“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At lunch today I read the latest group of poems Jane has prepared for her book of poetry for Prentice-Hall.¹

1. Jane called her book of poetry If We Live Again: Or, Public Magic and Private Love, and Prentice-Hall published it in 1982.

(By way of contrast, I want to add here that this week Jane has been notified by Prentice-Hall of their most enthusiastic reception of her children’s book, Emir. Not only that, it appears that Prentice-Hall may have found at the same time the ideal illustrator for the work; black-and-white copies of sample illustrations have been sent to Jane, done by the female artist, with Tam’s assurances that the color is brilliant.

[...] Prentice-Hall will send us additional copies of Seven, if they have any left. [...]

[...] In June, with no hard feelings involved on anybody’s part, Jane withdrew Emir from consideration at Prentice-Hall when the decision was made there to publish the story in two volumes; on July 12, Eleanor Friede at Delacorte Press accepted Emir for publication as a single book. [...]

[...] No sooner had she left than Tam arrived, two days later, bringing with him the copyedited manuscript² of Seven Two for us to check; on the 20th, our work completed on it, I sent it back to him at Prentice-Hall. [...]

[...] And then, on the very night when she told me that she thought Seth would resume book dictation, Sue Watkins called with news that it was all official now: Today she’d signed her contract with Prentice-Hall for the publication of Conversations With Seth.)

3. I’m mad at Prentice for various reasons, while not being blind to their good points.

[...] I sent Psyche to Tam Mossman at Prentice-Hall on the 22nd, and on the same day we received from him the page proofs for Seven Two. [...]

Ruburt’s impulse to take Emir from Prentice—his impulse to call others, his call to Eleanor—all of these events represent a change of mood, and inner decisions of which Ruburt is not as yet aware.

So the affair with Eleanor is significant, particularly since the book was assured publication with Prentice. [...]

(Although we were both tired by the end of the session, I had the feeling that Jane, as Seth, was a bit reluctant to go too much into the affair with Prentice re The Seth Material, and ended the session rather abruptly at that point for that reason. Not that I don’t think Prentice owes us some explanations, for they do—especially since they told us nothing of any plans, good or not so good. [...]

[...] He felt as if Prentice had forgotten him, and that Tam was not interested in his dream book. [...]

I mailed the last chapter of Emir to Prentice-Hall just a month ago (on February 8). [...] Emir, however, is of an in-between length — shorter than a novel, far longer than most children’s books — and she wonders: Is that fact going to complicate Prentice-Hall’s presentation of Emir as a story for “readers of all ages”? [...]

[...] I plan to send their proposal and letter to Lynne Lumsden, our editor at Prentice-Hall.

[...] It literally seems more practical and realistic to you that Prentice will somehow ruin the book, than it does to suppose that they will in any way help in bringing about the ideal.

Prentice’s mutilation of the photographs is the same thing on your part. [...]

[...] It is why the few sudden releases, as with the Prentice letter, have in the past been followed by poorer days for a while.

(“What did Prentice think of your letter?”

[...] But my reluctance was based, I thought, on my resentment at Prentice-Hall over their handling of art work; I really didn’t want to let the photos in question out of the house, for fear they’d be lost, etc. [...]

[...] There were other probabilities according to George’s situation, so that the affair at least opened up the idea that George could do other work for Prentice if he needed money. [...]

3. Tam Mossman was the editor at Prentice-Hall for both Jane and Sue. [...]

1. The Seth Material was published by Prentice-Hall, Inc. [...] Seth Speaks was published by Prentice-Hall in 1972 and by Amber–Allen Publishing/New World Library in 1994.

[...] On Friday, April 6, we received from the production department at Prentice-Hall the printer’s page proofs of the index for Seth’s Psyche, and on Saturday morning the proofs for Emir arrived from Eleanor Friede at Delacorte Press. We spent all of our waking hours checking everything, and on Monday Jane called certain people at Prentice-Hall to give her approval of the index while I mailed Emir back to Eleanor.

[...] Going over these two sets of material was routine; nothing had to be returned, and in each case Jane called Tam Mossman at Prentice-Hall to give her approval and to make a few suggestions for changes. [...]

Now: when you anticipate problems from Prentice, you attract them. [...]

[...] Your feelings about Prentice made sense in an unsafe universe, where you had to protect the excellence of your vision from incompetence. [...]

(Tam Mossman, Jane’s editor at Prentice-Hall, is to visit us tomorrow.)

[...] He has not had (underlined) to fight for a book in strong terms, but his energy and belief helped it greatly at Prentice, and was transmitted to the salesmen. [...]

[...] Today Jane called Tam Mossman of Prentice-Hall, to discuss the prospectus for the Seth book suggested by Prentice-Hall.

[...] (Prentice-Hall published The God of Jane in 1981.)