Apr 22, 2010 - Sale 2211

Sale 2211 - Lot 184

Price Realized: $ 8,400
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
"PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS LIVE IN DIFFERENT WORLDS" BALDWIN, JAMES. Typed Letter Signed, "Jimmy," to editor Samuel L. Blumenfeld ("Dear Sam"), discussing the beginnings of a new work ("the primer") involving correspondence with his younger brother, expressing his concern that the work avoid being literary or affected since, "my position is not quite the position of the--let us say--day to day Negro," stating that he must satisfy obligations to Knopf and wait for his book to come out in France and England before he can hand over the new work, and naming a price for the work. 2 pages, 4to, written on one side of each sheet; folds. Cannes, 11 Jan[uary] 1954
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". . . Have begun making the notes and . . . have put myself in correspondence with my baby brother, now in the Army, whose letters will be the back-bone of the whole thing. . . . [I]t's very important to remember, whether for good or for ill, and whether or not I like it, that my position is not quite the position of the---let us say---day to day Negro. I haven't lived in America for five years, I don't have a job there; one forgets nothing so quickly as the onerous details. Little David's letters are meant to at once jog my memory . . . and to keep me on the ground.
". . . Later on, we will talk about the terms . . . . I warn you now that I intend to soak you people for a thousand dollars. Beg off now if you think that's too steep. I don't think so--but publishers and authors live in different worlds. They also eat in different restaurants--which annoys me.
"I've finished my play--which is why I haven't finished my novel . . . . And I feel a little exhausted--it was quite a job. I'm working very hard but I'm never able to work very fast and so I don't really know when the novel will be done. . . ."