If you write to notoriously media-shy To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee seeking an autographed photograph, you’re not going to get one. But you might well get something far more valuable from the affable correspondent, as a young man named Jeremy learned when he wrote to Lee in 2006. Although the writer claimed not to have any photos of herself, she did provide a short paragraph of advice in its place: “As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don’t think you are the most important being on earth,” Lee wrote. Read her wise words in the handwritten letter after the jump, and visit Letters of Note for the transcription. Read More »
In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote that, while he couldn’t definitively state what makes a work “pornography,” “I know it when I see it.” Had Stewart only consulted with Vladimir Nabokov, whose 1955 novel Lolita was temporarily banned in France and the UK and withstood several reviews that stated or implied that it was pornography, he might have arrived at a more precise definition. In a 1965 letter to his friend Morris Bishop, Nabokov addressed the “irate Paterfamilias” response to the book and offered a characteristically eloquent take on what is and isn’t pornography: “‘Pornography’ is not an image plucked out of context; pornography is an attitude and an intention. The tragic and the obscene exclude each other.” See the typewritten missive after the jump, and visit Letters of Note for the transcription.
We imagine that Harper Lee still gets quite a bit of fan mail, despite the fact that her only novel was published over 50 years ago. But we’re also fairly sure that the To Kill a Mockingbird author, one of the most reclusive writers of the 20th century, hasn’t made a habit of answering it. That’s why it’s such a treat to see a typewritten response from Lee to a fan’s letter about the book, sent only a few months after the novel’s publication in 1960. The brief message addresses a fellow Alabaman’s inquiry about the fictionalized places in the book. “You ask me where Maycomb County is, where the Landing is — the only answer I can give you is that Maycomb County is in my heart and the Landing is in my imagination,” Lee writes. She also includes a playful (and entirely unilluminating) sketch of Maycomb County. See a photo of the letter after the jump; if you have ample disposable income, you can bid on it here.
There’s no shortage of stories floating around New York about pre-fame Madonna, who was a downtown fixture in the late ’70s before achieving international stardom a few years later. But none of those tales is quite as convincing as Ms. Ciccone’s own autobiography from that period, penned to accompany her resumé in an application letter to the director of her first film, A Certain Sacrifice. The strangely candid missive finds Madonna confessing, “During high school, I became slightly schizophrenic as I couldn’t choose between class virgin or the other kind” and recalling that, “When I was 15 I began taking ballet classes regularly, listening to baroque music and slowly but surely I developed a great dislike for my classmates, teachers and high school in general.” What follows includes a celebration of drama geeks, an aside about a “psychotic” dance company director, and a practically day-to-day accounting of her activities over the past few months. Draw what conclusions you will from the note (if you need a transcription, you’ll find it here); we’ll simply reiterate our general sense that celebrities are weird.
Some people rely on notes to keep their lives organized and Johnny Cash was definitely one of these people. Recently, a few of these notes surfaced, providing us with a little more insight into Mr. Cash, his romance with June and how the singer organized his days.
In the first note, Cash writes to his beloved wife, ending the note by saying, “The fire and excitement may be gone now that we don’t go out there and sing them anymore, but the ring of fire still burns around you and I, keeping our love hotter than a pepper sprout.” Yes, he used his own song lyrics to write to his wife, but hey, they’re classics for a reason. Read one of his to-do lists and see the note to June after the jump.
Just about everyone who’s worked as a writer knows what your standard rejection letter (or e-mail) looks like: The editor is so thankful for your pitch or story or whatever but regrets to inform you that she just doesn’t have space to include all the excellent submissions she receives. Of course, Hunter S. Thompson never does anything the standard way, so it’s not surprising that he responded so much more colorfully to a potential Rolling Stone piece by Mike Peterson that was forwarded to him in 1971. It begins, “You worthless, acid-sucking piece of illiterate shit!” and just gets better from there. See the original, typewritten note — on Rolling Stone stationery! — after the jump.
Ingmar Bergman was what you might call a filmmaker’s filmmaker, earning the adulation of his colleagues around the world — most famously Woody Allen, who went through an entire Bergman-influenced “serious” period, producing movies like Interiors. Stanley Kubrick, it turns out, was also a big fan. In 1960, the same year Spartacus premiered, a 31-year-old Kubrick wrote a letter praising Bergman (who had already made Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal by then) as “unsurpassed by anyone in the creation of mood and atmosphere, the subtlety of performance, the avoidance of the obvious, the truthfullness and completeness of characterization.” See Kubrick’s typewritten letter to Bergman, on Universal-International Pictures stationery, after the jump, and click over to Letters of Note for the transcription.
Christmas may be six months away, but there’s no wrong time of year to celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien’s Yuletide letters to his four children. As Letters of Note describes, Tolkien wrote a note in festive, quivering handwriting (Santa was 1925 years old, after all), full of tales from the North Pole, and signed it “Father Christmas.” And, perhaps because Lord of the Rings fans have pretty much ensured the publication of everything Tolkien ever jotted down, the entire collection, spanning 20 years, in a book called Letters to Father Chistmas. See one of the missives, featuring a charming comedy of polar-bear errors and some lovely illustrations, after the jump.
It’s always heartwarming to see our heroes treat their fans well — especially those, like Tom Waits and Iggy Pop, who have a reputation for being cantankerous. So it put a smile on our faces this stormy Friday to see Letters of Note post this response from Waits to a 15-year-old fan named Colin. The letter kicks off with a joke about Colin’s address (Palestine, IL) before moving on to some truly inspirational words: “Colin go out there and take the world by the tail, pull it down, wrap it around and put it in your pocket.” Waits also enclosed an adorable photo of himself serenading a little girl. See the handwritten letter and picture after the jump and click over to Letters of Note for the transcript.
When we think of George Carlin, a number of strong descriptors come to mind: hilarious, brilliant, atheist, no-bullshit. But “romantic” isn’t exactly at the tip of our tongue. Letters of Note corrects this misapprehension, posting a brief missive from Carlin to his wife, one of many that appears in her memoir The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade, published last month. The note, which is both sweet and funny, addresses Wade as “Sallyburger” and features a delightfully absurd quantification of Carlin’s love for her. See it for yourself after the jump, and click over to Letters of Note for a transcription.
