Lot 440

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ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH
(1906 - 2001) American author and pioneering American aviator, wife of Charles A. Lindbergh. A superb collection of five letters ranging from 1975 to 1980, regarding her husband's celebrated and eclectic career and penned to journalist Alden Whitman of The New York Times who had undertaken writing a book about her husband. The first, an A.L.S. 1p. 8vo., Darien, Dec. 7, 1975, reads in part: "...I have just seen an old friend of Charles whom I realized it might be of some value to you to talk to. He is Jim Newton, whom we met just before the war in Brittany...He reminded me of several trips we took together...up the Everglades and Shark River in Florida in the late 1930's. It struck us that those trips were an early manifestation of Charles' environment interests...Jim is very articulate, knew Charles well, is perceptive and humorous....". On Mar. 7, 1977 she writes a 3pp. 8vo. A.L.S. from Hawaii to Whitman: "...It has taken me two weeks...to correct and try to re-write in connected sentences, and to check facts in the transcript. I realized I talk...in a scattered fashion, but the transcript horrified me...I am sending the corrected draft...I would like to add that I believe that fame altered Charles' life not so much by what it opened for him but how much it disillusioned him. By attaining success so early and so swiftly he realized sooner than many other successful men how superficial were the rewards of fame or how high the price one had to pay for them. His disillusionment with material rewards propelled him in other directions. His search deepened and broadened into...directions of exploration, study and thought. At the end of his life he was thinking in terms of simplicity of living, of the basic qualities of life on earth, of the essential character of man himself, of the individual and his environment - not of man's machines, inventions, accomplishments and exploits. He had been through all that and though he didn't toss it aside as irrelevant, he believed other fields needed our attention more. I also think...that the continuing interest in Charles is not due to his 'Hero Image' but more to the fact that he continually broke out of the various images the public had of him. He continually surprised people by a new role and will...continue to surprise them as his own book and papers and various books about him come out. He was, in a sense, a Protean figure, impossible to simplify into a stereotypical picture or fasten into a limited framework....". Morrow continues in this vein the following day in another A.L.S. 3pp. 8vo., in part: "...I remember at some point disagreeing with you - and others - about calling Charles 'a leader.' I don't think he ever was or wanted to be 'a leader.' Leaders (like F.D.R. or Martin Luther King or Osbert Moseley or Earl Browdon, etc. etc.) want certain things: followers, influence, popularity, etc. Charles really never wanted or went after any of these things. He had causes he advanced, but usually alone. He was much more of a Crusader than a leader. In this, I think, he was much more like his father or his grandfather...They never stooped to 'campaign oratory.' They wanted to convince people by reason alone - not by their emotions. I was struck by the similarity between the approach of Charles' father & Charles himself to politics & political speeches when I visited the Minnesota Historical Soc...The other story I remember telling you was of his first contacts with [notorious surgeon and Nazi sympathizer Alexis] Carel who was impressed by Charles' scientific and technical curiosity and inventiveness. I was always very amused by hearing from an outside source of Carel his two old friends (Boris Bahkustev and Frederick Coudert)...'My friends, the world will hear from this young man someday! (This being a year or so after Charles Transatlantic Flight). This story illustrates the point...that Charles was continually surprising people by breaking a new role. It also illustrates what water-tight compartments scientists - and all of us - try to live in...". In a T.L.S. 1p. 4to., Darien, Feb. 12, 1979, Morrow sends Whitman a copy of an A.L.S. from 1968 in which he talks about his early life and "...continual interest in the preservation of environment and its roots in his early life...", in part: "...I received from a woman unknown to me in Colorado a Xerox of a letter written in 1968 about the 'Garden of the Gods' Preserve...", adding in a holograph postscript: "I have been slowly working ahead on Vol. V of the Diaries and Letters...A very difficult volume to do...". Finally, Morrow writes a last T.L.S. to Whitman on Jan. 17, 1980, concluding their correspondence: "...It was very good of you to write me so honestly about your decision not to continue with the book on Charles. I had heard...that you had not been well and could not carry on with the project...I am sorry, of course, that you cannot finish the book because I felt you had a very special chance to see Charles in a field in which he was most deeply interested. He was always at his best when he focused on a particular piece of work....". Along with an A.L.S. of her daughter LAND MORROW LINDBERGH and four A.L.S.s of REEVE LINDBERGH. Fine condition, with exceptional content.

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October 9, 2010 11:00 AM EDT
Stamford, CT, US

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