BIB_ID
269936
Accession number
MA 6426.20
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
undated [1938 Apr. 10-23].
Credit line
Purchased on the John F. Fleming Fund, 2007.
Description
1 item (1 p.) ; 27.9 cm
Notes
In April 1938 the Broadway play "Of Mice and Men" won the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for best play of 1937.
Part of a collection of letters and telegrams primarily between John Steinbeck and Pare Lorentz.
The satiric work referenced is "L'Affaire Lettuceberg," which Steinbeck abandoned the following month; the "long book" may be his still untitled "Grapes of Wrath," which he wrote between May and October, 1938.
This letter was stapled to an incomplete typed letter (MA 6426.19) from John Steinbeck to Pare Lorentz. Both, otherwise undated, are marked in pencil "rec'd [received] Apr 24 1938." MA 6426.20 was written after MA 6426.19, which was enclosed and mailed with MA 6426.20. When originally stapled, MA 6426.20 appeared as p. 1.
This letter was written after April 10, 1938 and before April 23, 1938.
Part of a collection of letters and telegrams primarily between John Steinbeck and Pare Lorentz.
The satiric work referenced is "L'Affaire Lettuceberg," which Steinbeck abandoned the following month; the "long book" may be his still untitled "Grapes of Wrath," which he wrote between May and October, 1938.
This letter was stapled to an incomplete typed letter (MA 6426.19) from John Steinbeck to Pare Lorentz. Both, otherwise undated, are marked in pencil "rec'd [received] Apr 24 1938." MA 6426.20 was written after MA 6426.19, which was enclosed and mailed with MA 6426.20. When originally stapled, MA 6426.20 appeared as p. 1.
This letter was written after April 10, 1938 and before April 23, 1938.
Provenance
Sale (New York, Bonhams, 20 June 2007, lot 5233).
Summary
Expressing surprise at the award [the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for "Of Mice and Men"] and thanking Lorentz for his cabled congratulations. Reporting that he continues to work on "a short satiric book with a lot of viciousness which is probably lousy but I'll get the viciousness out of my system anyway. Then I can go back to the long book or anything else." Enclosing the first page of a typed letter (MA 6426.19) that "I thought I had sent but it is in the drawer of my table so I guess I didn't." Telling Lorentz that he is "working hard on a manuscript I can't do or think much of anything else," and noting that he doesn't know anything about the publication of his article ["Starvation Under the Orange Trees."]
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