Description:

Salinger J. D.

J.D. Salinger ALS: "I live and work on routine, mostly pleasant."

 

Christmas card and envelope inscribed overall and signed by American author J.D. Salinger as "Love, Jerry." Composed on a Metropolitan Museum of Art bifold card with a reproduction of Pierre Bonnard's lithograph "The Little Laundress" on the front cover, 3.5" x 4.875". Although Salinger's note is undated, it is accompanied by an envelope postmarked from Windsor, Vermont on December 16, 1969. The Christmas card followed a December 9, 1969 letter from correspondent Joyce Miller Hodgins, a contemporary copy of whose letter is included also. The stamped envelope is addressed to "Mrs. Joyce M. Hodgins, c/o Myles + O'Neill, 60 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Mass., 02138." All items are in near fine condition.

 

Joyce Miller Hodgins had been a staff writer at The New Yorker, where Salinger had published most of his short stories since 1942. It's likely that Salinger met Joyce through his ties to the magazine.  Although most believe that their relationship was never romantic, Salinger's biographer Kenneth Slawenski speculates that Salinger may have been interested in Hodgins at one time. The two corresponded for many years.

 

Joyce wrote "Jerry" to inform him of several important life changes, and to thank him for helping her recover from a recent divorce and alcoholism. "I don't wish to embarrass you, but I am, again, deeply grateful to you for your help when I so needed some help -- and particularly help from one who didn't give me those horrid, gratuitous lectures about pulling up one's socks, etc.," Joyce wrote.

 

J.D. Salinger replied: "Merry Christmas, Jerce, and a fine uplifting New Year. Thanks for the news. It all sounds good. Strong and good. No news here. All is calm, all is no dimmer than usual. I live and work on routine, mostly pleasant. Very happy that you're making things go well for yourself. Love, Jerry."

 

"I live and work on routine," Salinger wrote. The famous author continued writing manuscripts well after his last work was published in 1965. His work schedule was unrelenting and regimented: he usually rose at 6 am to begin writing. Salinger needed absolute solitude in order to write, which meant no one could even be in the next room. Often he wrote with the radio on. His writing was based more on applied dedication than moments of genius: “It's work, just as any other occupation... and it’s not done by having one stupendous idea break in your head and then grabbing a pencil or typewriter and writing the words as fast as your fingers will go. You get ideas of course, but plenty of work goes with them." [Shirley Ardmore interview, ca. 1941

 

American writer J.D. Salinger reached cult status after the publication of his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which captured the jaded zeitgeist of a postwar adolescent generation. Salinger profiled members of the zany Glass Family in a string of short stories and novels including Franny and Zooey (1961).

 

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