BIB_ID
318375
Accession number
MA 2581.8
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
[1967 Jan.].
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1967.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 31.8 cm
Notes
Part of a collection of letters from John Steinbeck to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim, written during his travels in Vietnam in 1967. 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 inferred from the placement of this letter within this series of "Dear Alicia" letters; Steinbeck has indicated that this is letter #8; letter #10 has a Newsday publication date of January 7, 1967.
Steinbeck refers to a map that he has enclosed with this letter; the map is not in this collection.
This is a carbon copy of the original letter and is on yellow legal pad paper; in a letter from Harry Guggenheim's secretary, Dorothy J. Holdsworth, dated February 1, 1967, to Elizabeth Otis of McIntosh & Otis, Inc., Steinbeck's literary agent, she says that "Mr. Steinbeck has sent us the carbon copies of the two letters, numbers 8 and 9, that were apparently lost in the mail."
Place and date of writing inferred from the placement of this letter within this series of "Dear Alicia" letters; Steinbeck has indicated that this is letter #8; letter #10 has a Newsday publication date of January 7, 1967.
Steinbeck refers to a map that he has enclosed with this letter; the map is not in this collection.
This is a carbon copy of the original letter and is on yellow legal pad paper; in a letter from Harry Guggenheim's secretary, Dorothy J. Holdsworth, dated February 1, 1967, to Elizabeth Otis of McIntosh & Otis, Inc., Steinbeck's literary agent, she says that "Mr. Steinbeck has sent us the carbon copies of the two letters, numbers 8 and 9, that were apparently lost in the mail."
Provenance
Gift of John Steinbeck in 1967.
Summary
Concerning his "field trip of eight days covering just about all of Vietnam north of Saigon;" saying "I've seen one whole hell of alot of country and I've noted a number of places to return to, to sit still until the pattern of life becomes clear. Time stretches and snaps like a rubber band. The eight days I've been out have been eight life times, all different and all fascinating. I was right to be unhappy about the reporting of this country and this war only--such is the complication and magnitude of the thing that I wonder whether I can do any better. It seems to me that the best thing I can do is to keep the field of vision small and the generalities as far between as possible;" describing the beauty of the land, the variety of the flora and fauna and the richness of its natural resources in the Mekong Delta.
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