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509

J. D. Salinger

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:7,000.00 - 8,000.00 USD
J. D. Salinger

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Auction Date:2012 Jun 20 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Two items: Typed letter, signed in type “J,” one page, 8.25 x 11, not dated, but postmarked November 18, 1952. Salinger writes to his fiancee Mary Bayes. In part: “I forgot to send you that pimple business you asked me for months ago. So tonight, since you’re stomach’s off, etc., I’m sort of doubling up on things. See if the attached paper helps at all. I’ll call you Thursday, but if you don’t feel any better tomorrow or the next day, please call me.” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, addressed in Salinger’s hand to “Miss Mary Bayes, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY,” and signed on the reverse as part of the return address “Salinger, 300 E. 57th St., N.Y. 22 N.Y.” Salinger has also marked the front of the envelope “Special Delivery.”

Typed manuscript, unsigned, one page, 8.5 x 11, titled “Meditation for a Grubis with a Cough and/or Facial Blemishes that annoy her.” Salinger called his fiancée Grubis. Manuscript is an affirmation for Bayes and her conflict with her body. In part: “I, Grubis, am not my body. I am not my mind. My mind and body belong to me. But they are possessions, not parts…If I cough, or if I see pimples on my face, my mind is responsible for them, directly or indirectly. For I am making the mistake, somewhere, of identifying myself with mind and body…I chose my forehead, nose, chin, skin tissue. But I did not choose pimples to appear on my face. Therefore, pimples do not come from the real me.” In very good condition, with uniform toning to letter, as well as fragile folds, and several small edge tears and chips; scattered creasing and soiling to envelope; and several creases to manuscript page.

Salinger memorably describes an individual needing his “Meditation” in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield characterizes one of his classmates: "Robert Ackley, this guy that roomed right next to me...he had a lot of pimples. Not just on his forehead or his chin, like most guys, but all over his face...Ackley never did anything on Saturday night, except stay in his room and squeeze his pimples or something." Salinger frequently embedded into his work personal messages as meditations, therapy or acts of cleansing. When the author encountered the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna in 1952, known as Vedanta, he experienced a spiritual epiphany and began to espouse the Vedantic tradition. This wry-titled meditation for “Cough and/or Facial Blemishes” stemmed from these beliefs.

In a December 1951 letter to his publisher Jamie Hamilton, Salinger confided he was in a serious romantic relationship with Mary Bayes, admitting that they had considered marrying before coming to their senses. Despite his attempts to be “rational,” Salinger said he was still smitten with Bayes, who was a student at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, when they met. In January 1952, he inscribed a copy of The Catcher in the Rye to her, writing “Mary, I’m past the point where an inscription might say anything. All I know is that I love you and that I hope you’ll keep this copy always, inarticulately, J. How unfair that I can’t say what I really feel." As evident in this letter, he was still corresponding with Bayes in November of 1952, but would soon move to his isolated retreat in Cornish, New Hampshire. A remarkably intimate letter and original manuscript revealing the famously reclusive author’s spiritual beliefs.
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