H. A. (Hi) Simons (1986-1945) had an extended career as a poet and patron of the arts. The first letter in this collection (April 5, 1915) is to Margaret Anderson, editor of the Little Review, to which Simons was submitting some verse. Just a few months later, when he read that the Little Review was in financial difficulties and about to fold, Simons offered Anderson the bulk of his meager savings to help rescue the magazine. This gift of $75 was instrumental in saving the Little Review, and Hi Simons was accepted as a friend into the circle of Chicago poets.
Within a few years, Simons turned publisher himself. With the assistance of Steen Hinrichsen, Mitchell Dawson, Adam Lunoe and others, Simons started a Chicago literary journal called Musterbooks. Only two issues appeared, in 1921 and 1922. The name of the publication was chosen from a quote from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. Each MUSTERBOOK was to be devoted to a single, theme or artist. The first issue contained reproductions of the German expressionist artist, George Grosz. The second issue was a collection of poems by Yvor Winters, cumulatively entitled, The Magpie's Shadow, to which the entire MUSTERBOOK II (as it was designated) was devoted. Further issues of MUSTERBOOK were announced but never reached the press.
In 1937 Simons began an extended correspondence with Wallace Stevens, which lasted until Simons' death in 1945. In contemplation of a book about a poet, Simons queried Stevens about his poetry, to which Stevens responded with detailed analyses of his work. Although Simons published a number of articles on Stevens he did not finish the book before his death.
Hi Simons was professionally active in literary circles throughout his later life. At various times he was president of Year Book Publishers, president of the Society of Contemporary American Art, member of the foreign trade committee of the Book Publishers Association, and a lecturer at the Art Institute of Chicago.
From the guide to the Simons, Hi. Papers, 1915-1950, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)
