88
isn t this a fat B?
Gun s mistress Adelle St. Orme as she
styles herself (after the nomenclature of most of
her class) appears a much cheaper-constructed
and trashier-souled person. She punctuates
only with dots, spells badly, misuses fine words
(as preamble for letter!) deals in flashy-novel-
like protestations of exaggerated passion alter-
nated with stormy recriminations, sometimes
writing palpably under the influence of liquor.
She is ridiculously ironic about Arnold (George).
She tells Gun that she is certainly encient ;
that she loves him better than her life, her mother
or her God, with much dreary bosh of the same
sort. She wants cigars, perfume, soap, a bonnet,
a dress, $50, port-wine, something nice in
the edible way, an old pair of pants for a
poor boy. She deals in endless mock-humilities
about the humble writer; threats of exposure;
of meeting him on Broadway, with exaggerated
running-shriek of feminine shrillness pervading
everything. Her drunken letters are written all
awry, in large, scrawling, highly suggestive style.
Here s a brothel picture. to conclude. I am sitting
prop up in bed, with my neck wrap up in hops
and whiskey and my face in meal and whis-
key. !!!! Her dressmaker wants to pledge
her dress. She wants $25 to send to her mother.
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eleven: page ninety-six |
| Description: | Describes letters sent to Bob Gun from his mistress Adelle St. Orme. |
| Date: | 1859-08-22 |
| Subject: | Arnold, George; Clemo, Isabella; Gun, Robert; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Prostitutes; St. Orme, Adelle; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Coverage (Street): | Broadway |
| Scan Date: | 2011-01-31 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eleven |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of boarding house living at 132 Bleecker Street, his freelance writing and drawing work, the antics of New York literary Bohemians, Fanny Fern and James Parton's marriage, visits to the Edwards family, a Fourth of July excursion with the Edwards family and other friends, letters from Frank Cahill and Bob Gun's mistresses, Jesse Haney's proposal of marriage to Sally Edwards and rejection, Charles Damoreau's return from Boston to live in New York, and attending the Edwards family's 1859 Christmas party. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Christmas; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Marriage; Publishers and publishing; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York |
| Note: | Thomas Butler Gunn was born February 15, 1826, in Banbury, England, and came to New York in 1849. During the Civil War he worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He returned to England in 1863, and died in Birmingham in April 1903. The collection includes twenty-one volumes of his diaries, including newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and various other items inserted by Gunn. Diary entries date from July 7, 1849, to April 7, 1863, and include his experiences with the New York publishing and literary world, his descriptions of boarding houses, his travels throughout the United States, and his experiences traveling with the Federal army as a Civil War correspondent. |
| Publisher: | Missouri History Museum |
| Rights: | Copyright 2011 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
