ALS signed “O. W. Holmes,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 6, July 22, 1887. Handwritten letter to a young woman, offering advice on paths to literary success. In part: "There is no royal road to literary success, no advice, no patronage can ensure it. You have the same ordeal to go through as that which we all have passed more or less successfully. If you think you can write what is worth printing get it into print, somehow—if not in any of the magazines then in any newspaper that will publish it. Print three or four or half a dozen pieces with the same signature attached, and if they have any real merit,—force, originality, any sign of genius, you will certainly be found out. But nothing is of less account at this time and respectable, even readable verse. The waste-baskets of all the great magazines are bursting with rejected rhymes which call themselves poems…You can try your chance like another and are right in trying it if you believe in yourself. But almost any drudgery is preferable to the precarious life of a contributor to papers and magazines unless the writer has some exceptional talent." In fine condition, with toning to edges and a rusty circular paperclip impression to the bottom.
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