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Lot 94
STEINBECK (JOHN) Correspondence, ephemera and a signed photograph from the collection of Steinbeck's friend and publisher Alexander Stuart Frere (1892-1984)
20 November 2024, 13:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £11,520 inc. premium
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STEINBECK (JOHN)
Correspondence, ephemera and a signed photograph from the collection of Steinbeck's friend and publisher Alexander Stuart Frere (1892-1984), comprising:
i) Sixteen typed and autograph letters from John Steinbeck signed ("John"), the first two writing from Italy ("...the Arno does never turn green... Byron was a liar..."), the rest on work ("...I'm becoming a bloody industry and I can't say I like it. But I like the results of it namely money which my government requires me to make so it can take it away from me..."), discussing his new Arthurian project ("...I want to smell and taste the places I am going to write about..."), moving to Somerset ("...We shall take warm clothes and rain wear... I imagine it will not be impossible to get some old woman to stir the dirt about once or twice a week and perhaps an arch dead beat to give me an argument about the planting of salads... This is much more than a trip to me. It is a total and complete change of direction..."), on critics ("...Critical evaluation... amounts to no more that a fart in a volcano..."), on Ken Tynan ("...he has an angry brain..."), purchase of a car ("...Skrumpy or Scrumpy after a hard riding kind of Somerset cider... the staying power and some of the beauty of a dung hill beetle..."), comments on the British ("...My aphorism for today 'If there weren't brussels sprouts the British would have had to invent them'... the first of a long list..."), asking for "...several copies of East of Eden, Sea of Cortez, and Grapes of Wrath. Some of the local people have been very kind to me and I would like to give them as presents...", his new routine ("...I don't remember ever being so relaxed... desk from about 8-3... a walk or garden work... pink gin in front of the fire... by God I'm going to have copy and when copy begins to flow out, I'm a happy man..."), on the local town ("...People are most kind and considerate... definitely on our side... Bruton is a very old, very proud and very poor town... about 30 antiquarians to the square mile... all good men too... What a beautiful place. We are very content..."), a discourse on the local dialect ("...much more closely related to modern American than to modern British..."), refusing all invitations ("...including the Queen and or Princess Margaret..."), return to New York ("...genuinely and painfully homesick for England..."), his poodle ("...name has been changed from Charles le Chien to The Scarlet Pumpernickle..."), on being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 ( "...A big God damned medal but very pretty and I am glad to have it... Anyway we won the election and life can continue... All throughout I kept thinking that this electorate had put Ike in twice and would have done it a third time. Furthermore they dam [sic] near elected Nixon. A people who could do that are capable of anything..."), much on travel arrangements and family news ("...New Years also at John Huston's place in Galway... reservations at the Dorch for Jan 2..."), and much else, 25 pages, various sizes and papers, 330 x 200mm. and smaller, Florence, New York, The Dorchester, Bruton, Sag Harbor, 13 April 1957 to 25 January 1965
ii) Twenty typed and autograph letters and cards from Elaine Steinbeck, signed ("Elaine"), the majority to Pat Frere, with fond letters of thanks ("...Thank you... for always making London a very special place..."), discussing family news, on Steinbeck's award ("...Since we Americans can think of nothing but politics these days, it is rather fun to be IN at the White House. We went down to dine quietly with them a few weeks ago... heady stuff..."), on John's final illness and death ("...John died as splendidly as you would know he would, undismayed, unafraid – and his fine, sparkling mind never faltered until he went into a sweet and easy sleep... He died at home... in our own bed... Thank you for your friendship with John. You knew him longer than I did, you lucky ones. I am confident the world will remember him as a writer. You, Wallace and Frere, please remember him as your friend..."), 43 pages, various sizes, [c.1957] to 22 June 1972
iii) Six-page carbon typescript of Steinbeck's Nobel Prize acceptance speech inscribed and signed "For Frere & Wallace John Steinbeck Dec 10 1962"; four-page carbon typescript of an interview for a film for Australian television, given to Diana, Lady Avebury, PR for the Heinemann Group; printed pamphlet 'John Steinbeck: Personal and Biographical Notes' by Lewis Gannett, 1939; small group regarding Robert Wallsten's access to the letters for Life in Letters, 1975
iv) Portrait photograph of John Steinbeck by Paul Farber, head and shoulders, wearing a corduroy jacket and tie, inscribed and signed "For Frere and Wallace with love/ John Steinbeck" in blue biro on the mount, gelatin silver print, some scuffs and dents, remains of tape on lower edge where fixed to mount, photograph 253 x 202mm., with mount 340 x 250mm., [1962]
i) Sixteen typed and autograph letters from John Steinbeck signed ("John"), the first two writing from Italy ("...the Arno does never turn green... Byron was a liar..."), the rest on work ("...I'm becoming a bloody industry and I can't say I like it. But I like the results of it namely money which my government requires me to make so it can take it away from me..."), discussing his new Arthurian project ("...I want to smell and taste the places I am going to write about..."), moving to Somerset ("...We shall take warm clothes and rain wear... I imagine it will not be impossible to get some old woman to stir the dirt about once or twice a week and perhaps an arch dead beat to give me an argument about the planting of salads... This is much more than a trip to me. It is a total and complete change of direction..."), on critics ("...Critical evaluation... amounts to no more that a fart in a volcano..."), on Ken Tynan ("...he has an angry brain..."), purchase of a car ("...Skrumpy or Scrumpy after a hard riding kind of Somerset cider... the staying power and some of the beauty of a dung hill beetle..."), comments on the British ("...My aphorism for today 'If there weren't brussels sprouts the British would have had to invent them'... the first of a long list..."), asking for "...several copies of East of Eden, Sea of Cortez, and Grapes of Wrath. Some of the local people have been very kind to me and I would like to give them as presents...", his new routine ("...I don't remember ever being so relaxed... desk from about 8-3... a walk or garden work... pink gin in front of the fire... by God I'm going to have copy and when copy begins to flow out, I'm a happy man..."), on the local town ("...People are most kind and considerate... definitely on our side... Bruton is a very old, very proud and very poor town... about 30 antiquarians to the square mile... all good men too... What a beautiful place. We are very content..."), a discourse on the local dialect ("...much more closely related to modern American than to modern British..."), refusing all invitations ("...including the Queen and or Princess Margaret..."), return to New York ("...genuinely and painfully homesick for England..."), his poodle ("...name has been changed from Charles le Chien to The Scarlet Pumpernickle..."), on being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 ( "...A big God damned medal but very pretty and I am glad to have it... Anyway we won the election and life can continue... All throughout I kept thinking that this electorate had put Ike in twice and would have done it a third time. Furthermore they dam [sic] near elected Nixon. A people who could do that are capable of anything..."), much on travel arrangements and family news ("...New Years also at John Huston's place in Galway... reservations at the Dorch for Jan 2..."), and much else, 25 pages, various sizes and papers, 330 x 200mm. and smaller, Florence, New York, The Dorchester, Bruton, Sag Harbor, 13 April 1957 to 25 January 1965
ii) Twenty typed and autograph letters and cards from Elaine Steinbeck, signed ("Elaine"), the majority to Pat Frere, with fond letters of thanks ("...Thank you... for always making London a very special place..."), discussing family news, on Steinbeck's award ("...Since we Americans can think of nothing but politics these days, it is rather fun to be IN at the White House. We went down to dine quietly with them a few weeks ago... heady stuff..."), on John's final illness and death ("...John died as splendidly as you would know he would, undismayed, unafraid – and his fine, sparkling mind never faltered until he went into a sweet and easy sleep... He died at home... in our own bed... Thank you for your friendship with John. You knew him longer than I did, you lucky ones. I am confident the world will remember him as a writer. You, Wallace and Frere, please remember him as your friend..."), 43 pages, various sizes, [c.1957] to 22 June 1972
iii) Six-page carbon typescript of Steinbeck's Nobel Prize acceptance speech inscribed and signed "For Frere & Wallace John Steinbeck Dec 10 1962"; four-page carbon typescript of an interview for a film for Australian television, given to Diana, Lady Avebury, PR for the Heinemann Group; printed pamphlet 'John Steinbeck: Personal and Biographical Notes' by Lewis Gannett, 1939; small group regarding Robert Wallsten's access to the letters for Life in Letters, 1975
iv) Portrait photograph of John Steinbeck by Paul Farber, head and shoulders, wearing a corduroy jacket and tie, inscribed and signed "For Frere and Wallace with love/ John Steinbeck" in blue biro on the mount, gelatin silver print, some scuffs and dents, remains of tape on lower edge where fixed to mount, photograph 253 x 202mm., with mount 340 x 250mm., [1962]
Footnotes
'I'M BECOMING A BLOODY INDUSTRY & I CAN'T SAY I LIKE IT': STEINBECK TO HIS FRIEND AND PUBLISHER ON HIS LOVE FOR ENGLAND, WORK, FAMILY AND POLITICS, WITH HIS NOBEL PRIZE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH & A FINE PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH.
A significant and entertaining group in this wide-ranging series of letters dates from the Steinbecks' nine-month sojourn at Discove Cottage near the small Somerset town of Bruton, where they lived from the spring of 1959. Fascinated from childhood by the Arthurian legend, it was here at a place believed by some to be the location of Camelot that Steinbeck sought peace and solitude to research his retelling of Le Morte d'Arthur, published posthumously as The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights in 1976. Our letters show how the Steinbecks achieved a great sense of belonging, embracing their new community and demonstrating their love for the town and its characters. Through this "...complete and utter change of direction..." to a more simple life, Steinbeck was able to discover a new-found contentment and inspiration. Despite this, he found the task he had set himself increasingly daunting. Stressed and exhausted by the effort of attaining the perfection he craved, he suffered a minor stroke shortly after his return to America. For a detailed account of Steinbeck's time in Somerset see Andrew Pickering's Steinbeck and the Matter of Arthur, Bruton, Somerset, 1959, 2021.
Through these letters we discover Steinbeck's views on Britain, publishing, American politics, his awards, and family. Perhaps most poignant is Elaine's last letter of the sequence in which she describes her husband's death: "...I am confident the world will remember him as a writer. You, Wallace and Frere, please remember him as your friend...", she writes. Our letters would appear to be unpublished. Only one small extract from one of our letters was published in Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten's Life in Letters, 1975, and they do not appear in either of the biographies by Jay Parini (1994) or William Souder (2020).
This lot forms part of an archive of letters and papers from the personal collection of publisher Alexander Stuart Frere-Reeves (1892-1984), known as 'Frere' to his friends, which brings together many of the most important authors of the twentieth-century, and demonstrates a wide web of influence and relationships. As managing editor of William Heinemann, he built up an extraordinary list of talent represented here in correspondence from, amongst others, John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, Rebecca West and her lover H.G. Wells, W. Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, and J.B. Priestley, a lifelong friend with whom he edited Granta. Frere tended towards the younger, more 'modern' authors, several of whom became close friends, as is shown by these intimate letters, which blur the lines between personal and business relationships: '...He had a flair for detecting talent, and encouraging it, and the gift of establishing friendships with the people he liked and respected, among whom were most of his authors. He prided himself on publishing authors rather than books only...' (obituary, The Times, 6 October 1984). As a young man he had an intense relationship with the novelist Elizabeth von Arnim, nearly 30 years his senior, their hitherto unpublished correspondence also offered here (see lot 91). Many of our letters are addressed to his second wife Patricia Marion Caldecott Wallace (1907-1995), writer, theatre critic and daughter of the author Edgar Wallace, most notably some revealing correspondence from her close friend Daphne du Maurier (see lot 92).
After leaving Christ's College, Cambridge, Frere's career began as a journalist on the London Evening News. He joined William Heinemann, a subsidiary of Doubleday, in 1923, rose rapidly within the firm and was made managing director in 1932 under the chairmanship of C.S. Evans when F.N. Doubleday sold his shares after the Wall Street crash. He resigned as president in 1961 and retired a year later to become advisor to The Bodley Head. His papers have remained in the family until now.
Provenance: Alexander Stuart Frere (1892-1984); thence by descent to the present owner.