Look --She Writes!

I was contacted by a researcher in Hawaii. She asked my opinion as to whether a certain anonymously published short story could possibly have been written by the brilliant and celebrated anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912).

The piece has been staring us in the face for 107 years, on the pages of the best-known Anarchist journal that has ever been published in the United States.

I read it, and with every sentence I was more sure that it was indeed written by that rebel star of Philadelphia. The scenes described --a hospital where a little syphilitic girl is clutching a doll --the references to suicidal thoughts, and most strikingly the intense, emotional writing style, all match Voltairine and her experiences in the months preceding the story's publication.

Those signs already had me convinced, but I burst out laughing after I pondered this page ornament at the end of the piece. These things were used simply to separate the items as the reader proceeded through the magazine. They were either a simple object like a leaf or a star, or some symmetrical design, or a row of such things.

Not so with this page ornament. This one is a vaguely floral design standing over what nobody has spotted for over a century. The author's initials. "VdC."

Thus I share a wildly delicious discovery with someone I've never met. It's too soon to share the exact details but we'll be putting all this up on line in the near future.

I can hardly explain how much I enjoy moments like this.