Pulitzer Prize–winning American writer (1869–1946) of such novels as The Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams, and the juvenile classic Penrod. ALS, one page both sides, 9 x 15.5, September 16, 1941. Tarkington writes to his old friend Florence Holliday. In part: “How lovely of you to write to me of those ancient days! The ‘Calkins porch’—’Allie’ Woods, chaperones, Bush Browning’s father’s carriage, John Butler, a girl from Gosport— and by the same mail a letter from Launce Chapman saying that all manner of old pictures now float through his mind. I think we all have ‘remarkable memories’; they’re like reference books…. Very dim to me—though there—is the picnic at which you felt you lost John Butler. Faintly, faintly something comes back; through my recollection of you, yourself, I could put upon canvas, if I were a painter. Perhaps I ought to add that you seemed to all of us the unattainable model of not only goodness but correctness; and that Alice’s calligraphic account of my medicinal adventure should have been shown to you would have horrified me into a paralysis of mind….” Accompanied by an unsigned retained copy of the Holliday’s previous letter to Tarkington. Mild handling wear, otherwise fine condition. R&R COA.
