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