Beschreibung:

American and English Authors (Mainly) Chandler, Raymond. Typed letter signed ("Ray") to S. J. Perelman, 1 ½ pages, 4to, single-spaced, La Jolla, 9 January 1952. On Florida, Rancho Santa Fe, using an Audograph, and Hollywood: "... Why is your wife so mad at Hollywood? After all there are lots of nice people in Hollywood, far more than there are in La Jolla. The picture business can be a little trying at times, but I don't suppose working for General Motors is all sheer delight, and working for Henry Ford ... must have been just about as restful as being a bodyguard for Dutch Schultz ... I am frankly not interested in your Florida sex hunger. Nobody made you go to Florida ... I rather gathered from your writings that about all ... [your wife Laura] does is put perfume in her hair and loaf around in a mink coat and slacks ... may I remind you of your promise to lend me that book of Nathanael West's, which seems to be unobtainable here." Wilson, Edmund. Two autograph letters signed ("Edmund") to Perelman, together 2 pages, small 4to, Wellfleet, Mass., and Paris, 11 December 1958 and 20 December 1963. "... I am [still?] reading The Most [of S. J. Perelman]. What I don't understand is how—having been born, I find, nine years later than I—you know about Elbert Hubbard ..& The Japanese Schoolboy—& how many of your readers, do you think, recognize these references?... We've just read your latest New Yorker piece & have been thinking of you ..." Maugham, William Somerset. Three autograph letters signed and three typed letters signed (five of the letters signed "W. Somerset Maugham," the sixth with initials) to Perelman, together 7 pages, 8vo, Villa Mauresque, 1957–1959 and no date. Maugham thanks Perelman for copies of his books, praises his writing, and arranges for meetings. 30 January 1957: "... we are suffering from the lack of fuel oil, and the house is like an ice box, but your chapters [in The Road to Miltown] warmed the cockles of my heart, so that by writing these pieces you have probably saved my life." N.d.: "Thank you very kindly for sending me your two books. They are a treat. I have been reading them in bed at night & had a grand time. I have laughed & laughed, & wondered how on earth you manage to be so very funny so very often ..." Theroux, Paul. Three typed letters signed ("Paul") to Perelman, together 6 pages, 4to, single-spaced, London, 1977–1979. Lively, chatty letters in which Theroux talks about his writing projects, travels, life in London, etc. 4 January 1977: "... My story 'Dependent Wife' is one of 20 which will appear together this year under the title, The Consul's File. Several are ghost stories (I recommend 'Dengue Fever') and all are set in the same droopy town in Malaysia. The tit 'n' bum magazines have bought the rest ..." 8 April 1979: "... In Jan. we went to Scotland and I pondered my future, but by chance found a copy of a Kipling biography and was inspired to write a play based on his terrible four years in Vermont, when he fought with his brother-in-law (the town drunk) and then had the swine arrested. Kipling was over-reacting, which makes the play interesting—it is the drunken swine who is in the right, and Our Ruddy is shown as a heel ..." And 24 letters, etc., to Perelman from Ogden Nash (7 autograph letters signed, 13 pp., folio, 1966–70, plus an autograph poem signed), Malcolm Cowley (a 1933 TLS rejecting a Perelman submission to The New Republic), Brooks Atkinson (6 letters), Ronald Searle (2 letters), and other correspondents (6 letters; plus a brief hotel message typed for Ernest Hemingway: "Ring room 108 any time.")