This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/26/2025
John Steinbeck typed letter signed in type, composed to literary scholar Peter Lisca who wrote several books analyzing Steinbeck's novels. Dated 26 February 1958, letter reads in part, ''...It would seem to me that a writer must have the same facets as do other organisms. There are rises and plateaux; there are exaltations and depressions; there are periods of gaiety and periods of gloom. Finally, it is inevitable that the spring lessens or dries up or perhaps changes its course and flows in another direction. / Right now I am lying fallow as far as active writing goes. I am reading rather enormously in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries to the end of doing a rendering of Malory's MORTE D'ARTHUR, plus a study of the times which bred it...I have always maintained the right to write any damn thing I feel like, not knowing what I'm going to feel like...my work had ceased to provide the satisfactions to me that I demand of it. / The present work (and I have no idea how long it will take) provides the fallow which I hope will allow me to forget the techniques, hard come by and hard learned, which are no longer satisfactory to me. At the end of this I will be either reborn or finished...As to what happened to me after THE WAYWARD BUS, I am sorry I cannot give you any help. That belongs in the field of criticism, with which, as you know, I have little identification. / And now back to my mediaeval rats nest, which is more interesting to me if not less complicated...'' With much more interesting content. Two page letter measures 8'' x 11''. Folds and creasing, overall very good condition. Letter is likely Morgan's retained copy, as it originates from her collection.