JESSAMYN WEST - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 10/24/1972 - HFSID 206128

JESSAMYN WEST
West responds to a request for classroom donations in 1972
Autograph Letter signed: "Jessamyn West". 2p. 5½x7¾ front and verso, on personal letterhead. Napa California, 1972 October 24, to J. L. Pruett. In full: "Dear J. L. Pruett, I would have answered your letter sooner but we are just home after a month in the forests and mountains and hills of Oregon, Idaho and Nevada. I am at the minute bogged down under transferring household stuff from 'motor home' to home, answering the mail that has accumulated and getting to work again on my novel - So I haven't at hand anything I would like to send to your class - ex cept these animal stamps. [not included] I wonder which is their favorite? I think mine is the owl. Later, I can perhaps find other thins to interest them. (over) I send my very best wishes to you and your classes. I spent two years in bed and ten years on a sofa with tuberculosis so I know what it is not to be able to do everything one longs to do. But with out the tuberculosis, which shut me off from other activities, I might never have had the impetus to do what I truly wanted to do - that is write. Happy fall days." American author Jessamyn West (1902-1984) is perhaps best known for her 1945 novel The Friendly Persuasion that was made into a movie starring Gary Cooper in 1956. Other novels include The Witch Diggers (1951), A Matter of Time (1966) and The Massacre at Fall Creek (1975). Her other writing include screenplays The Big County (1958) and Stolen Hours (1963). West taught at writers' conferences (1935-1984) at various universities including Stanford, Loyola Marymount, Notre Dame and Portland University. Her opera libretto A Mirror of the Sky was first performed at the University of Oregon in 1957. A Quaker, West helped found the Palmer Society in 1921, was the editor of A Quaker Reader (1962), and the second cousin of President Richard Nixon. Normal mailing folds. Ink note (unknown hand) at lower right corner. Otherwise, fine condition.