2 pp. funny 1933 letter to Greensburg PA friend, plus 3 pp. pencil draft for an after-dinner speech
The letter is addressed to Eleanor Head, who wrote columns and book reviews for the local paper in Greensburg. They seem to be old friends on familiar terms, with Ade giving details about the health of a mutual friend. With funny passages revealing Ade's great charms as a humorist. "For more than a week I have been back in what is jokingly designated as 'the temperate zone,' even if the inhabitants do wear furs, live in igloos and subsist on blubber. If Winter lingers in the lays of Spring much longer I shall write to Walter Winchell about it." Later, Ade tells a joke about a "cracker farmer" in Alabama advised by a salesman he'd "grow nuts on the farm." Taking that advice, the farmer invested his savings in pecans and went bust. He sought out the salesman and rebuked him. "You misunderstood me," said the salesman. "I told you you'd GO nuts on this farm." The draft of the after-dinner speech is just as witty, but we only have three heavily corrected pages of it, and it clearly went further, celebrating "Alexander" but also performing in a "meta" way what goes into writing an after-dinner speech and commenting on how boring it is and how formulaic. Not clear when this was written but we'd imagine the 1930s as well, as it must have been in Ms. Head's estate. Ade's early claim to fame were his Fables in Slang and other humorous works of the early 1900s, which earned him success and fortune and allowed him to purchase Hazelden Farm in Indiana and lead a leisurely life of writing, hosting parties, traveling, golfing, and corresponding with a wide circle of friends. A few tears have been neatly repaired. Good. Item #H15975
Price: $300.00