Autograph and typed letters signed (18) : Florence, Paris, New York, London, Discover Cottage (Bruton, Somerset), and [n.p.], to Graham and Dorothy Watson, 1954-1966 and [n.d.].

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Autograph and typed letters signed (18) : Florence, Paris, New York, London, Discover Cottage (Bruton, Somerset), and [n.p.], to Graham and Dorothy Watson, 1954-1966 and [n.d.].

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/270872297

Friendly letters on a wide variety of topics, including: facial hair; books he is reading (Lucky Jim, Hurry on Down, The Wilderness Voyage, Vanity Fair, The Cold Spy); his daughter's wedding; his work (in 1954): "I have been trying to finish a little book which could be amusing and could get me guillotined"; his work for Malcolm Muggeridge's Punch; his travels with Elaine in Italy and a planned trip to Scandinavia; gardening; his bucolic life at Discove Cottage, Bruton, Somerset; the "lousy press"; how his back aches from hours of writing; the type of paper on which he prefers to write; saying that in the country "I am an infinitely happy and fulfilled man" and that he believes his current work is good: "I know that is a dangerous conceit but I believe it is truly good and clean"; reflecting on winning the Nobel Prize; praising Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf: "this is a real play write [sic] and may be a very important one ... His dialogue really rings and wakes up a stage"; saying he is struggling with his Nobel Prize speech: "Far from feeling a conquering hero, I feel a lamb of sacrifice, slaughtered to make an academic holiday but well paid"; about a "Hootenanny" he attended at the White House, during which "Elaine was cut in on five different times by the President but then they are both Texans" and calling Mrs. Kennedy "an astonishing woman and very beautiful"; writing excitedly about his new book on Americans; confessing that he yearns to write another novel even though "you and I and auden [sic] and Pinter know, the novel is a dead horse, or a different colour."

18 items (31 p.) ; various sizes.

Pierpont Morgan Library.

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SNAC Resource ID: 7217645

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