A very short time after the death of Harper Lee last year it was announced that a collection of her letters was to be sold. The letters were auctioned off just six week after Lee’s death and in them she talked of her failing health, and other personal events.
Now, a year later it’s announced that another collection of intimate letters are to be sold, including a prediction that one day America would have a black president.
The thirty eight letters were written between 2005 and 2010 by the To Kill a Mockingbird author to her friend Felice Itzkoff and will sell at auction this week. Addressed to Clipper, Lee’s nickname for Itzkoff the letters talk of Lee’s memories of her father, her atheism and friendships with various Hollywood figures.
In one letter, dates 20th January 2009 – the day of the inauguration of Barack Obama – Lee writes to Itzkoff
“On this Inauguration Day I count my blessings … I’m also thinking of another friend, Greg Peck, who was a good friend of LBJ. Greg said to him: ‘Do you suppose we will live to see a black president?’ LBJ said: ‘No, but I wish her well.’”
She also speaks of various Hollywood legends including her loved friend Vivien Lee, her friendship with her father, and her personal beliefs and fairly scathing atheism.
In later letters she alludes to her declining mental state, fans will be aware that she is thought to have developed dementia at the end of her life and several of her letters make reference to senility, even signing one off ‘your addled Harper’.
The starting price for the 38 letters is $10,000.
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