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Auction Name: 2025 September 10 - 11 Important English and American Literature: The William A. Strutz Library, Part III, Rare Books Signature® Auction
Lot Number: 45110
Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6321*45110
James Michener. Typed letter draft signed. Three pages on Random House letterhead, 8 1/2 x 11 inches, [New York]; November 13, 1978. A lengthy draft of a letter to an unnamed recipient (likely the Poetry Consultant for the Library of Congress), in which Michener discusses the importance of poetry and the difficulties of publishing it. Signed "James Michener" in blue ink on page three.
In part: "I thought it deplorable that in a situation in which I could find a publisher for my prose, and in an era when I could be rewarded or writing prose, the port was at such a disadvantage, and it occurred to me that in my education the study of poetry was of at least as much significance as the study of prose. And in the conduct of my present life I found myself reading rather more poetry than I did prose...
[Poetry] was an essential part of my inheritance and I would feel impoverished without it, and without constant renewal. But I also suspected that while I was writing my long books of prose, there might be some gifted young woman at the University of Michigan who was saying it all in some eight-line verse, and saying it much better. There was a real chance that her verse might live a hell of a lot longer than my eight hundred pages, and I deemed it deplorable that I could get published while she could not...
I summed it up as best I could: 'I would not like to be party of any publishing system which was unable to publish prose but not able to publish poetry, because our nation probably needed poets a lot more than it needed novelists."
With several deletions and one holographic correction.
Condition: Lightly age-toned with a touch of edgewear.
Provenance: From the William A. Strutz Library.
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