[Rarebooks] FS: Kate Douglas Wiggin Autobiography with superb letter

[Charles Agvent]

This just cataloged and not yet listed online.

1.   WIGGIN, Kate Douglas. MY GARDEN OF MEMORY. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Boston 
& New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923. First Edition. Illustrated 
with photographs. Included is a two-page AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED as 
"Kate Douglas Riggs"  dated 19 June 1923 on both sides of a sheet of 
paper with Bowden House imprint, with envelope. Wiggin discusses her 
first trip abroad (shared with the recipient of the letter), her health, 
as well as this book, her autobiography. In part: "Well, Durant Cheever, 
you have made me sit straight up & observe the landscape by your 
unexpected letter this morning!... The fact is from August 1921 I have 
been struggling against illness & sorrow at my mother's death-- (a 
morbid sorrow for she was ninety-one & a half & ready to go) and I have 
retired more & more simply because I had not strength to keep up & 
because I have been constantly famished for sleep! My husband's opinion 
of my autobiography is too favorable, though he is generally critical. I 
left it with the publishers with two or three chapters to be sent from 
here & then the illness came on." Much more on her difficulty finishing 
this book. Also laid in is a small twelve-page pamphlet about Wiggin by 
the publisher. Inside the front cover she has written and SIGNED with 
her initials the following: "This is my publisher's latest opinion of me 
in April '23. What he will say of me if I cannot finish the auto. I 
can't think. K.D.R." The recipient of the letter has placed her name on 
the front endpaper dated November 1923. New endpapers, though the old 
endpapers have been retained. Small area of fraying to the top front 
joint. Very Good or better, lacking the dustwrapper.      $250.00	
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