Literary Life

Idaho. It was 2:30 on a Sunday morning in quiet Nampa, Idaho. Straight down Third Street South, past the Pacific Fruit Express yards, a car raced at 70 m.p.h. It slowed to turn left on Eleventh Avenue, sailed past the historic Dewey Palace Hotel before State traffic officers caught it, arrested Vardis Fisher, 44, impassioned Idaho novelist. Writing an impassioned account for the Idaho Statesman, Author Fisher said he was taken to jail, told to put his heels together, hold his head back, and close his eyes, to determine if he was drunk, was then locked in a verminous cell while officers examined "love letters from a dozen women" found in his pocket, and his Colt revolver. Officers said there was nothing to it--that they wondered why he made such a fuss, suspected he wanted something to write about, collected $10, took him to the city limits, sent him on his way.

Wolfe. Announced for publication next June is the first section of Thomas Wolfe's posthumous novel, The Web and the Rock, Next month's Scribner's will carry a 15,000-word Wolfe novelette, The Party at Jack's. This month's American Mercury has Wolfe's Portrait of a Literary Critic, a mock tribute to a corkscrewy reviewer. Next issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review will carry Wolfe's A Western Journey, diary of his trip to the Northwest last summer, taken from pencil notes written at night, or scribbled in an automobile going 60 m.p.h. Current issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review carries a memoir of Thomas Wolfe by Henry T. Volkening, a colleague of his teaching days. Theme of Volkening's recollections --Wolfe's difficulties and anxieties about getting his work published.

Bargain. For rare book buyers, the current Scribner Book Store catalogue announces a first edition of The Communist Manifesto. Price: $750.

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