JOHN STEINBECK This contract, signed by the American author, authorized a German production of Of Mice and Men Typewritten contract signed: "John Steinbeck", 2p, 7½x12½ New York, New York, 1946 June 3.John Steinbeck signed this contract, dated June 3, 1946, allowing German-speaking actors to perform Of Mice and Men, his 1937 novelette featuring the tragic characters of Lennie and George, two migrant laborers. The work had been chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club and quickly became a best seller, sparking both Broadway's and Hollywood's interest in adapting it into a play. While writing Of Mice and Men in 1936, Steinbeck was growing increasingly interested in the theater, believing it to be the best medium to reach the common working man. In fact, Steinbeck actually wrote the book with the intention of making it a novel/play - a novel which could be performed as it was without needing to be revised for the stage. However,this experiment failed, and Steinbeck was forced to adapt it - his first attempt at writing a screen play. He was advised and encouraged by dramatist George S.

PIERRE CURIE The Nobel Peace Prize winning physicist apologizes for a missed appointment due to having been in his lab. Rare ALS: "P. Curie", 1½p, 5¾x4¼, front and verso. Faculté des Sciences de Paris, Cours de Physique, Paris, 1904 May 29. To an unnamed woman. Written from the Curie home at 108 Boulevard Kellerman. In French, translated. In full: "We sincerely regret Mme Curie and I having missed your appointment yesterday, which you granted us. I was in the laboratory yesterday at 5:30 in the evening. I found your letter but it was already too late and Mme Curie does not go to the laboratory at this time. Please excuse us and accept our sincerest best wishes." Five months earlier, Pierre and Marie Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Antoine Henri Becquerel for discovering radioactivity and studying uranium. The Curies continued their work on radioactivity, but Marie did not go to the laboratory as often as before. She was then three months pregnant and radioactive material was not something of which to be in contact.

CALVIN COOLIDGE President Wilson issues a Thanksgiving Proclamation less than a year before the start of World War I. Proclamation signed: "Woodrow Wilson" as President, 1p, 7½ x 12. Washington, D.C., 1913 October 23. In part: “The season is at hand in which it has been our long respected custom as a people to turn in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for his manifold mercies and blessings to us as a nation. The year that has just passed has been marked in a peculiar degree by manifestations of His gracious and beneficent providence.” President Woodrow Wilson issued this ceremonial Thanksgiving proclamation on October 23, 1913, during his first year in office. Wilson referred to the blessing of peace in the nation and the world, yet in less than a year, World War I had begun. For nearly two years of his first term, President Wilson worked to maintain America's neutrality and to mediate between the warring European nations. That war would occupy most of his attention following the United States' entrance into the war in April 1917. Two vertical and two horizontal creases.

ALBERT EINSTEIN Einstein Reviews the Controversy of the Universe. Extraordinary letter with amazing content! Typed Letter Signed: "A. Einstein". 8¼ x 9½. One page, on personal letterhead. Dated April 25, 1932. Sent to Dr. Ludwig Silberstein. Minor tears at vertical and horizontal folds which do not touch typeface. Surface stains at lower-left edge. Otherwise, fine condition. Includes unsigned photograph and 3 presentation plaques, one of which included an additional translation of the letter. Framed by the Gallery of History to an overall size of 41x25. Translated from German into English, in full: Dear Mr. Silberstein! Naturally I think back to our personal acquaintance. -On the cosmological problem and the term Λ the following remarks: 1.) From the point of view of my latest results in general relativity, the introduction of the Λ term is far more natural than it originally was. This emerges from a work that is right now being printed at the Academy. 2.) In Pasadena this winter I changed my position on the cosmological problem.

ALBERT EINSTEIN This typed letter is signed by the physicist and framed in the Gallery of History style to a size of 34x20 Typed Letter Signed: "A. Einstein" in ink. 6½x8½ letter. One page. Letterhead from Knollwood, Saranac Lake, New York. Dated August 1, 1940. Sent to Dr. Alvin Johnson. In Full: "Mr. Hermann Broch has informed me that I may be asked about Professor Karl Feldmann of Leyden(Holland). My knowledge of Professor Feldmann's work, however, is not sufficient to give a valuation of it. I should be grateful if some papers by him would be sent to me. / With the expression of my highest appreciation of your admirable activities". Framed with two plaques and a 7x9 color reprinted painting by Rick Parks to a total size of 34x20. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was born in Ulm, Germany. When he was a teenager, his family moved throughout Europe due to his father's work. At various times in his life, he held citizenship from Switzerland, the Weimar Republic, and the United States. Most of his ground-breaking work in physics came well before WWII in the form of his special theory of relativity and his studies in the general theory of relativity.

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.

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL Churchill signs a photograph that shows himself aboard the U.S.S. Franconia. Photograph signed: "W S Churchill", b/w, 9¾ x 7¾. Winston S. Churchill signed this photograph taken of himself aboard the U.S.S. Franconia (February 11-14, 1945), just after the meeting of the Big Three at the Yalta Conference on the Black Sea (February 5-11). The three major powers were represented by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Russian Commissar Joseph Stalin, and Churchill of Great Britain, who said of the conference, "I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire". Surface creases, otherwise fine condition. Framed to an overall size of 35½ x 18½. CHURCHILL (1874-1965) became a Member of Parliament in 1901. He successively served as Undersecretary for Colonies (1905-1908), President of the Board of Trade (1908-1910), Home Secretary (1910-1911) and First Lord of Admiralty (1911-1915).

JOHN STEINBECK. Steinbeck authorizes the French production of a war-time play. Typewritten contract signed: "John Steinbeck", 3p, 8x12½ Paris, France, 1947 February 24.John Ernest Steinbeck Jr. signed this contract, dated February 24, 1947, to permit Madame Rose Belin, the Director of the Saint George Theater, to finance productions of his play, The Moon Is Down, in France and Belgium. The contract also provided for the translation of the play into French. Steinbeck had written the play during World War II (1939-1945); it had opened on Broadway on April 8, 1942. After completing the play, Steinbeck immediately adapted it into a novelette with the same title. The Moon is Down deals with the Nazi occupation of a European country; Steinbeck wrote it as a contribution to the war effort while working with the Coordinator of Information, an agency created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) to combat Nazi propaganda with Allied films and literary works. The play was criticized in the United