Bibliofemme News
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20/02/2006
Faulkner letter auctioned for almost $18,000
A letter by Nobel Prize-winning American author William Faulkner has been
sold for almost $18,000, according to auction house Bonhams & Butterfields.
The two-page typed letter, complaining about a screenwriting contract with a
Hollywood studio, was written by Faulkner to his Hollywood literary agent HN
Swanson.
In it, he details how he wound up moving west from his native Mississippi to
write screenplays for the Burbank studio under a $400-a-week contract.
The letter was written in August 1943 and sold for $17,925.
Several letters by F Scott Fitzgerald were also up for auction, including a
hand-written apology to his agent for behavior while on a binge., which sold
for just over $4,400.
"The typist here the other day told me that I did a lot of swearing and
shouting over the phone when I talked to you the other day," wrote
Fitzgerald to Swanson in 1939. "In any case my binge is over and I'm going
ahead figuring how I can write a novel (over) and let it pay for itself as
it's written," the pencil-written letter continued.
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