Books, Works & Articles

“C.L.R. James’s correspondence with Constance Webb, the young American woman who eventually became his wife, began in 1939 and lasted for over a decade. Passionate, erudite and highly personal, the letters are simultaneously a record of an intense romantic relationship and a profound meditation on American civilization. Something powerful was unlocked by James’s experience of America and his relationship with Constance, and he sought to articulate it through his attempt to bridge the gap of background, race, gender and age between Constance and himself. Already celebrated in their unpublished form, these letters form one of the major resources in James’s life and thought during his American period. The film “Special Delivery” is based on these letters.”

Reviews:

“C.L.R. James, is an extraordinary 20th century figure. An author, historian, reporter on the sport of cricket, Africanist, Marxist, black intellectual, and friend of many of the leading left radicals of the day. His history of the Haitian slave revolution, The Black Jacobins, is a masterpiece of humanity and empathy. James spent 15 years living in the United States from 1938, and there he fell in love with an 18-year-old Southern white girl, Constance Webb. It was an amazing ill-match; she really was not too interested. So he wrote her passionate love letters, collected here in Special Delivery. When the two did eventually marry, divorce quickly followed, as might have been predicted; still, these erudite letters, from one of the most intelligent and cultured men of his generation, remain an amazing testament to love, and the folly of it.” — Amazon review

James seems to have been one of those men, like Balzac, for whom letter writing is the highest form of passion. — The New Yorker, Paul Berman

“This collection of letters is often read (or misread) as merely love letters by CLR James to Constance Webb. People debate whether James was manipulative, flirted well, or looked for an aspect of himself missing in his personality through love. Whenever this is the emphasis, one finds the reader has no appreciation for the vivid and analytical commentary on philosophy, art, history, literature and political strategy found in these letters. It is a mine of ideas. I am always finding something new in this volume whenever I read these letters and mark them up again and again. Harriet Tubman, Shakespeare, Stanislavsky, Trotsky, Richard Wright, sojourns to Mexico and Nevada, and the importance of Germany to political theory are all found here.” — Matthew Quest