[D8955AEB], Letter from George Edgar Montgomery to Thomas Alva Edison, December 11th, 1889

https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/D8955AEB

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Title

[D8955AEB], Letter from George Edgar Montgomery to Thomas Alva Edison, December 11th, 1889

Editor's Notes

[Letterhead of Authors Club] I am probably unknown to you, but my name is fairly well-known as a contributor to the magazines. Would you read the inclosed verse. Like many of my poems in touches on the poetic side of a scientific idea, in this case your phonograph. I've shown the poem to literary people. Some find it "bold and fine" others think it disgusting. One editor said that while he admired it technically, he found the sentiment repugnant. "The voice treasured in the memory was to him the only poetic voice." He said "even allowing me my right to treasure a material voice, the Edison phonograph could only give a grotesque imitation of that voice, and, therefore, my poetic effect was false and repellent." "I can understand that a material reproduction of a loved voice, to be poetic, ought to be almost ideally perfect. When I was writing this poem I was thinking of the perfect." "Am I not justified in thinking of a perfect phonograph." The Cosmopolitan magazine would print the poem if I could obtain your opinion that my opinion is right.

Date

1889-12-11

Type

Folder/Volume ID

D8955-F

Microfilm ID

127:508

Document ID

D8955AEB

Publisher

Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University
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