Subject
Mr. Squiggles' Reward (fwd)
Date
Body
Now it can be told! In a letter of 9 May 1950 from Edmund Wilson
to VN, Wilson mentions that he is sending VN a package of reading matter.
Among the items is MR. SQUIGGLES' REVENGE which Wilson calls "one of the
oddest of many odd things that are sent me by unknown people."
Simon Karlinsky's notes to the VN-EW correspondence are a treasure
trove of precise and often arcane knowledge, but even he admits to being
unable to identify the MR. SQUIGGLES volume. His note observes: "This
work is not merely odd, but also extremely obscure, since it could not be
located in any index or library."
Now, thanks to the WorldCat database, I can report that the odd
volume, correctly titled MR. P. SQUIGGLES' REWARD, is by Dennis McCalib
(Pasadena, Ca.: Alley Printshop, 1948). It is held by libraries at UCLA,
UCSC, Stanford, Northwestern, U. of Kentucky, Harvard and Duke. I have, of
course, ordered it. Elwin Volk (1911-?; aka Dennis McCalib?) was
apparently an artist as well as a writer, who published 11 titles (mostly
broadsheets) between 1950 and 1978.
D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618
to VN, Wilson mentions that he is sending VN a package of reading matter.
Among the items is MR. SQUIGGLES' REVENGE which Wilson calls "one of the
oddest of many odd things that are sent me by unknown people."
Simon Karlinsky's notes to the VN-EW correspondence are a treasure
trove of precise and often arcane knowledge, but even he admits to being
unable to identify the MR. SQUIGGLES volume. His note observes: "This
work is not merely odd, but also extremely obscure, since it could not be
located in any index or library."
Now, thanks to the WorldCat database, I can report that the odd
volume, correctly titled MR. P. SQUIGGLES' REWARD, is by Dennis McCalib
(Pasadena, Ca.: Alley Printshop, 1948). It is held by libraries at UCLA,
UCSC, Stanford, Northwestern, U. of Kentucky, Harvard and Duke. I have, of
course, ordered it. Elwin Volk (1911-?; aka Dennis McCalib?) was
apparently an artist as well as a writer, who published 11 titles (mostly
broadsheets) between 1950 and 1978.
D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618