DASHIELL HAMMETT Signed and notarized 1930 contract selling Paramount the rights to one of his stories Typed Contract signed: "Dashiell Hammett", 4 pages, 8½x11, separate sheets. No place, but County of Los Angeles, 1930 November 26. Contract between Hammett and Paramount Publix Corporation regarding the sale of the rights "to an original story entitled AFTER SCHOOL written by the seller [Hammett]." Hammett was paid "the sum of Five Thousand ($5000.00) Dollars, receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged." Countersigned by the Executive Manager of Paramount Publix Corporation. Lightly creased. Nicked at upper right blank corner of first page, file holes at blank left margins. Fine condition. Accompanied by typed notarized statement signed: "Alfred A. Grosser" as Notary Public, 1 page, 8½x11. Attesting that "personally appeared DASHIELL HAMMETT, personally known to me to be the person whose name is subscribed to the foregoing instrument...." Lightly creased, chipped at upper right blank corner. File holes at blank left margin. Fine condition. After School became City Streets, released in 1931 and starring Gary Cooper.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY Handwritten 1936 manuscript likely intended for publication in Esquire magazine, vividly describing the horrors of war, with his third person signature in the text Autograph Manuscript signed in text: "Mr. Ernest Hemingway" in pencil, 1 page, 8½x11. No place, c. 1936. Headed by him: "Please Mr. Ernest Hemingway by Paul Harris, The American Criterion, Dec 1935, about 'letters' appearing monthly in Esquire…." Ernest Hemingway was a frequent contributor to "Esquire" magazine. He wrote a total 31 "letters" which were published in "Esquire" in the 1930s. In the September 1935 issue, he wrote: "Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter". This may be a rough draft of one of the 31 "letters". Hemingway has made an "X", crossing out the entire letter. In part: "Mr. Hemingway, you were at the front. You saw people die? I was ten and I saw people, I saw something in them die and they had to go on making believe they were alive still with their guts out of them. I saw people age.

MARGARET MITCHELL A 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.

MARGARET MITCHELL Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind, sends a letter to Edwin Granberry, who wrote one of the first good reviews of her book. In it, she discusses life as a celebrated author "has been such a hell". Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 1p, 7¼x10¾. Atlanta, Georgia, 1936 October 29. On personal letterhead to Edwin (Granberry). In full: "I forgot to say in my last letter that I admired very much your tricky side stepping in that article you wrote. How neatly you evaded the fact that you not only stood in the station of a North Carolina hamlet and waited for me but you stood and stood and waited and waited. Dearie, till I die I'll get a laugh at the memory of that day with me getting madder and madder as I waited and you three loafing with your backs against the station while I charged in and out, addressing strangers, asking questions, bargaining with taxi drivers for the trip. Edwin, all the while I was up there with you all, I let you talk about my work. Make up your mind that when next I see you, it will be your work that will be talked about.

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN) Signed 4½x7 autograph letter from a London hotel, writing that he hopes to lecture in Britain "if other & more necessary business shall permit." ALS: "Saml. L. Clemens", 1 page, 4½x7. Langham Hotel,/Portland Place, London. W, no year, October 18. To unknown recipient. Begins: "Sir". In full: "I think it will be 2 or 3 weeks before I shall really know whether I can lecture in Great Britain or not. So I am obliged to be thus indefinite in my reply. I certainly shall lecture about 8 or 10 times in this country if other & more necessary business shall permit." From the University of California Press review of Volume 5 of Mark Twain's Letters prepared by the Mark Twain Project at the University of California, Berkeley. "After beginning work on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, he [Clemens] set it aside to collaborate, almost as a lark, on a novel with Charles Dudley Warner. After a few months of intense labor in the winter of 1872-1873, they produced The Gilded Age, which gave a lasting name to the era it satirized.

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.

HERMAN MELVILLE His clipped signature, with his portrait, two first day covers of stamps honoring him, and a picture of a whale. One of the rarest of all signatures! Signature: "Herman Melville", 4½x4, with four unsigned items: a printed portrait of Melville; two first day covers of stamps honoring him; and a color illustration of a whale, presumably Moby Dick. Herman Melville (1819-1891, born in New York City) worked at a young age as a cabin boy and sailor on merchant vessels. During an unsuccessful whaling expedition, he took part in a mutiny, was jailed and escaped. His seafaring inspired many of his later works, including Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), Omoo, a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847) and his masterpiece, Moby Dick (1851). Moby Dick, unlike his earlier works, was neither a critical or financial success. Melville's later writings, such as Pierre (1852), The Confidence Man (1857) and the short stories Bartleby the Scrivener and The Encantadas reflected his despair and contempt for society's corruption, hypocrisy and materialism. Melville took a break from writing to work as a customs inspector on

MARGARET MITCHELL Mitchell, always shy about the spotlight on her following Gone With the Wind, confides to friend and fellow author Edwin Granberry that "it is tempting fate to ever write a book or a play. If you do, everything except a plague of grasshoppers arrives." Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 2 pages (front and verso), 7¼x10½. Atlanta, Georgia, 1941 November 11. On personal letterhead to "Dear Mabel and Edwin" [Granberry], in full: "We were very distressed to learn of your illness, Mabel, and I was glad to see Fred Hanna at a party Sunday night and learn that you really were up and about. Don't you think you Granberrys have managed all the plagues of Egypt now? I never knew any family, except us, to have as much trouble. (And, as Michael Arlen remarked in 'The Green Hat,' 'the Marches are never let off of anything.') Things are well with us now but I remember, with no pleasure, the first five years we were married when everyone in our family seemed to have something happen to them. Perhaps it is something all couples must go through with, but I hope the Granberrys are really through now. Edwin, you know it is tempting fate to ever try to write a book or a play.

HERMAN MELVILLE Autograph Quotation signed by Herman Melville, one of the rarest of all signatures, framed by the Gallery of History with a picture of Melville and an explanatory metal plaque. AQS: "Hours bright./Herman Melville/March 8, 1882.", 7¾x4¾. Herman Melville (1819-1891) worked at a young age as a cabin boy and sailor on merchant vessels. During an unsuccessful whaling expedition, he took part in a mutiny, was jailed and escaped.His seafaring inspired many of his later works, including Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), Omoo, a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847) and his masterpiece, Moby Dick (1851). Moby Dick, unlike his earlier works, was neither a critical or financial success. Melville's later writings, such as Pierre (1852), The Confidence Man (1857) and the short stories "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "The Encantadas" reflected his despair and contempt for society's corruption, hypocrisy and materialism. He wrote this quotation at a period during which he withdrew from the literary world and took work as a customs inspector on the docks of New York.

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN) Visiting Sweden in search of a cure for his daughter's epilepsy, Clemens asks a bookseller to send him some "the very best of Clark Russell's sea-tales". Autograph Letter Signed: "SL C.", 1p, 5½x8½. Sanna, Rosendala, Sweden, 1899 July 16. "Telegraphic address: Sanna Jonkoping, Sweden". To bookseller "C&W". In full: "Please send me a couple of the very best of Clark Russell's sea-tales that you've got in stock. If any of my photos are only about as big as this page, we shall be glad to have them here - but bigger ones we prefer to leave with you for the present. If you haven't heard from Clara when this reaches you, please drop her a line. Jonkoping is pronounced Zhenshepping - think of that!" Samuel, his wife Olivia and their daughter Jean had arrived in Sweden early in July 1899, and remained until October. JEAN CLEMENS (1880-1910), then 19 years old, suffered from epilepsy. Clemens had heard of an osteopathic treatment as practiced by Heinrick Kellgren in Sanna. Kellgren's method was known as the "Swedish movements".