HAMMETT DASHIELL Autograph Letter Signed

Sale 2397 - Lot 158

Price Realized: $ 1,062

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

HAMMETT, DASHIELL. Autograph Letter Signed. One 2-page ALS written to his presumed mistress Prudence Whitfield, ex-wife of fellow pulp writer Raoul Whitfield, signed with initials; folding cloth portfolio.

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Additional Details

2 lined sheets, in pencil, rectos only. ("Pru darling - ") 21 October, 1944. Hammett begins the letter describing the endless down-time he experiences while waiting for unreliable transportation around The Aleutian Islands. Not to be disheartened with his immobility, Hammett's outlook is strikingly positive and that, "There always is, I'm beginning to believe, tomorrow." Later on, he begins to fantasize about how Whitfield is spending her Saturday afternoon. "Maybe you'd be settling down in your new home. You'd have a date for tonight, of course, but after a couple of drinks - and if I played my cards very carefully - maybe you could be talked out of it. Anyhow, when I get back to New York - certainly not this afternoon, but possibly some time in 1945 - I mean to try. (I'm that fellow I mentioned before who's beginning to believe there's always tomorrow!)"