UPDATE: An itemized list, with comprehensive descriptions of each piece, is available here.
INTRODUCTION
In 1958, the recently divorced Mary Morgan moved from Ottawa into a brownstone in New York City's Upper East Side, temporarily postponing the 'struggle' of her pending acting career to enjoy the social whirl of the big city. One day she met an artist at a cocktail party who asked if she could type. Type? Of course she could type, and damn well. Why? Because a good friend, John Steinbeck, needed someone to transcribe his manuscripts. Of course! Mary went home and devoured every Steinbeck novel she could get her hands on before turning up at his address. An imposing, bearded figure opened the door. "F*#k!" said Mary, expecting the face from the dust jackets, "I just read all of Steinbeck and you're Ernest Hemingway." He loved her instantly.
Initially hired for a period of two weeks, she remained with Steinbeck for two years—she was an able typist, a good friend, and she provided a 'warmth' that his boys were missing at home. Their collaboration produced this most compelling collection of personal letters written by Steinbeck, a giant of American literature who earned the 1962 Nobel Prize for 'his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception.' These qualities abound in the present letters, which document something more than a work relationship or a mere friendship—there is an unmistakable element of flirtation, an unconsummated intimacy. Mary's charms were not lost on John, but she was young and a good Catholic; he was married and always a gentleman. He covers all topics—his work methods, his concern and love for his children, his passion for his craft—in a warm, playful, and vulnerable manner. All of the heart, humility, humor, and intelligence of the great John Steinbeck is on full display in this archive.
LOT DESCRIPTION
Remarkable correspondence archive from John Steinbeck to Mary Morgan, who worked as his typist for a period of about two years beginning in 1958, including seven signed books—inscribed with dedications ranging from witty and lean to effusive and risqué—and 26 letters (with six TLSs, fourteen ALSs, three unsigned handwritten letters or notes, and three unsigned typed letters). Steinbeck's signature appears in several different variations throughout the archive, including "J. S.," "John," "John Steinbeck," and, once, interestingly, "John Legree Steinbeck."
These letters and dedications reveal the close relationship between Mary Morgan and John Steinbeck, whose writings to her often take on a flirty tone—asking about her love life and future plans, offering literary forms of flattery, and closing with words of affection. In a lengthily signed and inscribed copy of The Pearl, the writer describes her as "delightful, brilliant, gorgeous, talented," applauds her "sly and maidenly modesty," and appraises her as "pretty, too." In a letter written during the summer of 1958, hoping to retain her services upon his return from a trip to England, he implores: "If you have any change of plans or desires or directions, such as love or marriage or homesteading in Alaska I will be very sad because I like working with you…You see I don't want to have to find someone else but if you have other plans, I will have to. Will you let me know?" In a later, more direct letter, he suggests, "I think you should get your mind off marriage and think of something a little more elevated like sex," and closes the letter by saying, "Well enough of this silly love making." During a later trip to England, in the spring of 1959, he inquires: "How are you? How is your love life."
On learning of her marriage in 1961, Steinbeck offers congratulations but conveys a sense that he has lost more than a typist: "I'm glad you're so happy, honey…Why should you care that both my typewriters are on the blink and I have no one to see that they are fixed. That I have a hundred pages of m.s. in handwriting and no one to type… Oh! No! You're just interested in yourself…tell him I lost a damn fine secretary. Are you going to let him know you can type?" Few of Steinbeck's publicly known letters offer similarly intimate content, on top of Steinbeck's ever-crafty prose and good humor.
The author also consistently appeals to Mary for her approval, deriding his own drafts as "lousy" and "dreadful," while excusing his "horrible hand writing" and his own meager skill as a typist: "You will now see how I use the new typewriter and I rather hesitate to go on record with an expert like you…This is a silly kind of letter. I just wanted to show you why I need you to do my typing." Later, in another typed letter, he promises: "I will of course bring in this angel of a typewriter which, as you will see, I still don't use very well." In a letter of May 1959, stamped at the head with Steinbeck's now-famous 'Pigasus' symbol, he proudly asks: "How do you like my rubric at the head of this letter. It was designed for me by an old man Count Fossi of Florence."
Steinbeck discusses his work at length, principally concerning Once There Was A War ("It will be published in the Early Fall by Viking Press. It is a compendium of all of my war pieces with a new introduction…I can't imagine many people wanting to read this old book of old reminiscences and Viking has no idea at all whether they can sell any at all") and his exhaustive work in the realm of Arthurian legend, which focused on the Winchester Manuscript text of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Several letters date to his stay at Discove Cottage in Bruton, Somerset, England, a trip undertaken for his research into the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; he also discusses his subsequent struggles with writer's block.
Commenting on his working process, Steinbeck writes: "After all the turmoil and fuss and feathers of research and travel I have finally got to work at the translation and do you know—I like what I am doing and I think you will like it too…I am doing my translating with pencil in my horrible hand writing. Then I shall read what I have written on the dictaphone. Then I can send both the handwritten copy and the belts to you so you can check my handwriting against my miserable voice with mumbling and vice versa….I don't know anyone else I can trust with this very special material. Besides, in typing the notes, you became familiar not only with the subject but with my working methods. Only you have never seen me work at completely high speed and full concentration." In a letter of September 1958, he explains: "I came back from England so full of the Arthurian subject that it was running out of my ears. That was the first of July and I had the childlike confidence that I could sit right down and turn on the tap. Well, that was that. I couldn't! I have been fighting it ever since. Oh, the reams of yellow pages that have found their way into the wastebasket. Like autumn leaves they are."
A year later, he offers an update on the project: "My work, while continuing, is very confused and confusing. And I still don't know what is likely to come out of it if anything. It's a rather unpleasant balancy feeling. Sometimes I get so damned mad at Malory. He writes down nonsense things, doesn't even understand them himself." In the meantime, Steinbeck sends various manuscript drafts and dictaphone recordings ("I have tried my barber shop soprano out on the squawk box and it sounds just as mellifluous as always—like the rattle of bones in a garbage can") to Morgan for her transcription, encouraging her to "keep a list of your expenses, mail, paper, carbons etc.," while noting: "I don’t particularly want comment until I’m well along. Also please keep the contents under your mental hat. I don’t want my theme to get out." Ultimately, although he worked intensely on the King Arthur material from November 1956 through late 1959, Steinbeck's retelling of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur was unfinished at the time of his death; it was finally published posthumously in 1976 under the title The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights.
In one of the final letters from Steinbeck to Morgan, a postcard dated December 12, 1960, he refers to the long road trip that inspired Travels with Charley, and the sale of his manuscript for the novel The Winter of Our Discontent: "Just got home from a 10,000 mile tour of America. Very big, America! Quite tired I am. Got home to the usual—kids lurching for delinquency. Nothing changed. The book you started to type bought by McCall’s, Readers Digest etc. Off, isn’t it. Not a pleasant book."
A final theme of the archive is Steinbeck's relationship with his children, Thomas and Catbird, weighing in on their trials and triumphs at school and camp, and asking Mary to keep an eye on them; in one instance, he asks for an investigative favor: "You are very sweet to flush Tom out of the brush. Thank you. Will you please find out subtly what he wants for his birthday. He'll know what you are doing but he won't tell. You tell me." In another, he asks for her aid in comforting the boys, sent off to boarding schools: "Both boys are in school now, and as it must be to all men, homesickness is upon them. It is not true that you are only homesick for a good home. You are moved to agony by change…If you feel the urge of kindness, please drop them a card." He goes on to express some thoughts on the parenting philosophies in America: "I think one of the great crimes american parents commit against their childre[n] is trying to protect them from things that are going to happen anyway and the later the harder. The second american crime is trying to make everything fun. This is nonsense and I have never done it. Latin grammar and basic arithmetic is not fun. It is a deadly dreary chore but it has to be done. Only after it is over can you have fun with it—the joy of Vergil or the pleasure of using a formula the learning of which was terrible."
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