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Thomas Wolfe

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,500.00 - 3,000.00 USD
Thomas Wolfe

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Auction Date:2017 May 10 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : 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
Rare TLS signed “Tom Wolfe,” one page, 8.25 x 10.75, December 27, 1937. Letter to Anne W. Armstrong, in part: "I am so glad you spoke as you did about Harpers, because I gave them my answer a week ago. I am going to be with them, and I believe somehow, it is going to be one of the most fortunate and happy experiences of my life. They are giving me a great advance, if I want it. But really I was playing a personal hunch. They want me so much, and believe in me so utterly, and there is no doubt they meant everything they said, moreover I will be associated with a young man just exactly my own age, who is second in command. I am playing this hunch, too: I think it is going to turn out to be a wonderful experience—I feel that the man is quiet, but very deep and true: and he thinks that I am the best writer there is. I know he is wrong about this, but if anyone feels that way, you are going to do your utmost to try to live up to it, aren't you? I spent Christmas with him, his wife and child out in the country. A lot of other people were there too—a young professor from the Harvard Law School, and his wife and sister, who has just won a great case for Roosevelt in the gold business. I have never seen a higher group of people and I know if I'm going to live up to this, I've got to go some. And I believe you will be happy with me. However, I am still a little sad thinking about the past—Scribners, all of that—but you can't go home again, can you? Now I am facing toward a New Year and a new, I hope, a greater piece of work. If you ever, of all things, see Vogue, please look at the I believe, February issue, because that is where I have, of all places, written a piece about America. I think it is good." In very good to fine condition, with scattered light creasing, light stains to top corners, and a block of uniform toning from prior display.

Published in the 1956 book The Letters of Thomas Wolfe, this letter dates to just days before Wolfe signed his contract with Edward Aswell’s Harper & Brothers on December 31, 1937, formally ending his long-standing partnership with noted Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins. Also significant is Wolfe’s nostalgic phrasing of “you can’t go home again, can you?” Gleaned from a conversation with writer Ella Winter earlier that fall, and later used by Aswell as the title of his second posthumous release, the line held a palpable resonance with Wolfe, one that confirmed his own fading relationship with his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. With great associative content, this is an incredible letter from an author who remains rare across all formats.