Ginsberg, Allen, and other Beat authors

Together, 18 items as described below.

Helen Elliott — to her son Luke Elliott

Condition as described in catalogue entry.
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Helen Elliott was an Omaha native who met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac when the three of them were undergraduates at Columbia University in New York in the late 1940's.  Throughout their lives, both writers, especially  Ginsberg, remained close to Elliott.  Over the years, she introduced the two men to her many literary friends in the city. She loaned them money and provided them with a place to stay from time to time. She and her friend, Helen Weaver, were known as the Two Helens (referred to as The Two Ruths in Kerouac's Desolation Angels). This collection of letters and an inscribed copy of Howl paint a vivid picture of certain literary circles in New York from the 1950's through the early 1980's. All the letters are written to Elliott, except for an early letter written by Ginsberg to poet and translator Richard Howard, also a friend of Elliott's.

The collection comprises:

Allen Ginsberg.  TLS ("Allen") with a few manuscript additions, 3 pages, San Francisco, 19 October 1956, to Richard Howard.  "… happy you dug the writing enough to have an elaboration.  American Poundian, I guess? … it is just me, digging the state and myself thru whitman appolinaire & lorca …. The interesting thing is I finally broke thru enough to not be afraid to put down & publish my queer shoulder, etc.… I'm writing a long sex poem, autobiographical sexual delights, about 10 pages now, but stuck … since material naturally goes on at length with nights & beds & various men—sometimes it seems paranoiac to do this, but I really see it as right step forward to honesty …. One thing for me to sketch garbage cans ala Williams, another to write about what I am actually interested and involved in … Whitman was our only naked spirit, and nobody yet has really understood him; nor had the art to develop the long line, except W. C. Williams … I take off for Tangiers to rescue Burroughs from Oblivion & Arabs & Paul Bowles … I take off my clothes at Berkeley grad school parties, in fact peter & I practically make a fetish of disrobing in public & trying to scare everyone at every possible opportunity. It does, too (scare everyone)—so you see the value of this sort of thing is no longer open to question in my mind."  An important early letter.

Allen Ginsberg.  Howl and Other Poems.  San Francisco: City Lights, 1956.  Inscribed on title to Helen Elliott, "For Helen in memory of the mad female neighbor over Minettas. Allen."  Some dampstaining on title.  Cover with some browning and soiling.  

Allen Ginsberg. Group of 11 autograph and typed letters and notes signed ("Allen), 13 pp., vp, 1963–1983, to Helen Elliott.  From the 15 November 1963 letter: "…met Kirby Doyle who after some meth doldrums was in fine shape with wife & apt & looking neat & having baby—I read novel of his Happiness Bastard pretty funny. I  figure I'll get back first week December & supposed to work with Robert Frank on Kaddish film … Been living in a huge apt here with Neal Cassidy & new girlfriend he divorced & supposed to be working with me preparing a mss. for Ferlinghetti … do you still see [James] Baldwin? What he's doing is amazing & can't lead to anything but good.  I went out & picketed Mme Nhu with big painted poster."

Jack Kerouac. ALS ("Jack"), 1 p., n.p., 4 December 1963, to Helen Elliott.  "It was nice to see you again, Auden and Spinner too. I had to borrow this tenspot at my agent's office, as well as my fare back to Florida.  See you next visit, unless you think I'm a C A D." Enclosed with the letter is a request from a small publishing house asking Kerouac for a blurb for a book.  At the top Kerouac has written, "Helen:—Can you tell me how I can get my lifework done when I keep getting letters like this every week, sometimes every day? XXX Jack." Also enclosed is a three-page fan letter to Kerouac, at the top of which he has written, "Or like this? every day?"

Lenny Bruce.  Autograph and typed letter, 1 p., n.p., c. 1962, to Helen Elliott.  A remarkable letter which features a drawing of an incarcerated man, with the notation, "I'm busy trying to stay out of this box."  The letter expresses the confusion and stress in Bruce's life during a period when he constantly faced arrest for his performances.  "I'm going away when this is all over. / I'm not going to Tulsa either. / Maybe I'll go to Switzerland. / Maybe I won't."  The letter ends, "I can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery."  With two photostats of articles about Bruce.  Typed envelope.

Also included in the lot are 2 typed notes signed by Norman Mailer  and 2 autograph letters signed by Willem de Kooning. All with envelopes.