[Rarebooks] FS: Photograph of Theodore Dreiser Inscribed to his future wife

[Charles Agvent]

 From our latest Internet Catalogue: TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERARY 
MANUSCRIPTS, LETTERS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS, a total of 90 items, many quite 
scarce.  Our Boston Book Fair Catalogue will be posted next week and 
includes fine Signed Presidential and Literary items, Early Printed 
Books, and our usual selection of the unusual.

1.  DREISER, Theodore. SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH. A Fine 7" x 9-1/4"  informal
photographic  "head shot" portrait of a seventy-year old Dreiser  with
a  smile bordering on a laugh. INSCRIBED and SIGNED at the bottom with
fine   contrast:  "To  lovely   Helen/with  love  and/admiration-/from
T.D./Hollywood/January--/1942."  Helen Richardson first met Dreiser in
1919  and  married him in 1944. Dreiser left his entire estate to  her
in  his will and, after her death in 1955, she was buried next to him.
In  1942,  however,  Dreiser and Helen were often apart  with  Dreiser
often  romantically  involved  with another woman. Just a  few  months
after  inscribing  this photograph to his future wife, Dreiser had  an
eleven-day  fling  with  one  of his ardent  female  admirers.  Still,
Dreiser's  inscription  captures  the great feeling he had  for  Helen
from  the  beginning. W. A. Swanberg in his biography DREISER sums  up
well  their  relationship: "Although he still threatened at  times  to
leave  her,  Dreiser  needed Helen for survival, Helen  knew  that  he
needed  her,  and he knew that she knew" (p. 478). About  Fine  with a
supberb association.                                          $1500.00

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CHARLES AGVENT
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Mertztown, PA  19539-8750
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