TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS). 1 page, dated 21 March 1977, to "Dear Kirby" [McCauley], signed "E. H. P." On plain letter-size paper with his Redwood City, CA address rubber-stamped at top. The single-spaced typing looks like that of an old Royal manual, clogged keys and all. Price announces that he has just signed a contract with the Scott Meredith Literary Agency for FRIENDS OF YESTERYEAR, his reminiscence of the pulp fiction days, then devotes the remainder of the letter to the sale of SILVER SERPENT, his Tang Dynasty fantasy novel. He asks McCauley to take the manuscript "out of circulation as soon as possible" and return it to him unless "you have talked ether to Oswald Train, or Lester del Rey" (it would appear that Price is quitting McCauley). Price adds that, before Meredith mailed him the contract for FRIENDS, Lester del Rey asked to see SILVER SERPENT. This happened during a visit with Leigh Brackett Hamilton, whose husband Edmond Hamilton had recently died. Del Rey called, and, when Leigh put Price on the phone to talk with him, the subject of the SILVER SERPENT came up. Del Rey urged Price to submit the manuscript to him, despite Ballantine's earlier rejection of it. "Forget that bounce by Ballantine. I've got a new policy." (The book was, in fact, brought out by Del Rey/Ballantine in 1979 as THE DEVIL WIVES OF LI-FONG.) A interesting look at the informal way that book deals sometimes come about. Price was part of that generation of pulp fiction writers whose roots go back to the 1920s. He was on friendly terms with most of the others in that generation, including Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard. Many of his works had Oriental settings. He stopped writing for the pulps in the 1950s but resumed writing in the 1970s. Kirby McCauley was probably the most important literary agent of horror, fantasy and sf writers in the boom years of the 1970s and 1980s. Good content. Faint crease where folded for mailing, several faint corner creases, fine. (#102665).
Price: $200.00
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