Beschreibung:

Title: Two letters from Katherine Anne Porter to Rust Hills, Fiction Editor at Esquire Magazine, regarding various literary projects and other matters, with reference to the recently published Ship of Fools Author: Porter, Katherine Anne Place: Rome, Italy & Paris, France Publisher: Date: 25 February 1963 & 19 June 1963 Description: Typed Letters Signed by Katherine Anne Porter. Each one page, on blue typing paper. With ink ms. corrections and emendations. 29.5x21.5 cm (11½x8½"). Two long and significant letters from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and essayist best known for her 1962 novel Ship of Fools but critically acclaimed for her short stories. In the first, written from Rome, Porter responds to inquiries about ongoing works in progress from the fiction editor at Esquire Magazine, for use in the July issue. She states that "I have left all my papers, notes, etc. in storage in Washington, except one or two things I mean to work on here in my year's stay in Europe, or rather, Italy. I have a short story, but only in a few notes and in my mind... My next project is... a biography of Cotton Mather, which I began thirty five years ago... I expect the same old myth about this book that they invented about Ship of Fools - that I spent twenty laborious years doing nothing else, when in fact I did dozens of other things... In all, I didn't spend more than two years on that book, in bits and scraps of time snatched here and there in the intervals of 'occasional' writing..." In the second letter, Porter also refers to (though not naming directly) Ship of Fools, following complaints about the crowds at European vacation venues, "There is, I am told, no Greek island that will not from now until Christmas or nearly, be swarming with half-nekkid people laying the foundations for skin-cancer in the future... Well, in Paris I am seeing friends and editors and translators and interviewers, but it is all because the novel will be out here sooner or later, I don't know just when, and I shall go through the little tribal dances that are the conventions of publishing... If it helps to sell the book, I'll be delighted..." Also present is a carbon of a letter from Rusts Hills to Porter, dated July 22, 1963, thanking her for the most recent letter and discussing his own literary projects. Lot Amendments Condition: Some edge wear to letters, very good. Item number: 275208a