April 2019 Auction Ends Thursday, April 25th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/25/2019
Hunter S. Thompson hand-annotated letter signed ''H'', with excellent content regarding wanderlust, his dog, and the allure of his life in Big Sur. Composed on 13 February 1961 Thompson writes to his friend Paul Semonin in small part, ''Dear Usher...Out here on this wild coast a man tends to forget the old world, all that has gone before...It is nigh onto sunset and the hills that drop into this sea are a dark and golden green. I can see 20 miles down this surf-torn coast -- and now I am joined here by my dog, a large german-shepherd that several hours ago I took over to the hot sulphur baths for a flea massacre...You should have heard the queers howl when I plunged this huge dog into the roman tub. They pay $1.25 each for their baths; I living on the property, pay nothing...this is the first time since 57 Perry that I actually feel I have my own roof over my head, one that no sudden exposure or failure to pay will jerk away and leave me drenched with the shit of Vagrant's Reality...The past few weeks, since we move into Manor House -- and that ain't irony, Jack -- have been the tall, jack-rolling nuts. I never thought it possible to live so well on so little money...Now, however, the black dinga skulks in my dreams. I see Paris and all that mass of terror between it and me...all the 'sorry, no mail today' clerks, the 'pay or get out' landlords -- and all the kind faces who are 'sorry, but not without a work permit,' and all the menus that say 63lrZ#%, when you only have 29 lrZ#%. Ah, god I fear it, and yet I know it lays there like a talking sugartit, luring me on, coaxing me out of my sunset womb, dragging me across strange borders and through hostile offices, jabbering at me in quick and threatening tongues, always wanting something I don't have and can't get -- until it comes in the mail and the mail never comes. Christ, off across a black and thumping sea with nothing in your sack but a few Aspen dollars and a wet balloon full of hope -- and that thing that Mr. Gatsby had, that thing that seems now to be permanently out of stock, 'a sense of the promise of life.'...Am now sending a duplicate of the Big Sur story...If this doesn't ruin me, I might do well...And there's a thought: no volleyball in Paris, no naked breakfast or pounding sea, and last but not least, no hot sulphur baths...[signed] H''. Two page letter of dense typewriting on a single sheet measures 8.5'' x 11''. Folds and light wear, else near fine.
Hunter S. Thompson Letter Signed, With Fantastic Big Sur Content -- ''...that thing that Mr. Gatsby had, that thing that seems now to be permanently out of stock, 'a sense of the promise of life'...''
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