?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
FLIRTATIOUS FAULKNER FAULKNER, WILLIAM. Two Typed Letters Signed, each to Elaine Ravel ("Dear Miss Ravel"). The first, explaining that he was unable to meet because of having to attend to a sick friend. The second, inviting her to call and giving availability times at the Warner [Brothers] studios. Each 1/2 page, 4to; faint scattered foxing, folds, later letter with faint marginal discoloration from prior matting and cello tape at edges verso. Each with the original envelope, addressed in his hand. Los Angeles, 16; 21 March 1943 [from postmarks]
16 March: "Yesterday I was involved in a matter concerning a friend who was taken sick. . . . "I take the liberty of keeping the telephone number. When we do meet, I'll present a flower as a more concrete apology." 21 March: "You still flatter me . . . . And how you do derogate yourself, provided you really believe you need to flatter men, even writers, with pretty speech. You need only to look like you looked when I saw you. I doubt if even you could look any better, even in a writer's reminiscence. And so it is beyond your power to look any less. "I am still hoping you will call me about meeting again. I will agree, provided you will retract your statement about intending to learn anything, at least from me. I am forty-five; I have learned only one thing surely: which is how little I know that anyone 20 years old can ever need. . . ." Faulkner contributed writing to several Warner Brothers projects beginning in 1942, including an adaptation of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not in 1943.
