TLS signed “Ray,” one page, 7.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, February 25, 1959. Letter to "Swanie," his agent H. N. Swanson, in part: "Thank you for the nice things you said about The Pencil. I believe the Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping are the only magazines to which Mike Watkins submitted the story. The Saturday Evening Post was more than firm in their rejection of it…I am leaving on March 8 for New York, and on about the 14th for London. I expect to be away for not less than one and a half years. Jean Fracasse, who has been my secretary for the past two years as you probably know, is very anxious to get in touch with some TV people who would talk to her seriously and not just brush her off. I believe she has unusual potential gifts as a writer. As a fiction writer, she is now a promising beginner…If you haven't enough influence to help her by this time, I don't know what else you've been doing all these years. Of course you're so damned rich that you only keep your office going so you can strut around a bit." In fine condition, with staple holes to the upper left corner. The Pencil was Chandler's last completed work about Philip Marlowe, his first Marlowe short story in more than 20 years, and the first short story originally written about Marlowe. Chandler passed away at the age of 70 on March 26, 1959, only a month after writing this letter.
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