LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2008 Feb Grand Format Book & Manuscript #682  / 

56402

[Kennedy Family]. [George Plimpton]

Currency:USD Category:Books / Antiquarian & Collectible Start Price:5,750.00 USD Estimated At:8,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
[Kennedy Family]. [George Plimpton]
<B>[Kennedy Family]. [George Plimpton]. </B></I><B><I>Go Caroline!</B></I></B></I> [N.p. (Newport, Rhode Island): n.d., 1963]. <BR>One of only eight privately printed copies. Large octavo (10.0625 x 7 inches). [16] pages, including self-wrappers. Printed in gray on golden paper with decorative borders and illustrative seascapes printed in brown. Verso of title-page: "Copyright George Plimpton 1963". This copy is bound in full brick-red buckram with "Go Caroline" stamped in gilt on the front cover and the self wrappers used as pastedowns. Light rubbing to corners and spine extremities. Small abrasion in the outer margin of the title-page and evidence of a small piece of tape having been removed from the title-page, a few tiny faint stains in the outer margin of the first page of text. Otherwise a fine copy.<BR><BR>"The selection that follows is an extract from a number of sketches I wrote for <I>Harper's Magazine</B></I> on the 1962 America's Cup races off Newport, Rhode Island, the series between <I>Gretel </B></I>and <I>Weatherly</B></I>. Before publication I felt I should show this particular section to Jackie Kennedy, an old friend, because it depicted a private interlude that involved her children. I did not think she would object, since it was such an affectionate portrait. But she did. We talked about it at a dance in Palm Beach. She said she didn't mind anything that I wrote about her, or the President, but that her children were off limits, however agreeable what I had to say about them. I was disappointed. But I said, Of course. We were dancing at the time, I remember. The <I>Harper's</B></I> editors were upset and startled, because obviously such an intimate portrait of the President was rare, and perhaps newsworthy. 'It's so innocuous,' they said. 'I'm sorry,' I said. The President himself agreed with the <I>Harper's</B></I> crowd. He liked his daughter's competitiveness-very much a Kennedy trait. So we had it privately printed for him and the family-a few copies. The title of the booklet was 'Go Caroline!' With the children grown, Jackie has changed her mind. 'I was too protective,' she told me. 'What you wrote are like pictures in photograph album. So do it'" (George Plimpton, <I>The Best of Plimpton</B></I>, p. 223).<BR><BR>Only three copies are located in WorldCat: the Library of Congress, Amherst College, and the New York Public Library. A bookseller's note in the copy at the New York Public Library states: "The author of <I>Paper Lion</B></I> here describes a day with the Kennedy family at Bailey's Beach, Newport, in 1962. Three copies of this charming story were specially bound and presented to the President, to Mrs. Kennedy, and to Caroline. The other five remained unbound." This copy is presumably one of the three copies specially bound and presented to the President, to Mrs. Kennedy, and to Caroline.<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Books & Catalogs (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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