Diary excerpt H P04 31

Woggs Diary excerpt I P04 32

Woggs Diary excerpt J P04 34

Woggs Diary excerpt K P04 35

Woggs Diary excerpt L P04 36

Woggs Diary excerpt M P04 37

Camp Caho Diary 1916

Powell kept a detailed diary during the summer of 1916 when she was at Camp Caho. This diary in the form of a notebook is filled with caricatures and memorabilia; more than a dozen pages are presented here to capture its flavor. Approximately 100 pages. Never before published and discovered only in 2004.

Early Diary excerpt A P04 03

Early Diary excerpt B P04 04

Early Diary excerpt C P04 05

Early Diary excerpt D P04 06

Early Diary excerpt E P04 07

Early Diary excerpt F P04 08

Early Diary excerpt G P04 09

Early Diary excerpt H P04 10

Early Diary excerpt I P04 11

Early Diary excerpt J P04 12

Early Diary excerpt K P04 13

Early Diary excerpt L P04 14

Early Diary excerpt M P04 15

Early Diary excerpt N P04 16

Early Diary excerpt O P04 17

Early Diary excerpt Q P04 19

Early Diary excerpt R P04 20

Early Diary insert P04 2100

1920 Diary

Cover 1920 diary

“The Book of Joe”

Powell kept this small diary in early 1920 as she was falling in love with her husband-to-be Joseph Gousha. If Powell was ever again so happy and contented for such an extended period of time, her diaries do not reflect it. Approximately 50 pages.

1920-1942 Diaries

This is a representative picture of Powell’s diaries between 1920 and 1942. Conditions vary. Some bindings are very weak and the 1931 diary has no hard cover at all.

1925 Diary

Cover 1925 Diary

This is more of an appointment book than a diary. Most of the entries are only a sentence or two long. 1925 was the year that Dawn Powell moved to Greenwich Village where she would live for the rest of her life. There are coded references to what seems to have been an affair with John Howard Lawson. Publication of her first novel “Whither,” which she would always attempt to suppress.

1926 Diary

Cover 1926 Diary

Another abbreviated diary with short entries. Powell’s father Roy was mortally ill and she returned to Oberlin, Ohio, to sit with him until he died. She was in the midst of finishing both “She Walks in Beauty” and what would become “The Bride’s House.”

1927 Diary

Cover 1927 Diary

Another tersely factual diary with many references to Jack Lawson and to John Dos Passos. No diaries exist for 1928 and 1929. Tim Page believes that they may have been destroyed at the same time Powell seems to have destroyed all correspondence with Lawson.

1930 Diary

Cover 1930 Diary

The last of Powell’s appointment-book like diaries. Beginning in 1931 she would be much more expansive in her writing. It was in 1930 that Powell published the book of which she was always most proud, “Dance Night.” She was crushed by its poor reception, all though none of that is reflected here.

1931 Diary

Cover 1931 Diary

The first of Powell’s great diaries. All of a sudden, she begins to write extended mood pieces and observations about her life, her friends, her New York City, and anything that captures her interest. At the end of the year she moves to Hollywood where she lives in the Chateau Elysée. She will live there only a few months while making far and away the most money she ever made in her life. No cover for this diary exists but it is extremely closely packed and rich in detail.

1932 Diary

Cover 1932 Diary

Another very rich and substantial diary. Powell begins the year in Hollywood then flees back first to Ohio and then to New York. Very little of this has ever been printed. Publication of “Come to Sorrento,” which the publishers insist upon calling “The Tenth Moon.”

1932 Diary excerpt A P01 32

Here is Powell’s uncut entry for August 15, 1932. Much of it had to be edited out to fit the diaries in one published volume in 1995.

1932 Diary excerpt B P01 33

This is a continuation of the entry begun on August 15, 1932.

1932 Diary excerpt C P01 34

The 1932 diary contains extensive discussion of her association with John Howard Lawson and his wife Sue. Much of this has never been published.

1932 Diary excerpt D P01 35

This is another one of the wonderful passages that needed to be cut from the published “Diaries of Dawn Powell” for space reasons. Only about one-fifth of her diaries could fit into the Steerforth edition.

1932 Diary excerpt E P01 36

More passages from the 1932 diary.

1932 Diary excerpt F P01 37

Continuation of 1932 diary

1932 Diary excerpt G P02 011

Continuation of 1932 diary

1932 Diary excerpt H P02 02

This entry, some of it never before published, deals with the production of Powell’s first play “Big Night,” which was produced by the Group Theatre in 1933.

1932 Diary excerpt I P02 03

Continuation of discussion of upcoming Group Theatre production of “Big Night.”

1933 Diary

Cover 1933 Diary

Another unusually rich and descriptive diary. “Big Night” opens in January and closed after nine performances to mostly terrible reviews. (One of the few sympathetic critics was Robert Benchley.) Powell would finish the second of the only two plays produced during her lifetime this year. At the end of the year, she seems to have broken entirely with John Howard Lawson.

1934 Diary

Cover 1934 Diary

Powell completes “Jig-Saw,” which does only moderately better than “Big Night,” but is published in book form. Powell’s novel “The Story of a Country Boy” is published. She also begins the first of her great New York satires, “Turn, Magic Wheel.”

1935 Diary

Cover 1935 Diary

This diary is in unusually poor physical condition but contains much material that is fascinating. Powell continues to work on “Turn, Magic Wheel” and begins to sketch “The Happy Island,” which would be taken mostly from her diaries.

1936 Diary

Cover 1936 Diary

Another diary in frail shape. Powell published “Turn, Magic Wheel” to enthusiastic reviews and poor sales. Her diaries from the mid-thirties are filled with vignettes—some humorous, some tragic—that she observed in New York and elsewhere.

1936 Diary excerpt P01 24

Powell was already planning her first book of short stories in 1936. A collection would not be published for another 16 years.

1937 Diary

Cover 1937 Diary

Another detailed diary of Powell’s life, friends, and observed behavior. Powell working on “The Happy Island” with the help of generous doses of Dexedrine.

1937 Diary excerpt A P01 25

Powell was never a better critic than when she was casually discussing other writers in her diary.

1937 Diary excerpt B P01 26

Powell is plotting “The Happy Island” in this previously unpublished diary entry.

1938 Diary

Cover 1938 Diary

Powell completes and publishes “The Happy Island.” Diary includes stories of composer Carl Ruggles, novelist Felipe Alfau, and much discussion of world politics.

1939 Diary

Cover 1939 Diary

Much high life at the hotels Brevoort and Lafayette; pre-war anxiety; stories of Coby Gilman, Niles Spencer and Bobby Lewis. Many overheard conversations, which bring the times to vivid life.

1939 Diary excerpt A P01 27

Samples of the 1939 diary, including what could be called Powell’s “credo” in the middle of the March 2 entry.

1939 Diary excerpt B P01 28

An unedited version of the March 3, 1939, diary entry.

1940 Diary

Cover 1940 Diary

Powell begins what will become “A Time to Be Born.” The last year before America enters World War II. Amusing vignettes about Tanaquil LeClercq as a ten-year-old diva, Ernest Hemingway, and Gerald and Sara Murphy. “Angels on Toast” is published and dedicated to her new editor, Maxwell Perkins.

1940 Diary excerpt

Powell was already beginning to plot “A Time to Be Born,” as a roman a clef about Clare Boothe Luce, here called by her maiden name Brokaw.

1941 Diary

Cover 1941 Diary

Powell begins to sketch her autobiographical novel “My Home Is Far Away” in an undated section of this diary. Many anecdotes about Powell’s friend Coby Gilman, some as of yet unpublished.

1942 Diary

Cover 1942 Diary

Publication of “A Time to Be Born.” A visit to Ohio, which increases Powell’s interest in pursuing an autobiographical novel.

1942 Diary excerpt A P01 29

On occasion, writing came easily for Powell. The story, retitled “Audition,” is one of her most admired.

1942 Diary excerpt B P01 30

Throughout her life, Powell was deeply concerned about her financial situation. In her early sixties, she and her husband were forced to live in a series of “fleabag hotels.”

1943 Diary

Cover 1943 Diary

Powell’s long friendship with Edmund Wilson deepens and there are several stories about him in this diary. Powell evaluates her own work: “Reading Whither I was horrified at how completely hopeless and utterly devoid of promise it was—far worse than what I had written at 13. On the other hand a re-reading of Dance Night persuaded me it is my best book—material, mood, prose and structure by all odds the best.”

1943-1953 Diaries

Cover 1943-1953 Diaries

Assembled diaries 1943-1953.

1944 Diary

Cover 1944 Diary

Publication of “My Home Is Far Away.” Powell was deeply hurt by Edmund Wilson’s mixed review in The New Yorker.

1944 Diary excerpt P04 01

Powell is finishing “My Home Is Far Away”; “Perkins” is Max Perkins, who also edited Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe.

1945 Diary

Cover 1945 Diary

World War II ends and Powell says absolutely nothing about it. She is more interested in the sequel to “My Home Is Far Away,” which she will never complete. In September, her beloved cat, Perkins (named for Max), dies, inspiring one of the most passages in her diaries.

1945 Diary excerpt A P03 20

Powell’s complete and unedited eulogy for her cat Perkins.

1945 Diary excerpt B P03 21

Powell found it helpful to leave town when finishing a book. The Hotel Traymore in Atlantic City, now demolished, was a favorite hideaway.

1946 Diary

Postwar New York: Anecdotes about artists Niles Spencer, Reginald Marsh, and Peggy Bacon. Powell greatly distressed by Bikini atom bomb tests.

1947 Diary

Cover 1947 Diary

John Dos Passos is in a terrible accident, which kills his wife Katy; Powell visits him in Boston. At the end of the year, Powell is badly beaten by her son Jojo, which she refers to only obliquely but exults in the “luxury” of her hospital stay.

1947 Diary excerpt A P03 26

The unedited report of Powell’s visit to see John Dos Passos in a Boston hospital after his terrible accident.

1947 Diary excerpt B P03 27

Continuation of Powell’s Boston visit.

1947 Diary excerpt C P03 28

Continuation of Powell’s Boston visit.

1948 Diary

Cover 1948 Diary

Powell visits Haiti. Publication of “The Locusts Have No King.”

1948 Diary excerpt P03 17

Powell’s response to critiques of “The Locusts Have No King.”

1949 Diary

Cover 1949 Diary

Powell had a tumor removed from her chest, which had been blocking her breath increasingly. Summer at MacDowell Colony. Death of sister Mabel in October effectively brings to an end her interest in a sequel to “My Home Is Far Away.”

1950 Diary

Cover 1950 Diary

Much time spent with Gerald and Sara Murphy. Powell inspired to start work on “The Wicked Pavilion.” In November, Powell makes her one and only trip to Europe, where she lives in Paris at the Hotel Lutetia.

1950 Diary excerpt A P03 14

Powell begins planning her novel “The Wicked Pavilion” during a visit to the Murphy estate on the Hudson River.

1950 Diary excerpt B P03 15

Continuation of Powell planning her novel “The Wicked Pavilion.”

1950 Diary excerpt C P03 16

Continuation of Powell planning her novel “The Wicked Pavilion.”

1950 Diary excerpt D P03 13

One of Powell’s many meditations on artistic fulfillment.

1951 Diary

Cover 1951 Diary

Powell leaves Paris for London in early January then sails home to New York. She assembles the collection of her short stories that will be published in 1952 as “Sunday, Monday and Always.”

1952 Diary

Cover 1952 Diary

Publication of Powell’s short story collection “Sunday, Monday and Always.” Powell working hard on “The Wicked Pavilion” but having an usual case of writer’s block.

1952 Diary excerpt A P03 18

This meditation would eventually become the autobiographical short story “What Are You Doing in My Dreams?”

1952 Diary excerpt B P03 19

Continuation of Powell’s meditation that would become her short story “What Are You Doing in My Dreams?”

1953 Diary

Cover 1953 Diary

Powell continues to work on “The Wicked Pavilion.” Most of the year is spent anxious and depressed. Much discussion of other writers in this year’s diary.

1953 Diary excerpt A P03 34

Powell names 11 novels that she liked best.

1953 Diary excerpt B P03 35

A long, unedited sequence from Powell’s diaries—mixture of gossip, writerly concerns, and ideas for new projects.

1953 Diary excerpt D P03 37

Continuation of Powell’s mixture of gossip, writerly concerns, and ideas for new projects.

1954 Diary

Cover 1954 Diary

Publication of “The Wicked Pavilion.” A new friendship with Gore Vidal, whose championship would help launch the Dawn Powell revival 30 years later. Visits to her son Jojo at Manhattan State Hospital on Ward’s Island. Reviewing books for the New York Post.

1954 Diary excerpt A P02 29

Powell’s early response to Gore Vidal, who would do so much to revive her memory.

1954 Diary excerpt B P02 30

Even as she approached publication day, Powell continued to fret over “The Wicked Pavilion,” which had taken her longer than any other novels to complete. It became her best-selling book during her lifetime and she enjoyed one week at the bottom of the New York Times Bestseller List.

1954-1965 Diaries

1954-1965 Diaries P02 18

Assembled diaries 1954-1965

1955 Diary

Cover 1955 Diary

Powell begins work on her atypical French novel “A Cage for Lovers” at Yaddo. She meets Jacqueline Miller (later Rice), who would become her executrix.

1955 Diary excerpt P02 19

Powell is off to Yaddo, but not before finishing one of her many book reviews for the New York Post.

1956 Diary

Cover 1956 Diary

Powell hard at work on “A Cage for Lovers.” Fawcett publishes Powell’s own hastily rewritten abridgement of “Angels on Toast” in paperback; it is called “A Man’s Affair.”

1956 Diary excerpt A P02 37

A previously unpublished entry about Powell’s continuing struggles with her son Jojo.

1956 Diary excerpt B P02 28

Powell revisits Long Island, where the family once kept a house out near Port Jefferson. Unedited entry on Francoise Sagan, Simone de Beauvoir, and the novel as an art form.

1957 Diary

Cover 1957 Diary

“A Cage for Lovers” is published in dramatic altered form and finds little success. Terrible financial problems increasing as Powell’s husband prepares for enforced retirement from his Madison Avenue firm. Powell spends much time at the Cedar Tavern with the Abstract Expressionists.

1957 Diary excerpt P02 23

Typical—and previously unpublished—example of the way Powell would often plan books or stories in her diaries.

1958 Diary

Cover 1958 Diary

Powell and Joseph Gousha are out of money and forced to leave their duplex apartment. A period of tenancy in a succession of residential hotels and sublet apartments follows.

1959 Diary

Cover 1959 Diary

The impoverished Powell and her husband continue nomadic life while Powell tries to concentrate on what would become “The Golden Spur,” her last completed novel.

1960 Diary

Cover 1960 Diary

Powell’s second residency at Yaddo leads to new friendships with Hanna Green and John Cheever. Her old friend Margaret de Silver starts a trust fund for Powell and she has her own apartment for the first time in almost two years. Work on “The Golden Spur” continues.

1960 Diary excerpt P02 26

Gossip from Yaddo.

1961 Diary

1961 Diary P02 11

Joseph Gousha in declining health. Powell herself hospitalized in May. Continued work on “The Golden Spur.”

1961 Diary excerpt P02 20

Powell’s diaries are filled with overheard conversations of this kind, most of which have never been published.

1962 Diary

1962 Diary P02 12

A year of many deaths—artist Franz Kline, patron Margaret de Silver, and husband Joseph Gousha. Somehow, Powell finished “The Golden Spur” and it was published in the fall. Edmund Wilson devotes more than 2,000 admiring words to the book in The New Yorker.

1962 Diary excerpt P02 24

Powell reflects on the long struggles with her husband and her son.

1963 Diary

1963 Diary P02 13

“The Golden Spur” is nominated for a National Book Award, but is not selected. Powell publishes “The Elopers,” one of her finest short stories, in the Saturday Evening Post. She also works on her last, unfinished novel, “Summer Rose.”

1963 Diary excerpt P02 22

One of many unpublished entries in Powell’s diaries. Roughly three quarters of her diaries exist only in manuscript form and have never been available to the public.

1964 Diary

1964 Diary P02 14

It is increasingly obvious that Powell is seriously ill. Much of the year taken up with medical appointments; cancer diagnosed in August.

1965 Day Book Diary

1965 Day Book Diary P02 17

Two diaries for 1965 have survived. This one is mostly an appointment book and was discovered after the publication of “The Diaries of Dawn Powell” in 1995.

1965 Diary

Cover 1965 Diary

Powell’s last diary kept as she loses weight and grows more sickly. Many of the entries this year are about her failing health and her determination to try to continue writing. She is delighted by the birth of Jacqueline Miller Rice’s daughter named Hilary Dawn. Powell dies at St. Luke’s Hospital on November 14, 1965—the same week as the first great New York blackout.

1965 Diary excerpt A P02 36

Powell has lunch with her new editor Morris Philipson and reminisces about her early days in New York.

1965 Diary excerpt B P02 32

Powell sums up her literary philosophy one more time.

1965 Diary excerpt C P02 33

Continuation of Powell’s summary of her literary philosophy. At the end of this entry, she refers to John Franklin Sherman, her “cousin Jack,” to whom she dedicated “My Home Is Far Away” and who was instrumental in freeing Powell’s papers after her death.

1965 Diary excerpt D P02 34

The last entry in Powell’s diary. It has always impressed Tim Page that the final word in her life’s work should be “will.”

“The Book of Joe”

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