Description:

Golding William 1911 - 1994 British author William Golding offers to buy correspondent a telephone, and asks her to stop sending him stamps!

1pp ALS on cream personal letterhead signed by British novelist William Golding as "William Golding" at bottom and inscribed in looping semi-cursive in blue ball point pen. Letter is dated May 26, 1988 under Golding's printed address "Tullimaar Perran Ar Worthal Truro Cornwall TR37NT", and addressed to "dear Pauline". In very fine condition with expected paper folds and a few isolated foxing marks, page measuring 8.25" x 10.5". A tiny v-shaped notch has been professionally restored at top left.

The letter in its entirety can be found below:

"Dear Pauline,

What extremely bad luck for you both. I should have thought the years of your disability would make the voting authorities more kindly disposed -

We have had a great stroke of luck - not a normal occurrence! But my wife and I think it would be reasonable to offer you a little something towards the installation of the 'phone. I hope you won't refuse it - and I hope you won't think me discourteous when I say that the occasion is unique! So I enclose our thanks-offering.

Please don't send any more stamps - it worries my wife to think of you taking on an extra expense. I am allowed stamps off income tax anyway, I discover.

Wish best wishes,

William Golding"

William Golding (1911-1993) penned this enchanting letter to an unknown correspondent the year that he was knighted by Elizabeth II in 1988. The knighthood symbolically recognized what the reading public already did: Golding's well-established literary career that already included the school standard Lord of the Flies, poems, plays, and other works of fiction. Golding received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. The World War II veteran, school teacher, and author would die of a heart attack at his home Perran Ar Worthal in Truro, Cornwall just five years after writing this charming letter. Golding's comments about offsetting the cost of his friend's telephone installation and ceasing to send him return postage suggest he was a thoughtful and generous friend.

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