Martin GARDNER (1914-2010). A series of 46 letters to John Ward McClellan , most typed (with corrections and additions in manuscript, but including a few entirely hand written, all signed ‘Martin’. [Various addresses, but most from] 10 Euclid Avenue, Hastings-on-Hudson: 1962- 1975. 54 pages (in total), with additions and corrections by Gardner, and notes and responses roughly added in pencil and pen by the recipient John Ward McClellan.
A fascinating and long-running series of letters from Gardner to John Ward McClellan (see below for a precis of contents).
“Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 – May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literature – especially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton. He was also a leading authority on Lewis Carroll. The Annotated Alice, which incorporated the text of Carroll's two Alice books, was his most successful work and sold over a million copies. He had a lifelong interest in magic and illusion and in 1999, MAGIC magazine named him as one of the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century". He was considered the doyen of American puzzlers. He was a prolific and versatile author, publishing more than 100 books.
Gardner was best known for creating and sustaining interest in recreational mathematics – and by extension, mathematics in general – throughout the latter half of the 20th century, principally through his "Mathematical Games" columns. These appeared for twenty-five years in Scientific American, and his subsequent books collecting them.
Gardner was one of the foremost anti-pseudoscience polemicists of the 20th century.[16] His 1957 book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, originally published in 1952 as In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present, became a classic and seminal work of the skeptical movement. In 1976, he joined with fellow skeptics to found CSICOP, an organization promoting scientific inquiry and the use of reason in examining extraordinary claims.
He was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books.” (wikipedia).
“John Ward McClellan was born in London, England on May 20, 1908 to American parents, Robert and Irene Ward McClellan. After receiving an early education in England, the moved back to the U.S. in 1922 and he entered prep school and later attended Yale University with the intention of becoming a doctor. In 1930, he transferred to the School of the Boston Museum, then in 1932 attended the Academie Julien in Paris, followed by working trips through France, Spain and Mexico. After France, he became involved in the Spanish conflict, but was ordered to leave.
Prior to World War II, he married Doris Dubow and they settled in Woodstock, NY in the late 1930's where he gained a national reputation, not only as a painter, sculptor and printmaker, but also mathematician and entymologist. He spent much time in the period before the war producing lithographs that were printed for him by George Miller of New York and later his son. During the war, prints were acquired by the Whitney Museum, the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum, which sent examples of McClellan's on exhibition at home and abroad.
His career was deeply influenced by two incidents in his life - the horror he encountered in entering a concentration camp during World War II and his life long love of Spain and especially the poetry of Lorca. After the war, he worked as a draftsman, did writing and cartooning. McClellan continued to work in lithography and participated in the upsurge of interest in prints in the 1930's, 40's and 50's, which resulted in many more museum and gallery exhibitions and sales to private collectors. John Ward McClellan died in Woodstock, New York in August 26 of 1986. “ (https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/3681/McClellan/John).
Precis of contents of some of the letters:
19 Oct 1962: ‘We all enjoyed Astropup’, mentioning Jerome Barry’s Leopard Cat’s Cradle, publ in 1942, a proposal for a book: ‘a small arty edition of Langdon Smith;’s poem’… Mr. [Hayward] Cirker, pres. Of Dover, is interested’.
9 Nov 1962: Cirker has asked to see other illus. by John.
29 Dec. 1962: no word from Cirker “He’s a dilatoery, unpredictable fellow’, and includes limerick – 1,264.853,971. 27584663
3 Feb. 1963: discussing John’s ‘“Model Shop” lithograph’.
13 Feb. 1963: “The picture is great!” – suggesting reproducing the image: Leo Moser and friends might be interested.
25 Feb. 1963: re. IBM booklet, John’s book on Mobiles, slim chance that Scientific American would reproduce John’s drawing.
9 Apr. 1963: re. Lewis Carroll and the Snark, and Flanders and Swann (British entertainers), and query about the meaning of ‘many a mickle maks a muckle’
12 May 1963: re. ‘many a mickle…’ and a limerick
15 July 1963: moving house, ‘Euclid Ave.’ “is a pleasant coincidence”, congrats on pictures.
27 July 1963: moving house, “32 … It’s a number that turns up all over the place.”
8 Sep 1963: “We’re still far from unpacked”
18 Sep. 1963: trying to work out how ‘to express it with four fours, but am about to give up as impossible’. Encourages him re. litho. portraits of mathematicians: good idea.
29 Oct. 1963: potential puzzles for Christmas.
30 Dec. 1963: Nina Bourne of Simon & Schuster and the possibility of a book on optical illusions, to be drawn by John, with limited input from Martin.
12 Jan. 1964: Nina Bourne not interested in book, will try Ken Heuer at Scribners.
28 Jan. 1964: Ken Heuer not interested, but Martin still thinks it is a good idea: mentions various types of illusion, including the work of ‘E.C. Escher’.
6 June 1964: ‘your optical illusion litho is great, and thanks for the copy’, sending a book in exchange.
7 July 1964: a new palindrome from Leigh Mercer (1893-1977, the creator of ‘a man a plan a canal panama’): “Top step’s pups pet spot”.
Aug. 11 1964: “those curves produced by Cramer are excellent”, and mentioning a new ‘elliptical pool table … Elliptapool, the inventor calls it”
Sept 15 1964: Loerca and Unamuno.
24 Oc. 1964: enjoyed John’s exhibit and meeting John & Doris; eldest son broke his finger, advice on maths boos.
16 Nov. 1964: re. a ‘Life’ article and mentioning Clayton Rawson (1906-1971)
10 March 1965L Casey an the Bat – M.G. is looking for ‘any obscure parodies of Casey at the Bat’ – an idea for a book.
15 April 1965: Lilian Oppenheimer and origami
[June?] 1965 medical issue, and announcing the imminent publication of ‘The Annotated Ancient Mariner’.
21 Feb, 1972: discusses ‘bat’ in Alice, notes that he has ‘finished my code book, as yet untitled, and dedicated it to Charlotte in code – using a code of Lewis Carroll’s..’, mentioning ‘an 8-volume reverse English Dictionary’, finishing with Howard Hughes fraud: “Isn’t [it] fantastic?”
8 Feb 1973: re. his book ‘The Flight of Peter Fromm’ ‘ ‘If only Billy Graham will denounce it as the work of the devil, I’ll have a good seller on my hands.”, mentioning M ‘Unamuno’s chess story “The Novella of Don Sandalio”]’
22 Apr 1973: more about Unamuno and John Ward McClellan’s translation ‘I will today mail it to [William] Kaufmann’.
2 May 1973: re. Kaufmann, photocopying and chess in fiction
28 June 1973: family, Watergate hearings ‘the noose slowly tightens. I expect [Nixon]… to resign before the end of the year’.
4 Feb 1974: introducing Lillian Silver and the idea of the ‘big puzzle exhibit’ that she has been hired to curate for Xerox in 1975.
24 Apr. 74: John Horton Conway (1937-2020) “the Cambridge genius… greatly admired your model shop picture, and asked if I could get him a copy…’
24 Apr. 74: Uri Geller “Poor Uri Geller is going to have a hard time of it in May…’
27 Jan 75: a report on the Xerox Puzzle show curated by Mrs. Lilian Silver, including John McClellan’s work
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