BIB_ID
323346
Accession number
MA 2581.60
Creator
Steinbeck, Elaine A.
Display Date
[1967 Apr.].
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1967.
Description
1 item (15 p.) ; 34.2 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 determined from the contents of the letter; the Steinbecks were in Laos for 10 days at the end of March and into early April 1967; she writes that "we had just the night before returned to Bangkok after 10 days of hard, rough travel in Laos;" she writes that they are "in Penang, Elizabeth, that beautiful island off the Malaysian coast, where the Straits of Malacca become the Bay of Bengal."
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Place and date of writing determined from the contents of the letter; the Steinbecks were in Laos for 10 days at the end of March and into early April 1967; she writes that "we had just the night before returned to Bangkok after 10 days of hard, rough travel in Laos;" she writes that they are "in Penang, Elizabeth, that beautiful island off the Malaysian coast, where the Straits of Malacca become the Bay of Bengal."
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Provenance
Gift of John Steinbeck in 1967.
Summary
Recounting their audience with the King and Queen of Thailand; describing how she spent her days in Saigon while Steinbeck was out on assignment in-country; describing a trip by helicopter, with Steinbeck, to two small villages; describing their visit to Northeast Thailand to see the areas where Communist infiltration was concentrated and the warm welcome for them by the villagers; describing their visit to Laos and the village craftswomen; reflecting on the two memories that stand out from their three months in Vietnam.
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