30. [Best Selling Authors]. A comprehensive collection of 45 letters and photographs written by best selling authors who reflect back to their adolescent years and search for literary influences. Highlights include:

Caldwell, Taylor. Autograph letter signed and typed letter signed, 1 page each, New York, 1966 and n.d.; with original envelopes. A fascinating letter that includes a short biography where Caldwell says: After I was 15 I had little time to read, as I was—at 15—holding down a full-time job as a secretary, + going to college at night. Then at 18 I was a wife + mother + had to support a family--+ go to school at night. By 15, Caldwell says she read all the “classics” in English, French, German + Latin.

Crichton, Robert. Two typed letters signed, 1 page each, 20 May 1967 and n.d.; with original envelopes. He writes in part: Actually when I was a teen-ager I always read books considered just a little too hard or too dangerous for my years. As such I couldn’t be called a teen age reader. I happen to believe that all intelligent, good teen age readers always do that.,. they’re always a little beyond their depth and reach.

Hersey, John. Two autograph letters signed and a typed letter with handwritten notations, 1 page each, New Haven, Connecticut, 9 April 1966, 12 October 1967 and n.d.; with original envelopes and a photograph. Mentioning more modern writers such as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, Hersey notes that he is delighted you’re trying to stir up readers! I happen to think that the best—perhaps the only—hopes of mankind lie in the written word.

Miller, Henry. Two typed letters signed one with a handwritten notation, 1 page each, 11 June 1969 and 11 June 1969; with original envelopes. Miller lists authors such as Jack London, Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling as most influential, noting that he has been influenced by both good and bad writers.

Vidal, Gore. Autograph letter signed, 1 page, postmarked 22 December 1967, with original envelope and a typed version of the original letter. He writes in part: As an adolescent, I read compulsively everything I could get my hands on. He notes that novels of great influence were of historical and magical genres.

Also included in this collection are fine authors such as Norman Mailer, John Cheever, Irving Wallace, Erskine Caldwell, Allen Drury, Daphne Du Maurier, Howard Fast, Ira Levin, James A. Michener, Irving Stone, Leon Uris, and Herman Wouk.
$1,200 - $1,800