This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
![[Americana.]](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg2.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2006-09%252F22%252F7332891-4-1.JPG%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
![CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg2.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2012-08%252F09%252F8520323-124-1.jpg%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
![HEARN, LAFCADIO. 1850-1904. [Japanese Fairy Tales.] Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, [But Tokyo: T. Hasegawa,] [c.1931].](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg2.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2025-11%252F07%252F25776056-1-1.jpg%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
Lot 2296
STEINBECK, JOHN.
11 June 2008, 13:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$2,040 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistSTEINBECK, JOHN.
Autograph Letter Signed (“John Steinbeck”), 2 pp recto and verso, 4to, Boston, October 13, 1950, to Benjamin Gargill, on Ritz-Carlton stationery, with original autograph transmittal envelope also signed by Steinbeck, leaf creased and mildly soiled at creases, envelope toned.
Steinbeck writes this letter during the final nights of the Boston run of his experimental play, Burning Bright, a story about an older man, Joe Saul, who desperately wants a child with his much younger wife. She, suspecting Joe is sterile, conceives a child by another man to give her husband what he wants; only later does Joe Saul learn he is indeed sterile and the child cannot be his. Steinbeck’s correspondent, an attorney, has written on behalf of a client who has found himself in Joe Saul’s situation. Steinbeck responds: “Now, it would be very interesting to me and perhaps to you, to know whether your client could or would sit through this play which scrutinizes his problem and his conclusion and second whether the moral and ethical conclusions reached in the play would find any response in him.” Steinbeck extends an invitation, but recognizes that, as the play closes the next night, it may not be possible for the client to attend. He concludes: “It does seem wrong to me to draw a general conclusion from one example. No two people react exactly the same to any given problem. This was the way my client Joe Saul reacted.”
See illustration.
Steinbeck writes this letter during the final nights of the Boston run of his experimental play, Burning Bright, a story about an older man, Joe Saul, who desperately wants a child with his much younger wife. She, suspecting Joe is sterile, conceives a child by another man to give her husband what he wants; only later does Joe Saul learn he is indeed sterile and the child cannot be his. Steinbeck’s correspondent, an attorney, has written on behalf of a client who has found himself in Joe Saul’s situation. Steinbeck responds: “Now, it would be very interesting to me and perhaps to you, to know whether your client could or would sit through this play which scrutinizes his problem and his conclusion and second whether the moral and ethical conclusions reached in the play would find any response in him.” Steinbeck extends an invitation, but recognizes that, as the play closes the next night, it may not be possible for the client to attend. He concludes: “It does seem wrong to me to draw a general conclusion from one example. No two people react exactly the same to any given problem. This was the way my client Joe Saul reacted.”
See illustration.