Ellison, Ralph

The Invisible Man. New York: Random House, 1952



In 8s ( 8 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.; 210 x 140 mm).  Publisher's tan and black cloth, pictorial spine extending to front and back covers, spine lettered in white ink, in pictorial dust-jacket; lettering on spine rubbed, light wear to extremities of dust-jacket with negligible losses. Together with: Typed letter signed ("Ralph"), (11 x 8 1/2 in.; 280 x 215 mm),  New York, 26 May 1989, to Louis Auchincloss, apologizing for phoning in a drunken stupor; short tear to left margin.



 

First edition, presentation copy from one New York author to another:   "For Louis Auchincloss, a master of Jamesian | subtleties, I inscribe this bit of 'fluid pudding' | with great pleasure and in the hope that Time will have endowed it with some | substance of found felicity. |  Sincerely, | Ralph Ellison."

Ellison's letter is one of apology for phoning Louis Auchincloss while in an alcoholic haze, and is peppered with self-deprecating humor. "I owe you an apology and had intended to extend it during the recent ceremony at the Academy/Institute [the National Institute of Arts & Letters and the American Academy of Arts & Letters which both authors were members of since the mid-1960s]. But then there came the fire emergency and my wife and I ... decided to take off for home."  After downing one too many cocktails, Ellison heard a broadcast that a important doll collection in New York was needing a home in a museum, and thought immediately of Auchincloss, who was board chairman of the Museum of the City of New York. "As for my garbled telephone message there is a simple explanation: My wife was out of town, I had imbibed more than my usual number of martinis, and when I learned via t.v. that an uptown lady who possesses a famous doll collection was seeking museum space ... I thought immediately of the City Museum as a possibility.

"In other words, my dialing you was a somewhat drunken spur-of-the-moment  reaction which went awry the moment I found myself being recorded by your all too sober telephone. it was an embarrassing mistake and I'm sorry that I failed to speak to you in person—and much sooner."  Ellison concludes the letter by congratulating Auchincloss and his wife for having built a home in a remote, "un-boom-boxed"region in the Catskill Mountains.