Volume 11, Number 11 · December 19, 1968
Fruits of the MLA
By Frank J. Donner
In response to The Fruits of the MLA: II. Mark Twain
(October 10, 1968)
To the Editors:
Surely Edmund Wilson intended to write "Albert Paine Bigelow's old biography" not "Albert Payson Terhune's." I suppose that this reference to Terhune (the collie's Balzac) will be permanently enshrined in the "Wilson canon" by some future MLA editor either as a precious piece of discarded chaff or, perhaps more significantly, as a vital clue to his creative processes. As Messrs. Wilson and Mumford have demonstrated, the MLA editorial process is a slaughter-house in which nothing goes to waste.
Frank J. Donner
New York City
