<P>Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) is best known as an American modernist and pioneeringartist of the early twentieth century. But he was also a prolific writer who published dozens ofessays and reviews and several volumes of poetry and prose. The autobiographical account of his lifein the manuscript collection of Yale¹s Beinecke Library has often been consulted by scholars andcurators writing about Hartley. It is the most revealing document he left about his personal lifeand relationships -- both for its disclosures and omissions -- but has never been publishedbefore.Transcribed from Hartley¹s own handwritten manuscripts, this edition is accompanied byphotographs (some never before published), notes, and an introduction discussing Hartley¹sfascination with autobiography in the context of his struggle with notions of self-representation inart. Susan Ryan also describes the circumstances surrounding the composition of Somehow a Past, andexplains the distinctions between this original version and two later ones also in the BeineckeLibrary.Somehow a Past is compelling both as historical document and as personal narrative. Althoughsolitary, self-involved, and saturnine, Hartley nevertheless knew nearly every figure of theinternational avant-garde in his day and unfolds his life largely through a chain of personalencounters. His traffic with such major literary and artistic figures as Alfred Stieglitz, VasiliKandinski, Gertrude Stein, Mabel Dodge, Eugene O¹Neill, Robert McAlmon, and Charles Demuth isrecorded as are his travels both domestic and foreign.Somehow a Past is gossipy, discursive, andself-distanced. Hartley drafted it several times, truncating the description of his traumaticchildhood, and leaving out any overt reference to his homosexuality. Yet there are moments ofcrystal clear self-characterization and leitmotifs that commemorate his troubled youth.</P>