In Robert Frost Himself—part memoir, part biography, part polemic—Stanley Burnshaw fulfills a request made of him by the eminent poet twenty-seven years ago. In June of 1959 the eighty-five-year-old Frost had asked his old friend, then an editor at Frost’s publisher Holt, to “save” him, as the poet put it, from “Larry”—i.e., Lawrance Thompson, Frost’s official biographer. At the time, Thompson had already been at work on the project for twenty years. (According to Frost’s wishes, it wasn’t to be published in his lifetime.) As Burnshaw—now eighty years old himself, with a distinguished career as a poet, critic, and editor behind him—relates the fateful conversation:
After his long silence, he raised his head and gazed in my eyes. “I’m counting on you to protect me from Larry.”
I lurched at him in amazement. He nodded steadily. “But he’s your official biographer! You picked him.”
“I’m counting on you,” he repeated gravely. “You will be here. I won’t.”
“If you need protection, simply undo what you did.”
“Too late now.”
“Anyone has the right to retract for a valid reason.”
“I gave him my word.”
“You gave him your word how many years ago? Twenty? You gave yourself up to a person you thought you could trust. How could you know he would change? He must have changed or you wouldn’t be asking for protection.”
“I want the truth. I need protection from lies, all sorts of lies.”
