RARE EARLY CORRESPONDENCE: “I’M WRITING SENSATIONAL DETECTIVE FICTION.” 5 Typed Letters, 30 pp recto and verso, 4to and 8vo, various places, including Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, and Big Bear, August 12, 1933 to May 31, 1938, to William Lever, 1936 letter with long autograph inscription of Cissy Chandler to recto and verso of p 3, 4 letters with original transmittal envelopes, toning, creasing, and thumbing throughout. This early series of letters, written during Chandler’s first years as a full-time writer, are to an old friend who had moved to Cape Town, South Africa to open a shoe sales business. Though Chandler only wrote every year or so, each letter is long and detailed, describing an important transitional period in his development as a writer. From August 12, 1933: “…I’m on the threshold of getting the only place I ever have wanted with all my heart to get. I’m making a start as a writer. I have sold a long story and made a connection that will without doubt bring me in a fair living at once and lead to real money after a while. I have a lot to learn—I had still more to unlearn. You’ll laugh when I tell you what I write. Me, with my romantic and poetical instincts. I’m writing sensational detective fiction. It took me a year to write my first story. I had to go back to the beginning and learn to write all over again, but I sold the very first story I sent out. I knew I would, because I knew what effect I wanted to get, and I wouldn’t send out a line until I got it.” In other letters, Chandler describes his life in his small Silverlake house with his wife Cissy and their black Persian cat, declares a dislike for drinking in excess (!), and discusses the difficulties of writing his first novel (1939’s The Big Sleep). In a 1938 letter, he explains why he continues to publish in pulp magazines instead of the glossies, which pay better. From May 31, 1938: “It seems silly to most people that know me, and once in a while to myself, that I stick to these rough paper magazines with their punk word rates, instead of attacking the slicks, Collier’s, the Post, Cosmopolitan, etc. Of course I have a reason and an explanation, but don’t usually put them out, as only a writer would really understand the point of view. Assuming … that I could make any of these magazines, if I tried consistently, my observation shows me that they are the unfreeest [sic] of all forms of writing, and that to accept their conditions in order to get their money, before you have made a reputation as a writer of some force, is about the same as going to Hollywood. You make nice money, if you can make good, and you perish, as a writer." Apparently unpublished.
RARE EARLY CORRESPONDENCE: “I’M WRITING SENSATIONAL DETECTIVE FICTION.” 5 Typed Letters, 30 pp recto and verso, 4to and 8vo, various places, including Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, and Big Bear, August 12, 1933 to May 31, 1938, to William Lever, 1936 letter with long autograph inscription of Cissy Chandler to recto and verso of p 3, 4 letters with original transmittal envelopes, toning, creasing, and thumbing throughout. This early series of letters, written during Chandler’s first years as a full-time writer, are to an old friend who had moved to Cape Town, South Africa to open a shoe sales business. Though Chandler only wrote every year or so, each letter is long and detailed, describing an important transitional period in his development as a writer. From August 12, 1933: “…I’m on the threshold of getting the only place I ever have wanted with all my heart to get. I’m making a start as a writer. I have sold a long story and made a connection that will without doubt bring me in a fair living at once and lead to real money after a while. I have a lot to learn—I had still more to unlearn. You’ll laugh when I tell you what I write. Me, with my romantic and poetical instincts. I’m writing sensational detective fiction. It took me a year to write my first story. I had to go back to the beginning and learn to write all over again, but I sold the very first story I sent out. I knew I would, because I knew what effect I wanted to get, and I wouldn’t send out a line until I got it.” In other letters, Chandler describes his life in his small Silverlake house with his wife Cissy and their black Persian cat, declares a dislike for drinking in excess (!), and discusses the difficulties of writing his first novel (1939’s The Big Sleep). In a 1938 letter, he explains why he continues to publish in pulp magazines instead of the glossies, which pay better. From May 31, 1938: “It seems silly to most people that know me, and once in a while to myself, that I stick to these rough paper magazines with their punk word rates, instead of attacking the slicks, Collier’s, the Post, Cosmopolitan, etc. Of course I have a reason and an explanation, but don’t usually put them out, as only a writer would really understand the point of view. Assuming … that I could make any of these magazines, if I tried consistently, my observation shows me that they are the unfreeest [sic] of all forms of writing, and that to accept their conditions in order to get their money, before you have made a reputation as a writer of some force, is about the same as going to Hollywood. You make nice money, if you can make good, and you perish, as a writer." Apparently unpublished.
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
Testen Sie LotSearch und seine Premium-Features 7 Tage - ohne Kosten!
Lassen Sie sich automatisch über neue Objekte in kommenden Auktionen benachrichtigen.
Suchauftrag anlegen
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
