Word: virgil
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...once told Edwin Markham that The Man with the Hoe would one day kill him. Instead the poem made Poet Markham $250,000 before he died (of natural causes) at 87. It also made him the idol of a small army of would-be biographers who have besieged Son Virgil Markham, a mystery writer, for the privilege of writing the poet's life. Each claimed that Poet Markham had authorized him to write his official biography...
Among the claimants Virgil Markham counted two literary scholars, a college student, two feminine "appreciators," a former collaborator and "rabid admirer." Most persistent was Mrs. Florence Hamilton, of Wellesley Hills, Mass., with whom Virgil Markham has exchanged subacid letters in the New York Times. Mrs. Hamilton not only claims that Poet Markham authorized her to write The Intellectual Biography of Edwin Markham. She also claims that she possesses the original manuscript of The Man With the Hoe. Another "original" was bought by a private dealer for $700 several years ago. Virgil Markham owns a third "original...
...tale of a New Hampshire farmer who sold out to the devil, set to music by Columbia Professor Douglas Moore; Gian-Carlo Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief, a deft, bubbling radio opera commissioned by NBC, first given in 1939; Four Saints in Three Acts, with Virgil Thomson's gravely melodious music to Gertrude Stein's nonsensical words; Tennessee's Partner, a Quinto Maganini opera on a Bret Harte short story, which has lain unperformed, unorchestrated since 1934; Aaron Copland's play-opera for schools. The Second Hurricane; Deems Taylor's Metropolitan...
...work on a job usually reserved for painters. Aaron Copland dug into a Modern Library version of Abraham Lincoln's life and letters, and tried to write down his impressions in music. Jerome Kern thumbed through his Mark Twain first editions and manuscripts in his Beverly Hills library. Virgil Thomson spent two hours in Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia's City Hall office in Manhattan, watched and jotted down music while the Mayor received visitors. He also spent a morning in Pundit Dorothy Thompson's library while she read and, after her fashion, meditated...
...telephoned Jerome Kern in Beverly Hills. Kern, who has been a Mark Twain enthusiast since boyhood (the first book he ever owned was Huckleberry Finn), jumped at the idea of a Mark Twain portrait. Copland wanted to do Walt Whitman in music, but was persuaded to tackle Lincoln. Virgil Thomson was best suited to his particular assignments. Since 1928 he has been composing musical portraits, sketching out his music (as a painter would) while the subject poses...