Beschreibung:

WILLIAMS, TENNESSEE. Thirteen typed letters signed (mostly "Tennessee") and one autograph letter signed ("Tennessee") to David Lobdell in Montreal; written from New York, Hollywood, Key West, St. Louis, Bangkok, and at sea, 22 August 1965 - 12 December 1970. Together 17 1/2 pages, 4to, nearly all single-spaced, seven typed in small upper case letters, mostly on onion skin paper, signatures, holograph addresses, dates and a few postscripts in ink (mainly) and pencil, one letter on thin paper with slight edge chipping. "I FEEL THAT I AM OUT OF FASHION AS A WRITER" Revealing letters to an aspiring young Canadian writer in which Williams talks of his writing, daily life, reading, health (including hospitalization for a nervous collapse), college days in St. Louis, travels, and other subjects. 22 August 1965: "...I am so pleased that you mentioned Orpheus Descending and Camino Real as plays of mine that you liked: both failures but plays that meant a lot to me. I have found that writing for the theatre is sometimes an almost intolerably demanding and spooky thing, but gradually it has become such a habit that I can't seem to stop..." 30 April 1966: "...My greatest pleasure is reading, I guess, but I hesitate to suggest to you what to read. Have you read Carson McCullers, Paul Bowles, Christopher Isherwood, Muriel Spark, Flannery O'Conner, the poetry and the collected letters of Hart Crane, letters of D.H. Lawrence and the good biographies of him, plays and stories of Chekhov, Stephen Crane, stories and short novels of Katherine Anne Porter, Jean Genet, the Plague by Camus, The Dance of Death by Strindberg...I think there are two kinds of writers, the professional and the organic. It's the second that I read mostly and hope to belong with..." 22 January 1967: "...I have finished my short long play and am panicky over the question of what to do next. My life goes to pieces at a time like this when I have no work to lose myself in. I should remember that it always begins again, but this interruption has been longer than usual and it has made me a little deranged...Last night I behaved disgracefully, I got drunk and cried for no particular reason -- twice! I was visiting a woman who had had a cancer operation. Perhaps that was it. I asked her if she would give me little of her narcotics. She was very upset and then I knew that she liked me and I felt better..." 17 April 1967: "...When I was at university in Saint Louis...I found I could write plays. The fun sort of went out of writing, with the realization that I had a vocation and it was deadly serious to me. My first long play in Saint Louis was a big success. The second was a crushing failure...Writing! How dangerous it is to let it be all! -- It has to be and remain the other side of your life -- 'A Delicate Balance'..." 21 February 1968: "...I have a play [ Kingdom of Earth ] just starting rehearsals and as usual when this happens, I am in a state of panic and confusion. Although I may like the play -- it is hard not to like something on which you've worked a long time -- I feel the critics will put it down. I feel that I am out of fashion as a writer..." 14 September 1968: "...I have had two happy months here on 'The Coast.' I came out here [to Hollywood] for the opening of an old play of mine, Camino Real . When it was first exposed in New York, the audiences were outraged by its licenses, many people walked out and demanded their money back...Here it is running to capacity houses..." In this letter Williams tells anecdotes about his 87-year-old mother (and her visit to Hollywood) and ends with this passage: "A few days ago she wired me [from St. Louis]: 'Son, it's time to come home.'" (14)