"I am a simple man, too simple to be more than an onlooker at the competition for my first editions." - A 13 January 1950 autograph letter signed from Robert Frost to an admirer and aspiring collector regarding the inaccessibility of his own first editions.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1950. Letter. This 13 January 1950 autograph letter signed by Robert Frost to a fellow poet and aspiring collector of Frost’s first editions is remarkable for Frost’s admission that he had kept none for himself, for his self-deprecating referral to both his bibliography and a trusted bookseller, and for his frank sense of the absurdity of having to treat his own work as precious and inaccessible. Rarely has a still-living poet achieved the fame Frost enjoyed by 1950, and it is rarer still to have such a poet’s candid commentary on their own collectability.
The letter is written on the front panel of a single sheet of 8.5 x 11 inches, watermarked, laid paper folded to make four 8.5 x 5.5 inch panels. Frost wrote the address of his Cambridge house and dated the letter at the upper right “38 Brewster Street | Cambridge Mass | January 13 1950”. The letter, addressed “Dear Mr Paquette:”, reads in full: “You are correctly informed; I am a simple man, too simple in fact to be more than an onlooker at the competition for my first editions. I have kept none for myself. And I am afraid that this late in the game you won't find any at 'a reasonable price.' You might get a better idea of what you are getting yourself in for if you would send for a copy of the Frost Bibliography published by the Jones Library of Amherst Massachusetts. There is no premium on that I believe. It is not yet a collection item. The dealer who knows most about finding me is Captain Louis Cohn, House of Books, 2 West 46th St New York City. If the bibliography and he don't scare you out of me and you still think you want my picture to frame let me know. I can probably find you something to hang up. It is laughable to have to be serious in such matters." Below his valedictory “Sincerely yours” Frost signed “Robert Frost”. On the fourth panel the recipient signed “Donald J. Paquette” below two typed lines reading “My first letter from Robert Frost | Cambridge, Mass, January 13, 1950”.
The letter is complete, the panel featuring Frost’s missive clean, his ink distinct and unfaded. A vertical fold to each panel is ostensibly from original mailing. Paper and adhesive remnants to the upper edge of the rear panel indicate prior mounting. The letter is protected within a clear, removable, archival sleeve housed in a rigid, crimson cloth folder.
The recipient, Donald J. Paquette, in addition to admiring Frost, was a poet; we find him published in the May 1934 and January 1936 issues of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Paquette’s typed note on the fourth panel of Frost’s letter implies that they had further correspondence. It appears that Paquette also corresponded with the poet Ezra Pound during Pound’s 12 years post-WWII confinement in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, from 1946-1958.
The bookseller referred to in this letter, Captain Louis Henry Cohn (1889-1953), was a personal friend of Robert Frost who arranged to have Frost sign and number the final 135 copies of the first edition of A Boy’s Will (1913) thirty years after they were discovered by another bookseller in 1943. Cohn was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Cleveland but, taking a cue from his French mother, served with the French Foreign Legion during WWI, rising to the rank of Captain, by which he was known for the rest of his life.
The “Frost Bibliography published by the Jones Library of Amherst” to which Frost refers is Robert Frost: A Bibliography, published in 1937, authored by W. B Shubrick Clymer and Charles R. Green. It remains a valuable Frost reference today.
Iconic American poet Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) did not publish his first book of poetry until he was 40. He went on to win four Pulitzer Prizes and spend the final decade and a half of his life as “the most highly esteemed American poet of the twentieth century” with a host of academic and civic honors to his credit. Two years before his death he became the first poet to read in the program of a U.S. Presidential inauguration (Kennedy, January 1961).
Sources: Yale Archives; NYT; ANB. Item #008613
Price: $4,500.00