MARK VAN DOREN - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 02/27/1959 - HFSID 32997

MARK VAN DOREN
The author pens this response letter to a fan. In the year he wrote this letter, he would retire from teaching at Columbia University and publish two books
Autograph Letter Signed: "Mark Van Doren" on verso of postal card, 3¼x5½. New York City, 1959 February 27. 3-cent imprinted postal card, postmarked New York, N.Y., February 28, 1959. Addressed by Van Doren on front to: "Miss Corrine R. Manning, 2200 19th Street N.W., Washington 9, D.C." Begins: "Dear Miss Manning". In full: "This is the nearest thing to a proper answer that I can send for now. Thank you for a beautiful letter, which all of us have enjoyed. Our best to you Sincerely." In the year he wrote this letter, Van Doren would retire from teaching at Columbia University, publish two books, Morning Worship and Other Poems and The Professor and I, memoirs of his wife, writer and novelist Dorothy Graffe Van Doren, and write a play, The Last Days of Lincoln. Poet, author and critic Mark Van Doren (1894-1973) won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems, 1922-1938. A teacher at Columbia University from 1920-1959, Van Doren also wrote novels, short stories, a play, critical studies of various authors, including John Dryden (1920) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1946), and an autobiography (published in 1958, the year before this letter). He also served on the staff of "The Nation" from 1924-1928 and 1935-1938. Van Doren's literary family also included his brother, Carl, who also taught at Columbia and with whom he wrote, American and British Literature Since 1890 (1939). Van Doren's son, Charles, also had a claim to fame: he was the winner of the rigged TV game show, Twenty-One. Lightly soiled, touching 3 lines of writing (all legible). Light mounting stains on front (no show through). Otherwise, fine condition.