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55 items, including 18 typed and 14 autograph letters, signed (many with retained envelopes), 1 aerogramme, 5 postcards, 14 family Christmas cards; printed order of service for Buechner's ordination, Madison Ave. Presbyterian, 1 June 1958; proof of large Knopf ad for The Seasons' Difference (folded). With two snapshot photographs, one docketed on verso with names of children, Dimal and Katherine. 4to and smaller. Extensive correspondence of novelist Frederick Buechner (1926-2022) to his friend Harry Ford, influential editor and book designer at Knopf and Atheneum. Educated at Lawrenceville (where he knew poet James Merrill) and Princeton, Buechner taught for a time at Lawrenceville. His first novel, A Long Day's Dying (1950), edited by Ford and published by Knopf, was a commercial success; his second novel The Seasons' Difference (1952), was not. Buechner left Lawrenceville for New York City, where he taught and attended seminary, and published a third novel, The Return of Ansel Gibbs (1958), the same year as his ordination. Buechner accepted a position at Phillips Exeter Academy and remained there for the next nine years. He later lived in Vermont and continued to publish novels and works of nonfiction. Harry Ford (1920-1999) was one of America's most respected poetry editors and a gifted book designer, who worked at Knopf 1947-59, then left to join the new firm of Atheneum; he returned to Knopf (with his poets) in 1987 after a corporate merger killed the Atheneum poetry line. "Harry Ford was not just an editor but a host: he designed the books he published at Knopf and Atheneum. Vividly, and visually, Ford helped poets create a body of work" (Eric Ziegenhagen). This is a substantial group of letters, full of news, personal opinion, editorial matters, and biographical nuggets. Most of the correspondence is from 1950 to 1964, while some letters and cards are undated. 18 July 18 1950, two pages, typed letter, signed. Arrival in London, met Princess Margaret, writes care of Chatto & Windus. 10 August 1951 "I've just read Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye which I liked immensely - so much so that for the 1st time in my life I wrote one of those awful letters saying so. It moved me in somewhat the same direction that For Esmé did but much more so and really quite differently too." 7 November 1951, [re: The Seasons' Difference] "I've figured out I want to give away 23 copies of which, as I remember from last time, the firm will supply me 12 [.] Jimmy Merrill's mother is flying to Rome Nov. 28 and could you have 3 copies mailed to her ." 18 May [19]59, on the foundation of Atheneum, "Long before this reccent earthquake, I'd considered making a change, and there would appear to be more reasons for it now than ever. But since I'm not working on anything for the moment, it's not a real issue. But what is a real issue is you, and what a ruddy shame you're so up in the air. [1963, n.d., Happy New Year!] Many thanks for the three handsome Atheneum volumes. I consumed Who's Afraid [of Virginia Woolf]? almost the very day it arrived with horrified fascination, increased by my hazy recollections of Albee himself as I dimly knew him as a small roly-poly lad at Lawrenceville in 1940-1. There is certainly real power in it, and, from somewhere, real flesh and blood. 19 July 1964, one page carbon typed letter, marked COPY, to Alfred Knopf, explaining his giving new book to Atheneum after the departure of Pat and Harry Ford. Generally very good to near fine (some folds). Order of service toned, small loss to second leaf 55 items, including 18 typed and 14 autograph letters, signed (many with retained envelopes), 1 aerogramme, 5 postcards, 14 family Christmas cards; printed order of service for Buechner?s ordination, Madison Ave. Presbyterian, 1 June 1958; proof of large Knopf ad for The Seasons? Difference (folded). With two snapshot photographs, one docketed on verso with names of children, Dimal and Katherine. 4to and smaller.
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