This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/1/2025
John Steinbeck typed letter signed, dated 5 April 1958 on his personal Sag Harbor, New York stationery. Writing to his typist Mary Morgan, Steinbeck writes in part,
''You will now see how I use the new typewriter and I rather hesitate to go on record with an expert like you. / The week has been fairly hectic. Tom has been an angel but even an angel in a very small house has its disadvantages. He is going in tomorrow or the next day or the next. His mother is not back yet and he can't go in until she shows. But we have had some good weather and he has been busy running around in a boat. Also we have been painting boats and all such things and there are literally tons of leaves to get out of the garden. Tom doesn't care much for sustained work. I can't remember liking it very much at his age either. I wonder whether I do now.
I am not going to send the typewriter in with him in the interest of the typewriter. His brother brought him a stuffed alligator about three feet long and he will have a suitcase in one hand and a stuffed alligator in the other and I just don't feel that the added mental as well as physical hazard of the typewriter would be a good thing. Someone will be going in to take it to you. Maybe Shirley Fisher or maybe some guests who are coming out next week end. The Walstons they're the ones who will do it and then you will surely get it.
Quite naturally I haven't got any work done. There is so much to do getting ready for spring that I run from one thing to another. But the diet continues and the weight continues to go little by little but slower and slower. For a few days none left. One of those plateaux I guess and then it went on.
I am having trouble waiting for the new boat to be ready. Lord I am looking forward to this. It is a real full life red letter day. I've had fine cars and they don't move me but this boat is everything I have dreamed of. And I am going to make the most of it.
Also in the evenings I built a little model of a tiny work room I want to build out on our point. It will be like a small lighthouse, six sided, windows on all sides and it will have nothing in it except my work things. You see there are only two small bedrooms in this house and when we have guests or children here I have no place to go. But I will build most of this thing myself and it will be only for work. And I can leave my typewriter and books out there and won't have to puch things in drawers all the time. It will be off limits to everyone. Unless specially invited I mean.
This is a silly kind of letter. I just wanted to show you why I need you to do my typing. Hope you got off to Canada soon...[signed] John.''
Two page letter on a single sheet measures 8.5'' x 11'', signed in pencil. Minor wear, overall near fine condition.