Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #91377
Cost: $2,800.00

Autograph letter - Signed

Robert Frost

“WE TOO HAVE DESERTED THE HIGH PLACES FOR THE WINTER. WE HAVE COME TO AMHERST TO PROFESS POETRY”: LENGTHY ROBERT FROST AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED

FROST, Robert. Autograph letter signed. Amherst, Mass: January 6, 1917. One sheet of laid paper (10 by 6-1/2 inches), folded once to make four pages, written on all four pages. $2800.

Lengthy, four-page autograph letter signed by Frost to his friend Robert von Moschzisker, Pennsylvania Supreme Court judge and legal author, regarding improvements Frost was making to his “little old farm house” and making arrangements for an upcoming visit.

The letter, penned entirely by Frost, reads in full: "Amherst Mass. January 6 1917. Dear von Moschzisker: We too have deserted the high places for the winter. We have come to Amherst to profess Poetry till next June (no later). And it was well we had Amherst to come to, because we had about driven ourselves out of our house in Franconia by the building operations we had set going in it. The changes we are making in the house are mostly on the inside: they hardly show on the outside—not at all from the front: our object has been to keep it what it was, a little old farm house: but we had ripped up floors and moved windows and doors till we hadn't any where to lay our heads or sit down to read a book. So, as I say, it was a mercy that we were asked to come to Amherst just when we were. I tell you all this about the house because I saw that Mrs. von Moschzisker looked worried when I told her we were going to make it more habitable. You can assure her we have saved it about as it was. "The book came when I was in the middle of moving and a dozen other things. I haven't had time for it yet. I shall be sure to have a lot of pleasure out of it. A friend of yours edited the one you sent a year ago. As it happens a friend of mine, John Erskine, edited the one you send this year. I notice one omission on your part: you failed to write your name on the fly leaf of the book where I should like to have had it. "Now as to when we were thinking of visiting you. I spoke of January 28th. That still seems the best date. I shall have engagements on both sides of Philadelphia at Baltimore and at Princeton just before and after the 28th. Elinor will be with me. What do you say? Sincerely yours, Robert Frost." A Pennsylvania state Supreme Court judge at the time of this letter, von Moschzisker went on to become the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1921.

Faint foldlines. Fine condition.

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