MARGARET MITCHELL Her typed and signed 1937 letter upon learning that Gone With the Wind had won the Pulitzer Prize, addressed to the literary critic who had first predicted that it would, framed with her picture in the Gallery of History style to 30x22. Typed Letter Signed: "Margaret", 1 page, 6½x10. Atlanta, Georgia, 1937 May 4. To Mabel and Edwin Granberry. In full: "Your telegram has just arrived and thank you so very much for it. As soon as I got the news last night I thought of you two and Herschel at the table last summer when you predicted it and I laughed so hard my glasses fell into the gravy. Naturally, this is a happy day for me and a wire like yours adds greatly to my happiness." Typed note by Granberry at lower margin: "(NOTE: GONE WITH THE WIND had just won the Pulitzer Prize. - E.G.)". MARGARET MITCHELL (1900-1949) had won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, Gone With the Wind, the day before she wrote this letter. Mitchell, who had begun writing her epic about the Civil War and Reconstruction South in 1926, finally submitted her manuscript to Macmillian Company in 1935. read more...

MARGARET MITCHELL Long personal letter to friend and fellow author Edwin Granberry, mentioning several literary friends and the exigencies of life in wartime Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 3 pages, 7¼x10. Atlanta, Georgia, 1942 September 21. On personal letterhead to "Dear Mabel and Edwin" [Granberry], in part: "I have been laying off to write to you for the longest and foolishly postponed doing so until I could write a long letter. That time may never come, and so I am grabbing this opportunity while the house painters are out at lunch. ... I've just come back from a quick trip to New York where John had to be on business. The only people I saw were the Clifford Dowdeys, who asked to be remembered to you. Clifford has been having fits trying to get into the army, with no luck so far because his eyes are bad. He has almost finished a new novel , which is about Memphis or Natchez in the 1830's. He told me news of Kenneth Littauer which I am passing on to you. He has been in the air corps for nearly a year, with the rank of major. His address is Headquarters 21st Bomb Group, MacDill Field, Tampa, Florida. read more...

MARGARET MITCHELL Pleased that friend and fellow author Edwin Granberry is writing again, she shares with him her relief that the frenzy over the movie version of her book has abated with the outbreak of war: "The world has far more important things to think about these days than me." Several other literary notables are mentioned in this letter. Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 3 pages, 7¼x10½. Atlanta, Georgia, 1940 September 23. To "My dear Mabel and Edwin [Granberry], you varmint". In part: "Here I've gone around feeling blue ever since I had the last news of you (Edwin) that you had given up any notion of writing any more. I had thought about what a waste of talent it was and had heroically restrined myself from writing and telling you so. Then, a month ago, vague rumors began trickling into my ears at parties that you were writing again. Don't ask me who told me because I don't know. I go places and meet two hundred strangers in thirteen and a half minutes, and some of them say, 'Oh, do you know Edwin Granberry who is doing some writing?' and before I could catch them they would disappear and twelve more strange faces would stand before me. read more...

STEPHEN CRANE The author of The Red Badge of Courage knew conflict from football, not the battlefield. Rare AQS: "Stephen Crane", 1p, 5½x2¾. In full: "I have never been in a battle, of course, and/I believe that I got my sense of the rage/of conflict on the foot ball field." America's foremost "naturalistic" author had moved to England in 1897. Although he never served in the military, Crane won international acclaim with The Red Badge of Courage, his 1895 book that powerfully told the story of a young soldier during the American Civil War. He later served as a war correspondent, covering the Greco-Turkish War (1897) and the Spanish-American War for foreign newspapers. Crane, who suffered from tuberculosis, died in a German sanitarium at the age of 28. Crane's signature is virtually unobtainable in any form. Fine condition. Accompanied by PSA/DNA LOA. read more...

J. D. SALINGER The author of The Catcher in the Rye signed this typed and framed letter with just his first name Typed Letter Signed: “Jerry”. One page. 8x9½ of letter visible. Dated June 20, 1962. Sent to “Ned”. Message in part: “Many thanks for sending those sales figures. I haven't quite broken the code yet, but it makes absorbing reading anyway. I'm very glad and thankful that sales have been that good. Also, I go on taking a deep and possibly unwholesome pleasure in the physical appearance of the book, the simple comeliness of the jacket, binding, print, margins, size, etc. Not less so, certainly, since the British hard-cover cheap edition arrived here”. Includes a plaque and black and white image of the author. J. D. Salinger (1919-2010), born Jerome David Salinger in New York City, wrote his first novel The Catcher in the Rye in 1951. It immediately became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and won huge international acclaim. It still sells about 250,000 copies annually. read more...

MARGARET MITCHELL Writing to friend and fellow author Edwin Granberry, she complains of the constant invasions of her privacy following publication of Gone With the Wind; Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 1 page, 7¼x10½. No place, no date, but undoubtedly written from her home in Atlanta in the late in the late 1930s, before the appearance of the film. On personal letterhead to Edwin and Mabel Granberry in full: "I've been intending to write to you for a long time - but you see how far my wants have gotten me. The reason was that when I went to N. Y. to see about the movie contract, my over strained eyes practically gave up the ghost. Herschel B [Brickell, a friendly literary critic], loaded me on the train in a bad way and since that time (up until a week ago) I've been lying in a dark room with a black bandage over my eyes. No, there's nothing seriously wrong and I'm writing you all to tell you so far already the rumor is out that I've gone blind. I wouldn't like for you to hear that and not know the truth. My eyes just needed a rest and so did I. Now I have new glasses and can see very well. It may be some time before I can do any reading or writing but I'm glad enough at being out of the dark. read more...

MARGARET MITCHELL Letter to fellow author and literary booster Edwin Granberry, accepting congratulations for her Pulitzer Prize but expressing a desire to preserve at least a little personal privacy. Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 1 page, 7¼x10½. Atlanta, Georgia, 1937 May 12. On personal letterhead to ""Dear Edwin", [Granberry], in full: "That was certainly a grand, long letter and John and I appreciated it immediately. Thanks again for the congratulations about the Award. I am just beginning to come up for air and realizing that it is really true. Since the news came so much has happened - flashlights going off, reporters slithering out of the cracks in the floor and the house full of people - that I have had no chance to really think. One of the nice features of the affair was that Harold Latham, who dug up the book, just happened to be in Atlanta on the day the Award was announced. He gave me a party complete with newspaper friends, as many orchids as a Kentucky Derby winner and barrels of Champaigne. While you and Herschel kept telling me last summer that it would undoubtedly work out this way, I just couldn't believe it. read more...

MARGARET MITCHELL Typed letter from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of Gone With the Wind, to Edwin Granberry (and wife), who wrote one of the first good reviews of her book. She discusses how sorry she is for not writing them sooner describing herself as "oafish of oafs", explaining how busy she has become and will send a lengthier letter when the time is allowed Autograph Letter Signed: "M. M. M", 4p, 7x11. No place, 1936 July 27. To "Mabel and Edwin" [Granberry, an early reviewer of Gone With the Wind]. In full: "You two have every right to think me the most oafish of oafs for not having written you sooner to thank you for sanctuary, good food and best of all, marvelous company. Each morning I've risen, bent on writing to you and, as Hell began to pop before I even got my coffee down, I'd think 'No, I'll wait till I get time for a long letter.' And the time hasn't come. I don't know when it will come as John and my brother Steve, after a five hour conference about this so-and-so contract, sprung on me tonight a plan to go to N.Y. tomorrow and settle the thing in person. I have no clothes, no hats, not a change of underwear or an extra pair of stockings, but it seems that I'm going to N.Y. read more...

J. D. SALINGER Remarkable 1989 typed letter to his division commander in World War II, signed as "Jerry Salinger," sharing with Colonel Reeder the type of personal information - including a past encounter with baseball Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk - which Salinger usually concealed so zealously. Typed Letter signed: "Jerry Salinger", 1 page, 8½x11. Cornish, New Hampshire, 1989 November 16. To "Dear Colonel Red", in full: "Hearing from Red Rider (your Fourth Division sobriquet, as it reached me anyway - 'Hey, did you hear Red Rider got hit.') Hearing from Red Rider may just possibly be my second and last claim to bonafide and hitchless fame, the other probably claim dating back some twenty years, when one of the three or four young guys who poured the new foundation for my new house went on to catch beautifully and almost without end for the Red Sox: one Carlton Fisk. I thank you so much for your letter, Colonel Red. And I thank you greatly for the invitation to drop by in 1990. I don't think I will be able to do that, because I'm doing my best, these days, to stay put; the better, at least theoretically, to hold concentration and see what I can do about finishing up things on and over and even under my desk. read more...