January 2020 Auction Ends Thursday, January 30th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/30/2020
Hunter S. Thompson typed letter, with a handwritten note at top. Dated 31 September (1964) from his home at 318 Parnassus in San Francisco (where he lived when writing ''Hell's Angels''), Thompson writes to his friend Paul Semonin, living in Ghana at the time. Letter reads in part, ''Senor Bobo...I have just returned from the outside, allowing my broken-legged dog to piss on the streets. He lunges along the pavement on a hundred scents, grumbling and scratching his nails in a fashion to wet the pants of any late straggler from the down-hill bars. I carry a billy in my pocket and mean to inquire as to the feasibility of carrying a .44 magnum. It is dangerous to walk around this city at night. Beatings, muggings, rapes and no help from onlookers have become so common that 'vigilante committees' are forming...
Certainly the liberal theories on deprived minoritys [sic] are correct. It is a shame and a tragedy and we should all feel guilty about it. But just as certainly I feel menaced as well as guilty, and when it comes to the sudden thumping and shouting no theories are going to help me. No people either. Least of all any fuzzy-eyed liberal. My only hope would lie in the possible proximity of a vicious, ignorant, nigger-hating Goldwater man. He might try to help. And what would I make of it afterwards?...
Better to strike out here and there, grabbing for handles and see what happens. ('He was walking down the slope side of the bridge past this broken building, a straight dark figure and stranger.') That's from the Ginger Man. I just finished a review of Donleavy's latest 'collection.' He's done for. Gone creepy sentimental, like Salinger, who may be dead by now. Ah this writing is a shitty game and god knows what will come of my involvement in it...We're in deep shit over there and in the Congo too for that matter; both places are beyond belief, heinous failure of a 'foreign policy=' born of stupidity and greed. (It fatigues me to ponder these things; I feel like an overworked rewrite man. So to bed on my giant pallet, blowing my wine breath out on the fog. The night is wet, but I have a fireplace and scavenged wood. Today I cleaned the windows and built two shelves. Building things will keep a man sane.)''
Thompson tapes a news clipping on the verso, reporting on their mutual friend getting promoted at his company. He also makes a few hand-edits to the letter and hand-writes at top, ''Did you get the Herbert Matthews book on Cuba that I sent to Ghana? Postage was nearly $2.00 (as I recall).'' Letter measures 8.5'' x 11''. Folds, else near fine condition.
Hunter S. Thompson Letter From 1964 -- ''...Gone creepy sentimental, like Salinger, who may be dead by now. Ah this writing is a shitty game and god knows what will come of my involvement in it...''
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