[Rarebooks] FS: Archive of 27 Maxwell Perkins Letters to one of his last discoveries

[Charles Agvent]

Price Reduced!

PERKINS, Maxwell. ARCHIVE consisting of 27 TYPED LETTERS SIGNED (TLSs) 
to novelist Alan Kapelner.  A sizable group of 27 TYPED LETTERS SIGNED 
(TLSs) dating from 1942 to 1946 to novelist Alan Kapelner, one of the 
last discoveries of famous Scribner's editor Maxwell Perkins who worked 
on the first novels of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas 
Wolfe, and who died in 1947. Kapelner published two novels, LONELY BOY 
BLUES in 1944, on several neglected books lists, and ALL THE NAKED 
HEROES in 1960. Nearly all of the letters here are single page on 
Charles Scribner's Sons stationery and SIGNED in full. The 
correspondence begins with requests to see Kapelner's manuscript [LONELY 
BOY BLUES] as well as politely declining the author's requests for a job 
at Scribner's. Some selections: "I should never think of making a 
decision on a book of such ability without reading it carefully,- and 
what's more, I am certain that I shall personally enjoy it greatly." 
"Thomas Wolfe used to want me to go out and beat up critics--who often 
were bigger men than I-- but I never could see that any particular good 
could come of it." Several of the letters deal with specific advice 
about LONELY BOY BLUES, tentatively titled IN AT THE KILL. Wonderful 
archive from arguably the most important editor of the twentieth century 
whose advice resulted in often substantial changes and in the final 
versions of THE GREAT GATSBY, LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL, THE YEARLING, and 
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, among others. Hemingway dedicated THE OLD MAN AND 
THE SEA to Perkins. Near Fine.  Was  $7500.00    Now  $5,000.00	

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