Letters

H: Ambrose Mensch to Yours Truly.His final such letter: the plan of his abandoned Perseus story, conformed to the plan of his own life.

I: Ambrose Mensch to the Author.A left-handed letter following up a telephone call. Alphabetical instructions from one writer to another.

T: The Author to Ambrose Mensch.Soliciting his advice and assistance in the LETTERS project.

U: The Author to Ambrose Mensch.Replying to the latter’s telephone call of the previous night.

7: S

E: Lady Amherst to the Author.Explaining her fortnight’s silence. The Burning of Washington. Two more deaths and a memorial service. Preparations for the Bombardment of Fort McHenry and for her wedding.

L: Lady Amherst to the Author.Her wedding day and night. The Dawn’s Early Light sequence and the Baratarian disasters. Her vision of the Seventh Stage.

F: Todd Andrews to his father.His last cruise on the skipjack Osborn Jones.

I: Draft codicil to the last will and testament of Todd Andrews.

S: Jacob Horner to Todd Andrews.The end of Der Wiedertraum.

A: A. B. Cook VI to his son.A summons to Fort McHenry and to the Second 7-Year Plan.

M: A. B. Cook VI to his son and/or prospective grandchild.With a postscript to the Author from H. C. Burlingame VII. Each explaining A. B. Cook VI’s absence from the yacht Baratarian.

O: Jerome Bray to his grandmother.His business finished, he prepares to ascend to her.

M: Ambrose Mensch to Arthur Morton King (and Lady Amherst).Proposing marriage to Lady Amherst. She accepts.

A: Ambrose Mensch to Whom It May Concern (in particular the Author).Water message #2 received. His reply. A postscript to the Author.

A: The Author to Germaine Pitt and Ambrose Mensch.An alphabetical wedding toast.

L: The Author to the Reader. LETTERS is “now” ended. Envoi.

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A: Lady Amherst to the Author. Inviting him to accept an honorary doctorate of letters from Marshyhope State University. An account of the history of that institution.

Office of the Provost

Faculty of Letters

Marshyhope State University

Redmans Neck, Maryland 21612

8 March 1969

Mr John Barth, Esq., Author

Dear sir:

At the end of the current semester, Marshyhope State University will complete the seventh academic year since its founding in 1962 as Tidewater Technical College. In that brief time we have grown from a private vocational-training school with an initial enrollment of thirteen students, through annexation as a four-year college in the state university system, to our present status (effective a month hence, at the beginning of the next fiscal year) as a full-fledged university centre with a projected population of 50,000 by 1976.