HAMMETT DASHIELL Small Correspondence Archive

Sale 2295 - Lot 106

Price Realized: $ 2,400

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

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

HAMMETT, DASHIELL. Small Correspondence Archive. Comprising 1 Autograph Letter Signed and 3 Typed Letters Signed written to his presumed mistress Prudence Whitfield, wife of fellow pulp writer Raoul Whitfield, all signed with initials, from when Hammett was stationed in Alaska during WWII. Vp, 1944-45

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ALS: 8vo, 2 attached plain sheets, in neat pencil script, rectos only. ("Pru darling.") 20 April, 1945. Ft. Richardson [Army Base, Anchorage, AK.]. A gentle lament from Hammett expressing his disappointment at being away, and promises Whitfield to write again: "And I've since had a couple or three very sweet letters from you since I got in - but the replying thereto will have to wait till another house. I'm too fenced in right now." Hammett also describes a recent flight in a B-52, as well as the feeling that "The FDR death was a blow, but I reckon life could be called just a series of blows and there's no good letting any of 'em floor you if you can help it." He signs off, "Much love, sweetheart." The accompanying 3 TLSs (two on printed airmail stationery, the other plain; all 8vo, sheet, rectos only, usual folds) are all dated 1944 and addressed from The Aleutians (also a Seattle address in pencil in Hammett's hand on verso), Fort Richardson, and Nome, with much discussion about his wartime experiences in these remote locales. "Tonight I need a soothing hand and I wish yours were around. It's been a day of petty -- what the Army calls chicken-shit -- annoyances and he who writes this letter is an irritable and somewhat disgruntled old man who wishes they would get their God damned war over with and let him go home..."