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Lot 83
Salinger, J.D (1919-2010) American author who withdrew from public life after the meteoric success of his novel, The Catcher in the Rye (1951). His letters are exceedingly rare and desirable and will become more so with his recent demise. The reclusive author responds to a letter from a woman who sympathizes with his desire for privacy, ironically beginning a series of letters and eventually, visits to his home. Archive of five original letters and a handwritten note from Salinger, with copies of four letters from his pen pal to him (New Hampshire), 1981-82. Salinger regularly used pseudonyms--"Jerry," "Armand," etc., in his correspondence with Mary Janet, later just Janet.
(1) Typed Letter Signed, "Jerry," 2pp, 8½ x 5½ in., on goldenrod paper, with envelope postmarked from Vermont, March 12, 1981. Addressed to Mary Janet. Salinger attempts to explain a perhaps offensive remark in a previous letter then launches into a complex astrological reason for his ability and "comfort" in expressing his thoughts to her, "God knows I didn’t mean your mind is light or transitory, etc., but that one’s enthusiasms about astrology must in the end be, since it is so far from what passes in English for "reality." I just meant that Astrology, for me, is a prop and a tool for the dream we all live in, and that I didn’t think its importance, for you, would be different from what it is for me…I know several Leos pretty well, but have never known a Leo with a Capricorn ascendant…For that matter, I don’t know anyone else who has anything like your horoscope. Selfishly speaking, it’s phenomenally easy on me to type and mail thoughts to someone whose ascend. conjuncts my sun, moon, and Venus, whose Jupiter trine my sun, moon, and Venus, whose Venus conj. my Pluto and Jupiter in the Seventh House, and fascinatingly, a lot more than that…(signed) Jerry." Very fine condition with the usual folds.
(2) Autograph Note Signed, "Armand," one page, 5½ x 4 in., on goldenrod paper, with envelope postmarked from Vermont, April 7, 1981, stapled to copy of a magazine article by Rene Dubois, "Nutritional Ambiguities, A diet suitable for one individual may be dangerously deficient for another." Addressed to Mary Janet. In full, "I thought the enclosed article might be comfort & solace To Tim [Mary Janet’s older brother]. (Maybe, To us all.) / Thine, / Armand." Fine with staple and fold.
(3) Typed Letter Signed in type, "Chick," 2pp, 8½ x 5¾ in., on goldenrod paper, with envelope postmarked from Vermont, April 12, 1981. Addressed to Janet. Salinger opens the letter in typical humorous fashion, "Snug, provident to have the No. Berwick phone number, and Mom says she’s going to sew it into the hem of my pinafore," admits " I have whole drawerfuls of gloomy doubts, myself, that anyone ever comes on entirely natural with anybody," and sympathizes with her frustrations over her brother’s nutritional choices and their repercussions, "…Still, I dislike and dread feeling under par, inordinately tired or fragile, as I did most of my life, and I can’t imagine not deploring and despising outright stupid or unnecessary forms of abuse of these bodies we appear to live in, reside in…There has or ought to be a middle ground between the granola eaters and the Yodel and coke consumers. The bad fact is, it’s no cinch to find out what one definitely…thrive[s] on…with the enemy, the real menace, the mind." Salinger closes the letter on an upbeat, "Must close, Sister. May St. Nora (Patron Saint of the Lower Colon) be with you and the Mother Superior. / (typed) Chick." Very fine condition with the usual folds.
(4) Typed Letter Signed in type, "Scott Weinfeld, Jr.," 2pp, 11 x 8½", on goldenrod paper, with envelope postmarked from Vermont, May 1, 1981. Addressed to Janet. Salinger responds to a short letter from Janet dated April 28, 1981 [a copy of which is part of this archive] in which she expresses concern that she hasn’t heard from him. Janet tells of consoling Sarah "who just last night broke the news that her father, married just 1½ years ago, is separating. His wife’s idea…I can see Sarah’s vision getting clearer…regarding her father. The hero is dead, to be replaced…by a very mottled and scared guy." Salinger responds that he is "O.K." then launches into a tirade about unsolicited mail, "…just too damn many pieces of curiously rotten mail on the desk, most of them from professed I-love-life types, who are second in my heart only to …healthier folk who love to blurt out that they love people…I throw most of that crap out before I leave the P.O., but sometimes, out of stupidity or because some goof is checking me out as I stand reading, I shove the mess into my briefcase and take it home, which is the worst thing to do with it. When it reaches a pile of a certain size…it automatically paralyzes me for days or weeks…I’d never even vaguely anticipated the freakishness, the coarse and really brutally self-interested incursion of unsolicited mail …the grosser ninety-five percent slowly kills." He goes on, "Have never known how to cope with it…thanks to the press and the adorable Time-Life Syndicate, it’s known where I hole up, and most fishy mail arrives here licketysplit…" Salinger offers some advice, then admits his dread of having workers on his property, "I’m having a woodshed built, starting tomorrow. I dread like poison having affable workers on the premises again. So strenuous trying to be not-a-bad-guy-really for a whole damn week…the all-around hideousness of constant arrivals and presences of alien creatures…" Very fine with folds.
(5) Typed Letter Signed in type "Rory," 2pp, 8½ x 5½, on goldenrod paper, with envelope postmarked from Vermont, December 3, 1981. Addressed to Janet. Salinger is more upbeat in this letter, which is without harangues and full of his wisdom on single-parenting, "As for peanut butter jars left open, milk glasses parked anywhere, unrinsed-out, you can bet I’m familiar enough with that stuff. Much of that is the sole resident Parent’s appointed lot. Parents who come in pairs get it, too, but not in altogether seemingly retributive endlessness. It’s probably a good idea to suspect very strongly that a divorced or single parent’s very visible aloneness, or consortlessness, is pretty much a condition a kid considers contrary to approved herd ways. I wouldn’t be surprised if an imaginative kid might have worries (sunk way out of sight in the unsconscious [sic]) that some of that single parent’s singleness might rub off on her (or him)…Anyway, hell, I do think the solo parent can occasionally come through O.K., if it is a fact, or close to a fact, that he or she is reasonably consistent, and, maybe most of all, unreasonably affectionate in most, if not all, kinds of domestic/familial crises and blowups…." Very fine with folds.
(6) Typed Letter Signed in type, "Juan Pedro," 2pp, 8½ x 5½ in., on goldenrod paper, with envelope postmarked from Vermont, January 28, 1982. Addressed to Janet. In Janet’s letter to Salinger eight days earlier, she expressed misgivings about writing a book one day about her brother and her. " Salinger‘s reply reveals the value he places on privacy, and writing critiques, "Your hesitation seems to me eminently sound, reasonable. The living and the dead alike (among other considerations) have terribly subtle rights, many of which they themselves don’t recognize or honor, so others probably must. / About dialogue samples. If I were you, I’d never send samples of anything to anybody except, of necessity, some editor or publisher where you might want to place the writing. Otherwise, no one. All responses, "favorable" or otherwise, are misleading, damaging, interruptive, if not immediately, sooner or later." Very fine with folds.
Other items in the archive include photocopies of a February 25, 1980 People magazine article on Salinger, photocopies of five letters Janet sent to Salinger, and a photocopy of a document in which Janet explains how the article in People prompted her to write to Salinger, expressing her brother Tim's and her concern about invasions of his privacy. To her surprise, Salinger answered. They corresponded, off and on, for over two years and she visited his home twice.
Estimated Value $10,000 - 15,000.
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| Realized $14,688 |
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