From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [507]
James Jones wrote a better novel than the one published by Scribner’s in 1951. Burroughs Mitchell and Horace Manges were too afraid of a book filled with the language of soldiers to publish From Here to Eternity as it was written. It is now restored to its original state plus a few revisions made by Jones himself.
George Hendrick
Afterword Notes
The letter Jones wrote Perkins proposing a novel about the peacetime army is printed in George Hendrick, editor, To Reach Eternity: The Letters of James Jones. New York: Random House, 1989, pp. 55–59.
Perkins’s reasons for rejecting They Shall Inherit the Laughter are discussed in Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 60.
The text of Perkins’s telegram to Jones is in George Garrett, James Jones. New York: Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich, 1984, p. 88.
Jones’s telegram to Perkins is in Garrett, James Jones, p. 88.
Jones’s belief that he could write From Here to Eternity in six months is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 58.
The quotations about “stumbling along in the dark” and the problems of writing the second novel are from Garrett, James Jones, p. 89.
Biographical information about Burroughs Mitchell is from his The Education of an Editor. Garden City: Doubleday, 1980. See also Editor to Author: The Letters of Maxwell E. Perkins, ed. by John Hall Wheelock. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950, and A. Scott Berg, Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius, New York: Dutton, 1978.
Lowney’s letter to Jones about Tolstoy is from the Handy Writers’ Collection in Archives/Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield.
Jones to Harry Handy about the killing of his character Prewett is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 152.
Jones to Mitchell, February 27, 1950, about completing Eternity is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, pp. 107–108. On the novel as a memorial to Perkins, p. 157.
Jones’s long list of objections to the changes in the Eternity manuscript is in his letter to Mitchell, March 29, 1950, in Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, pp. 160–164.
Jones on making changes in the text to keep Eternity from being a Henry Miller “limited edition” is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 167.
The “score sheet” is discussed in Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, pp. 173–174.
Helen Howe appears in the documentary James Jones: Reveille to Taps, produced by J. Michael Lennon and Jeffrey Van Davis. The text of her remarks is found in “Glimpses: James Jones, 1921–1977.” Paris Review, vol. 29, #103. 1987, p. 212.
Jones horsetrading with Manges is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 174.
The advertising budget for Eternity is from Frank MacShane, Into Eternity: The Life of James Jones, American Writer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985, p. l04; the sales figures for May, 1951, are on p. 107.
Mailer’s comment on Eternity is from MacShane, Into Eternity, p. 105.
Jones’s letter to Mitchell, March 18, 1950, about censorship is in Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, pp. 156–159.
Acknowledgments from George Hendrick
I am indebted to the following for assistance in preparing this volume:
Ray Elliott
Chatham Ewing, Rare Book and Special Collections Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Helen Howe
Kaylie Jones
Librarians at the Urbana Free Library, Urbana, Illinois
The staff of Publication Services, Champaign, Illinois
Donald Sackrider
Thomas J. Wood, Archives and Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield
A Biography of James Jones
James Jones (1921—1977) was one of the preeminent American writers of the twentieth century. With a series of three novels written in the decades following World War II, he established himself as one of the foremost chroniclers of the modern soldier’s life.
Born in Illinois, Jones came of age during the Depression in a family that experienced poverty suddenly and brutally. He learned to box in high school, competing as a welterweight in several Golden Gloves tournaments. After graduation he had planned to go to college, but a lack of funds