Wonderful Letter About Forgeries
Typed Letter, Signed, About Forgeries and Impersonators
Notes: A wonderful letter from one of America's best-selling novelists at the time—his novel, The Winning of Barbara Worth, outsold Jack London's The Call of the Wild*, and in all his books sold millions of copies and were made into many films.
This letter, addressed to a police officer, responds to a request for a copy of a forged Wright signature (the photograph the author sent is present). Wright goes on to report on the "many incidents of persons representing themselves to by Harold Bell Wright, including a man who "got a woman in trouble with a promise of marrying and she promptly got after me with all sorts of threats..."
"So far as I know," Wright continues in a self-deprecating vein, "none of the false Harold Bell Wrights have looked shabby or been broke but it is quite possible I may, in the not too distant future, present myself in that condition to some of the good people who have known and entertained the false authors."
Wright was a minister for the Disciples of Christ and his novel, The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), set in Branson, MO, turned that once sleepy town into a tourist destination, which it remains today.
About 275 words on Wright's Tucson, Arizona letterhead (but with "Escondido," where he had recently moved, typed below). Folded for mailing; envelope not present. Despite Wright's massive popularity, books and letters signed by him have never been common, and letters with good content, like this one, are scarce.
* See Literary Digest, December 1936, reporting on the 22 books that sold more than a million copies up to that time.
Edition + Condition: Letter folded for mailing, with faint remnants of a paperclip. Signed in full at the bottom of the page, with a couple of holograph (handwritten) corrections.
Publication: Escondido, CA: October 14, 1935.
Item No: #307743
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