Lot 359
Williams, Tennessee. Typed Letter Signed "10" on tan paper, 11 x 8½ in., 1½ pages, n.p., n.d. with several holograph pencil corrections. Paper is brittle and has several small edge tears. To Robert Van Gelder, who interviewed Williams shortly after "The Glass Menagerie" opened in the Playhouse Theatre on March 31, 1945 (it played there until June 29, 1946). Williams is remorseful about some comments he made to Van Gelder, such as, "I have no interest in the intellectuals or pseudo-intellectuals that I find here [New York]…They mean nothing to me creatively…."
In part: "I have just been reading with horror some of the things I presumably said to you in our interview in the Times cafeteria. I appreciate what you say about my candor but I am afraid that both of us carried that virtue a little bit too far. You can toss off remarks like those I made about New York intellectuals and my attitude toward social relations in a casual conversation without their seeming too painfully earnest but when they stare back at you in cold print - well, they are not really what you meant at all! You caught me at a bad time. I had received so much attention that I was literally writhing with self-disgust….I forgot that you were a journalist and I used you as a Father Confessor…." He goes on to "amend some of those exagerations" and ends, "Anyway my justly celebrated candor is now in the dog-house!"
Estimated Value $1,000 - 1,500.
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| Realized $1,357 |
