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J. D. Salinger

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:15,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD
J. D. Salinger

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Auction Date:2018 Sep 12 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, 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
ALS signed “Jerry,” three pages both sides, 7.25 x 10.5, The Drake, New York letterhead, February 17, 1969. Letter to "Jerce," Joyce Miller, his 'old flame,' confidant, friend, soulmate, and peer. In part: "I'm so glad you're feeling out of the stew and generally better and chipper, but that's pretty sober stuff about the fire. We had one, too, about three years ago, and I suppose I know how terrible it can be. It saddens me that you've had so many bumps in the last few/many years. How awesome it all is. I do agree with you about aging, though. Fifty, yes, and it seems reasonable enough, and almost entirely painless. Thirty-eight seems to me a pretty nice and round and orderly age, on anybody's terms. The news of your possible marriage sounds propitious, or so I greatly hope for you. I do wish you wonderful luck, and a lot more, as I hope you know. Some real happiness, many sided and solid. Maybe you'll tell me more when we arrange the meeting you suggested. The meeting's fine with me, very, but what do you really think of it, the idea? Might it not be dicey, one way or another? We're old and tough friends, it's true, but it used to be that we were sole survivors—in a way I've never run into before or again…it's not easy to imagine that I'd be a likely type to see in all seasons—especially this one. In that single aspect, at least, it's astonishing how little I've changed or even budged from the original position. And you? Similar? The same? Anyway, do weigh the notion a little, Joyce. I would like very much not to be a hairy factor in your new 1969 comings and goings.

What I'm saying, with unsolicited and probably inept frankness, is that I'm quite sure I want to be the second figure in that subway car at your old and, for me, idyllic fairy tale. I've thought about it only too often, over the years. Does that seem to you in any way a good for you, a timely good? Please ponder.

I'll be home in the country late Thursday afternoon, and am widely open to thoughts, phone calls, personal visits from Thurs. right through Saturday and Sunday, to be explicit but duly unequivocal. I leave it to your solemn judgement. I wish I could think of something more helpful and right to say. An egoist I remain, and a graying child.

All kinds of fond greetings, Jerce. I forbear to leave a coded familiar sign at the bottom of the notepaper, for fear's sake, but it's there, an unsatisfactory spirit. Worse still, the coded sign alone is too small a part of the need now. The thing has grown, increased, beyond subway-type proportions, even, I can't see that I'm a valuable or useful person for you to drop in on this year. It's so damned little to offer. The letter formally closes. All best wishes, Joyce, and far too much auld lang syne for Feb. 1969."

He adds a postscript: "Years ago, I half-started to send you two drawings in ink I did, one of you, and, narcissistically, one of me, as we looked to each other, in turn, outside your apartment building in White Plains. How many times I've remembered those particular appearances." In fine condition, with light toning along the folds on the final page. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, addressed in Salinger's own hand, incorporating "Salinger" in the return address area.

Joyce Miller was on the staff of the New Yorker in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Salinger was publishing stories in the magazine and working on his great novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger's letter is tinged with a melancholic nostalgia, yet rings with a frank intrigue in response to Joyce's desire to meet. They clearly knew each other well, and Salinger writes to his old flame in codes, allusions, and intimate references to their shared history. A wonderful letter by the great American author, and the longest example we have ever encountered.