Book collecting -- United States

Contents

“Aint you a good chap to send the play? I thought it quite good…” Mentions that his agent has banned him for showing anyone a copy of his new play “Something to do with his strategy…”

Contents

“Good to hear from you. I see I’m going to have to start proofreading my letters before I send them off…” Spent Christmas with his brother in Knoxville then went to California for a week. “I’m now holed up and back to work. My whale biologist friend Roger is in the Seychelles. I think I’m in the wrong business…”

Contents

“Sorry to be so late answering your nice letter…” Has been in Ireland.

Contents

“Glad that you got the Xerox…” and refunds $50.00. “To answer your question, I spent several years in the country described. I’ve taken the train to Mochos a couple of times and it is a great trip…”

Contents

“Just back from the Argentine – a good trip. Spent about 3 weeks among the whales at peninsula Valdez…[Guy] Davenport is supposed to have a new collection of essays out from North Point. I thought the first collection was just a first rate piece of work…Just finished a very interesting book called The Body in Pain by Elaine Scanny…” Sending a Yount book found for 50 cents.

Contents

“Thank you very much for the Levertov. It is very handsome…” mentions Kosinki’s book in passing, agrees that Esquire has fallen on hard times, he’s seen a number of reviews, some of them nice ones. Mentions that his editor is Albert Erskine and that Woolmer should contact him about publishing the excerpt.

Contents

“Thanks for your letter. Sorry you’ve been looking for my book without success…” Is going to have a copy of the typescript of The Gardner’s Son made for Woolmer and would like a copy of The Michael Fraenkel - Henry Miller Correspondence, Called Hamlet in return.

Contents

“Thanks for the clipping. You were right, I probably would not have seen it…I’m getting ready to head west for the final push on my novel [Blood Meridian]. Hope to get it done by the end of the year.” Erskine and Random House are very negative about a limited edition. “I don’t have an agent anymore and am in a sort of limbo…” All of his books except for the most recent are out of print; inquires if Woolmer knows of a paperback house that might be interested.

Contents

“Thanks for your letter, it is always nice to hear from you…The characters in the story [Blood Meridian] are a bunch of American adventurers in Chihuahua in 1849 who have contracted to supply scalps to the government…” Mentions John Yount’s The Trapper’s Last Shot. Also mentions getting “a little windfall from a foundation [MacArthur] so expect to stay in business a while longer.” Might go to Europe.

Contents

“Thank you very much for sending the Southern Literary Journal. Discusses Erskine. “Mostly these days I’m trying to get a film script produced into a film. The MacArthur largess expires in a little over a year and I’ve gotten used to eating regularly and dont know what will happen when the money stops. Other than that I have 2 or 3 novels that I have notes and a few sections for but I dont know which one to hone in on. Probably the most difficult one…”

Contents

“Ecco sent me about a half dozen of these [advance cover for paperback Blood Meridian] and I was just [martialing] all forces for a note to you I should I would send you one…” The Curtis book “has escaped.” Asks what book Woolmer is working on. Included: advance cover inscribed “Guaranteed to be the first autographed copy. All the best, Cormac.”

Contents “Thank you very much for the book [Bibliography of Malcolm Lowry]. I think is quite elegant and I’ve enjoyed looking through it. I think Under the Volcano is an amazing book and Lowry a genuinely tragic figure…” Discusses Malcolm Lowry and Albert Erskine’s relationship with him. “Thank you also for the excerpt from Rubin’s book on Southern literature…I see these excerpts come from pages as advanced as #581. How long does this tome continue? I didnt know there was that much Southern...

Contents

“Thank you for the clipping from the NY Times. I’m just back from California, where a theatre group did a reading of a play I wrote…I’ve finished a rough draft of a novel [All the Pretty Horses] – Mexico & Texas in the 1940’s – and started another one with much the same setting…”

Contents

“I’ve been in my non communication mode for some time but I have to write and thank you for the very handsome book…I appreciate your inquiry about my manuscripts. I’ve got – I suppose – most of them packed away in a storage locker along with corrected proofs and galleys and such. I dont really propose to do any thing with this junk except keep it…Anyway I’m still at work on my little projects I’ve finished rough rafts of 2 novels and started a third. They are all three connected…”

Contents

“Thanks for your note. You win the wager. It never occurred to me that folks would pronounce Suttree to rhyme with shoe tree but they do…”

Contents

“I aint forgot you…” Is hesitant to send copy of script “because I intend some time to do some more work on it. There are elements that are just not clean…” Recommends [Bruce Chatwin’s] Songlines.

Contents “Sorry for the long hiatus in our correspondence…” Just received a batch of reviews [All the Pretty Horses]. “I was very distressed over Chatwin’s death. A talented and honest man and a decent human being – the perfect candidate, in other words for the fates to single out…I’ve lost another writer friend two weeks ago – Ed Abbey. I think he came across in his writing as some thing of a curmudgen [sic] but he was a kind and generous man – qualities, sad to say, not common to writers…” Refers...

Contents “Thanks for the correspondence – The Writer’s Choice is something I would not have seen otherwise. Tobias Wolff is a very agreeable chap…I was pleased to see I remain in his good graces…” Lists McCarthy editions that Woolmer might not have in his. “My translator was here a few weeks ago. Charming gentleman who loved the desert and kept crying out ‘formidéble!’ at everything…I’m working on a whale story. May go to Argentina in the fall with a biologist friend who studies them…” Asks whom else...

Contents “I’m looking for a book for a friend of mine and thought maybe you could help me…” Forty-Four Years of the Life of a Hunter by Meschach [sic] Browning. “The western proceeds apace – not a blistering pace, I suppose, but it goes.” Describes getting caught in the middle of a gunfight between police and criminals in Knoxville, “A news lady rushed up to me with a microphone and a tape recorder and asked me what was going on. I told her I had no idea, but it certainly seemed like the good old...

Contents “Thanks for the letter. Yes, the Meschach [sic] Browning book is what I need…” States his literary affairs are “a long and tiresome tale at best…. My agent for several years was Candida Donadio...she expressed her satisfaction at representing me personally and negotiated the contract for the book with which I am now occupied. That was the last I ever heard of her…I wrote and told her I’d like to make official what already existed in fact and we amicably parted…After this I wrote some other...