Feb 17, 2022 - Sale 2595

Sale 2595 - Lot 122

Price Realized: $ 3,900
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 2,000
"A PROFOUND INTERCHANGE OF ARTS & IDEAS ALL OVER THE WORLD IS OUR ONLY HOPE" THOMAS, DYLAN. Autograph Letter Signed, to an editor of Merkur magazine Kurt H. Hanson, thanking for the translations of Thomas's poems, expressing wonder that Germans take an interest in English poetry, expecting salvation from our self-destructive world only through the exchange of art and ideas, granting permission to publish the translations, noting his birthplace and brief bibliography, hoping he would read his recent poem in the Atlantic ["In Country Sleep" in the December issue], hoping that his own writing is as clear as Hanson's English, and inviting him to make contact when visiting England. 2 pages, small 8vo, written on recto and verso of single sheet; two punch holes in margin (not affecting text), faint scattered foxing, minor bleedthrough, folds. With the original envelope. Witney, 30 December 1947
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". . . I have been away from home, and no letters were forwarded to me. I am glad, and proud, that you and Hans Egon Holthusen and the editors of 'Merkur' have read some of my poetry, and that you have translated it. I'm afraid I know no German at all; but I have some friends at Oxford whom I very much want to see the translations . . . . It is wonderful to think that, in Hamburg now, writers such as yourself and Holthusen can be so occupied with and influenced by English poetry. I'm sure that a profound interchange of arts & ideas all over the world is our only hope; and a slender hope, at that. We are all so cut off from one another in this death-wishing world we have made for ourselves.
". . . I was born in Wales in 1914, and have published here four books of verse and two of prose. . . . [I]n America, the firm of New Directions has published a large collection of my poems and stories called 'The World I Breathe,' and also a volume of 'Selected Writings,' which appeared last year. . . . My long, latest poem was printed in the 'Atlantic' for this month . . . and I am sure the Editor, Edward A. Weeks, . . . would . . . send you a copy . . . . I should very much like you to see it. . . ."