Writers Helping Writers. Or Not. Cheever, Bradbury, Salinger and Vonnegut February 17, 2010

In 2004, Nicola Nikolov, an émigré to the U.S. in 1976 from communist Bulgaria, walked into William Dailey Rare Books in Los Angeles with a small archive of letters. Briefly recounting a dark biography past and reduced, if freer, circumstances present, he told of his life as a published Bulgarian author and his difficulty establishing a writing career for himself in the United States. It was extremely important to him that his writing be accepted.…

J.D. Salinger Files Lawsuit From Grave January 29, 2010

BOOK PATROL ALERT: SALINGER DIES, FILES LAWSUIT. Reclusive and litigious author J.D. Salinger, just hours after having been reported dead by the New York Times, appeared in ethereal form in New York Superior Court to file suit against the Times and a number of other major media outlets for the unauthorized reporting of his demise. Cornered in a men’s room stall shortly thereafter, Mr. Salinger responded by sliding a written mimeographed statement under the door…

When "Little Women" and "Little Men" Get Together, Hubba-Hubba January 13, 2010

True first editions of Little Women and Little Men in the publisher’s original cloth. “I plod away, through I don’t enjoy this sort of thing. Never liked girls, or knew many, except my sisters, but our queer plays and experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it… Sent twelve chapters to Mr. N [Thomas Niles, her editor at Roberts Brothers]. He thought it dull; so do I. But I work away and mean to try…

Albert Camus in Grave Condition, France Holds Its Breath November 24, 2009

The author at rest. Albert Camus is in the midst of a post-existential crisis. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France wants to transfer the remains of the writer and Nobel-laureate to the Panthéon, the Paris monument to some of the great men and women of France and one of the nation’s most hallowed burial places. Camus is currently residing in the cemetery of Lourmarin, in the Luberon area of Provence, his birthplace. The gall, says Camus’s…

When Did Walt Disney Write A Christmas Carol? November 10, 2009

Disney’s A Christmas Carol Walt Disney has gotten a bad rap. We now know that “The Great Homogenizer,” who, as master of The House that Mouse Built, rose to fame by smoothing out the difficult and potentially offensive edges to any story he came into contact with lest anyone’s sensibilities be injured, led a double life. Recent advances in forensic bibliography, as reported in the recent issue of the Journal of Dubious Literary Scholarship, have…