Between the Covers

Hardcover. An amazing autobiographical memoir by a literate and peripatetic traveler who seems to have been at the nexus of some of the most important events and culturally significant moments of early American 20th Century history. May came from a long line of Virginia planters from the Roanoke area. His grandfather was a prominent New Orleans cotton factor, and the co-founder of Richardson & May. May's father had held a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade, when financial reverses led him to move to the Dakota Territory where he founded a bank, and eventually moved to Sioux Falls where he engaged in banking, real estate, and cattle speculation, and where May was born in 1891 or 1892.

A very detailed and engaging memoir, May relates incidents of his childhood on the Plains including encounters with cowboys and Native Americans, as well as meeting visitors Buffalo Bill Cody and Vice Presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt who visited Sioux Falls while campaigning for MacKinley.

The Mays moved to Virginia when May was still a youth. A relative through marriage to Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, May attended the Lawrenceville School, where he made friends with a classmate, Hugh Porter with whom he summered in Nevada and California, and where he obtained ringside seats to attend the great Jack Johnson-Jefferies boxing match in Reno on July 10th.

He gives a full account of the fight and the activities and the festivities surrounding it: "The Negro looked like blue steel in the blazing sun and Jeff looked as rugged as ever with his hairy chest and mason's build. However his face looked drawn and wan with a troubled look in contradistinction to his opponents golden countenance as he smiled and spoke to friends in the ringside throng. Jeff spoke to no one and when introduced stood awkwardly with his legs far apart in an unnatural manner." May gives some account of the fight: "The first round seemed even enough as they were obviously just feeling each other out and Jeff even smiled confidently upon returning to his corner. But from then on until the end of the fifteenth round ... it was nothing but Johnson all the while just toying with Jeffries continually, and at the same time kidding the crowd and carrying on a winning repartee with [Jefferson's corner man "Gentleman" Jim] Corbett such as 'Mr. Jim, your man can't fight at all look at this', at the same time delivering a vicious left uppercut that cut Jeff's lip. Another time about the fourth round Jeff attempted some foot-work which seemed almost pathetic and Johnson taking down his guard completely and said 'Mr. Jeff, do that again, it's funny.' It was nice being in the second row, so close that we could hear every word spoken and see every delineation of features and every twitch of the muscles of the two men in the ring. It wasn't long about the sixth round that "Sport" Donnelly said to me: 'May, Jeffries hasn't got a chance, the niger is just playing with him and can finish him whenever he wants to.' So it was a pitiless slaughter just like a cat playing with a mouse..."

After the fight May rushes the ring and gives an account of managing to cut about two yards of blood soaked canvas and two feet of the ring rope with Jeffries bloody hand prints, with a Veuve Cliquot pocket knife just given to him by Donnelly.

After Lawrenceville, May attends Princeton, where he never did manage to graduate with his Class of 1915, sadly undone by mathematics and the sciences.

Instead May decided to visit Europe and on April 13, 1912 signs on and departs Boston as a crew member of the freighter *Bostonian*, where he gives a detailed account of the life of a seaman. On April 17th he relates: "all of a sudden there was a terrific crash followed by a grinding noise which threw us all to the floor of the foc'sl. Naturally I was scared to death, and could see the horrified look on the men's faces. Of course, we all were aware that we had hit an iceberg, but none of us had any way of knowing during the first panicky fear that gripped us to how great an extent we were damaged..." Happily they were going at reduced speed and had only a few dented plates and no great intake of water. As the fog lifts they see mountainous icebergs and crawl along at quarter speed. On the next day they meet a tramp steamer and exchange signals where they learn "That big new Star boat, the Titanic, on her maiden trip, hit an iceberg last night and sank - big loss of life!... The tramp had passed the Cunarder Carpathia that morning and received the news direct from her of the terrible disaster. The captain figured that if we had had wireless, we would surely have been the rescue ship instead of the Carpathia, as we were only fifty nautical miles from Titanic, when she was sinking whereas the Carpathia was eighty-two miles distant. We were all shocked by this terrible news..."

After an extended trip in Great Britain and the Continent, May ships back as a steward on the *Bremen*. Having fallen in love with Paris, May determines to return, but first visits President and Mrs. Wilson several times at the White House (May was related to Mrs. Wilson - see the *Virginia Encyclopedia of Biography* p. 307-8) from whom he gets several letters of introduction. "I aquainted them with my desire to be appointed to a diplomatic position in Paris, and received substantial encouragement. However, I realized that my opportunity would be contingent upon the President's appointment of a new ambassador, to take the place of Mr. Herrick, the Republican envoy ...it might take months before this happened."

On April 6th, 1914 he decides to work his passage across and signs on as an able seaman on R.M.S. *Lusitania* (the manuscript is illustrated with a photo of May in his Lusitania jersey). Again he gives a detailed account of life aboard ship. Making friends with his shipmates, he has 28 of them signed a roster with their name, title on board, age, place of birth, present address, and years at sea, and has pasted it into this manuscript as an illustration with the caption: "Autographs of Seamen of the Starboard Watch of the Lusitania most of whom were drowned when the ship was torpedoed" as it was on a subsequent voyage in 1915.

Upon his arrival he engages on a tramp trip throughout the British Isles including Ireland and Scotland where he meets and photographs the mother, father, and siblings of the famous Scottish vaudeville performer Harry Lauder. Arriving in London he calls upon the American ambassador Walter Hines Page, and makes friends with another American, Ben Smith with whom he visits the performer Elsie Janis. The boxing aficionados May and Smith concoct a scheme to make some money by having May box at the National Sporting Club, which he does unsuccessfully.

Next May wanders through Holland and Germany, intermittently visiting socially prominent Americans, drinking with companionable German students, visiting Napoleonic battlefields, and being arrested as a vagabond in Luxembourg (from which he extricates himself with President Wilson's letter). Returning to Paris, he gets some work as an extra for a mob scene at the Paris Opera, and parties with semi-nude art students at the Quatz'Arts Ball "with my little model Eugenie Berdoux."' May becomes friends with journalist Walter Duranty, and along with his friend a sculptor named MacAdam, they produce impromptu shows at the Societe des Savants in the Latin Quarter which includes a four-round exhibition match between May and another fighter, and which are a success, and he also manages to raise some money by drawing portraits.

In early August, War was declared and May attempts to join the Foreign Legion along with hundreds of Americans and Englishman, but the recruiters are too overwhelmed to take them all in, so instead he joins a cavalry troop of 200 expatriates. May decides to visit the battlefields, without proper papers and seemed to run the very real risk of being shot. He gives very detailed descriptions of the destruction but returns unscathed, where he joined the American Ambulance Corps (letters and a picture of May appear in the 1915 Daily Princetonian about his experiences in the Corp), and here describes his experiences.

In March of 1915 May is called to the American Embassy where he serves until 1917 as a Special Attaché, and where he essentially runs the Passport Office, thus coming in contact with virtually every American living in Paris, relating accounts of boxers, jockeys, and entertainers whom he encounters there.

He relates: "One of my first customers at the Embassy was none other than Jack Johnson, who, with his white wife, who was Lucille Cameron, had come direct to Paris, after losing the heavyweight title to Jess Willard, in Havana. He admitted to me that he had deliberately faked the fight, and feigned being knocked out, for a cash consideration, as well as the promise of the promoters that they would arrange for his safe return to the United States, where a jail sentence was hanging over him." And "For at least two weeks, Johnson sat around the Passport Bureau, like a big, homesick Negro, as a delay was necessitated, while much cabling followed with the Department of State, relative to his citizenship status, as he was a fugitive from justice. At length I was permitted to give him an emergency passport, on condition he would go to Spain, at once, where a passport wasn't necessary. Being a fighter by trade, it seems the French government had hinted that he join the Army, but though he could dodge rights and lefts to the head with great facility, he figured that possibly he would not have the same success in dodging a bullet. After a few months in Spain, he went to Mexico, than finally returned to the United States and served his year in jail."

Another encounter he relates is with "the eccentric Isadora Duncan. I recall the first time Isadora came to see me, there were at least a dozen people in the waiting room in front of her, but she flew into a rage at once, and demanded her passport saying, 'Mr. May, give me my passport at once, as I have a Russian prince outside in my car, and I can't keep him waiting.' I looked through the window and saw a simple-looking bird, sticking his head impatiently through the window of a taxi. As passports cannot be amended in a minute, and she was encroaching on the other callers, she went without her passport, and threatened to report me to the Ambassador. I afterwards met her and laughed over the incident with her, when her mind was in a more mollified state."

In 1917 he goes to the Casino in Deauville as the guest of "Henri Letellier, reputed to be the wealthiest man in France, and who was the proprietor of Le Journal ... Moreover, Henri owned the Casino... His constant companion [was] Sem, the famous caricaturist." Later "While in Deauville during this trip one day Sem [Georges Goursat], at dinner, without my knowledge, sketched my caricature, which he very graciously gave to me." The original caricature is inserted in the manuscript as an illustration.

May gives a detailed account of the Americans arriving in Paris, and finally decides, despite the admonition of the Ambassador, to join the Army, where he is attached to the 149th Field Artillary. He gives detailed accounts of training and is finally put in the line for the final push at Champagne, Meuse-Argonne in late 1918. He is constantly under fire, mostly stringing telephone lines behind soldiers as they charge from trench to trench and includes graphic accounts and photos of the final battle. He goes on to occupied Germany where he is court-martialed for fraternizing with German girls, but is cleared of the charges, and made an Aide-de-Camp to General Harte, the American Commanding General in Paris.

After being demobbed, May works as an investment banker at Guaranty Trust Company, but after two years loses interest and writes to his old Army buddy Gilbert Maxwell that he is contemplating a trip to Colorado, and Maxwell insists that he stay with his relatives, the Moffat's, in Steamboat Springs. He roams the plains for some time, befriending old timer Bob Sturgess, from whom he relates several quite detailed tales of William Bonney a.k.a. "Billy the Kid" whom Sturgess reportedly knew well in Colorado and later New Mexico.

Upon his return from Colorado, May joins the firm of W.A. Harriman & Co. as a bond salesman from 1921 until 1924. Tiring of this he continues the World trip that was interrupted by the War, visiting Egypt, India, China, Japan, and Hawaii (where he takes up surfing).

Upon his return in mid-1925, in a chapter entitled "The New Klondike," May decamps for Florida where he becomes a real estate broker, and gives detailed accounts of the real estate schemes in Miami and Miami Beach by which he parlays the $1300 he started with into over $100,000 within six months, only to see it dissipated to $5000 when the real estate bubble finally bursts. As he waits for it to revive, he seeks recreation in Miami Beach where he befriends boxer Gene Tunney (who refers constantly in conversation to the obnoxious real estate agents that bedevil him, causing May to hide his current profession).

After May gives up on Florida, he returns to New York, takes a brief but nostalgic visit to Europe and then in January of 1927 heads to Hollywood where "I had gone for myself to see what this motion picture business was all about anyway." May visits many of the studios in Hollywood, Burbank, Culver City, and on Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards, where he marvels at the costumed actors, and dejected extras waiting around the casting offices. Eventually he signs up with a casting agency where he gets work as an extra for $7.50 per day on a boxing movie, *The Patent Leather Kid* with Richard Barthelmess.

Frustrated while waiting for additional parts, he gets a job selling publicity and advertising to the studios thus gaining entry into the studios where "Business was not very good but the sightseeing was excellent and by making it a point of not being obnoxious or intruding I tactfully and diplomatically became acquainted with dozens of actors and actresses even among the 'Stars' in some cases." He hangs around with his Princeton classmate Fred Thompson and his wife "the very lovely Frances Marion the famous scenario writer whom I had known in Paris." He relates tales of several similarly notable acquaintances, and then: "...at last my real chance came when I heard that Universal was going to do a picture called *Buck Privates* with Lya de Putti and Malcolm McGregor as the stars. I wrote to the director Melville Brown offering my services in view of my past army experiences... I was taken on his staff as assistant and military technical director." He recounts events in filming and "Mel suggested as I was the exact type, he would give me a part in the cast as the Lieutenant in the story." After filming he has no trouble finding another acting job as an Army officer in *Hard Boiled Haggarty* with a salary of $30 per day. Despite his modest success and the fact that "an agent said that if I would stay out that he would guarantee steady work in small parts of the hard-boiled, soldier, tough, and prize-fighter parts. I didn't know whether to feel complimented or not, but he surely meant what he said 'based' as he put it 'on even the little experience I had had.' But I didn't want to be a second rate movie actor. I had determined to return to my old bailiwick New York where I had decided to enter the brokerage business."

May becomes a stockbroker on Wall Street in July of 1927, where he documents the rise and calamitous fall of the market in October of 1929. As the narrative ends, he notes that on this final day of 1929 in their office "Of customers there have been almost none" he finishes with the refrain from the song "I Want to Be Happy" from *No, No Nanette!*: "Seems almost ironical... Happy New Year." Subsequent investigation reveals that May remained a stockbroker (1940 census), but details of his life are sparse after that. In 1926 he married a respected Broadway (and later television) character actress, Dorothy Blackburn (1901-1999), who, although May dedicated the typed manuscript to her in 1941, is not mentioned in the narrative.

Handwritten and illustrated manuscript, plus typed manuscript. Two drafts, as follows. 1. First draft. Quarto. Mostly lined paper in three-ring binder. 219 pages plus preliminary matter (preface, contents, illustrations, etc.), closely but very legibly written in pencil, interspersed with leaves containing approximately 49 photographs, a caricature of the author by Sem, one leaf of autographs from *The Lusitania*, and one photographed collage by R.H. Reid. Cloth on the binder eroded at the corners but internally very good or better. The concluding paragraphs reveal that this draft was written, mostly in December of 1929 and gives the author's address as the Princeton Club in New York. 2. Second draft. Quarto. 226 typed pages rectos only with sporadic minor hand corrections, and with photocopies of the pictures in the other manuscript interleaved. New preface dated in 1941 from Rye, New York. Bradbound into wrappers with title label. Wrappers well-worn, but internally near fine. The second draft was apparently typed in 1941 from the first handwritten draft, and essentially covers the years between 1912 and 1918.

A truly spectacular narrative of an intrepid, curious, and peripatetic diarist whose Zelig-like adventures make Zelig look lazy. Our already overlong description provides but a thin gruel of the rich narrative soup that May's richly detailed account provides.

Item #388747