Letters of Carl Van Vechten

Bruce Kellner

During a long life in American arts & letters, Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) was a music-dance-literary critic, novelist, photographer, jazz enthusiast, popularizer of black writers and promoter of the avant garde. Now another facet of his remarkable talent is available through this selection of letters to 150 people -- culled from among the thousands he wrote. The 20th Century comes alive in his letters to Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Lillian Gish, Firbank, Blanche Knopf, Langston Hughes, the Stettheimer sisters, Gertrude Stein and A'Lelia Walker.