BIB_ID
317998
Accession number
MA 2519.10
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
[1965 Dec. 4].
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1966.
Description
1 item (3 p.) ; 33.5 cm
Notes
Part of a collection of letters from John Steinbeck to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim, written from New York and during his travels in Ireland, England, Israel in 1965-1966. Alicia Patterson Guggenheim was the editor and publisher of Newsday from 1940 until her death in 1963 and Steinbeck addressed his letter "not....to someone who is dead, but rather to a living mind and a huge curiosity" (see MA 2519.39). Steinbeck wrote the letters in this series as a weekly column for Newsday. Letters in the collection have been cataloged individually; see collection-level record for more information.
Place and date of writing from the publication details of this letter in "John Steinbeck and Newsday" by Robert B. Harmon; see publication details below.
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Place and date of writing from the publication details of this letter in "John Steinbeck and Newsday" by Robert B. Harmon; see publication details below.
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Provenance
Gift of John Steinbeck in 1966.
Summary
Replying to a column by New York Post writer, Max Lerner, in which he wondered why Steinbeck had become a columnist; explaining why he is writing this series of letters; saying "Who knows why we write columns and books or paint pictures? It may be the dark working of an anthropophagic egomania and it might also be as innocent as a child's skipping. I don't intend to inquire. I'll simply try to catch them as they go by."
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