ARCHIVE OF ORIGINAL PUBLISHERS' CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE THEN YOUNG OREGON WRITER ELIZABETH LAMBERT WOOD
Portland, Oregon, etc. Numerous Publishers, 1903-1910. Archival Album. Hardcover binder, 12 1/4 in.x 10 in., Half-bound over peacock-marble printed boards. Wear and rubbing to corners and spine, with all letters within very well protected and preserved.
Elizabeth Augusta “Bessie” Lambert Wood was born into a “prominent” Portland family in 1874, one of nine children. She expanded from writing poems and short stories in her mid-to-late twenties to writing adventure books for boys such as ”Arizona Hoof Trails”; “There Go The Apaches”; “Silver House of Klone Chuck”; Many Horses”; “Long Rope”, and others. Though Oregon-born and raised, Wood spent summers on Washington State’s Long Beach Peninsula and wintered in Oracle, Arizona, where she spent long periods, after her husband was diagnosed with Tuberculosis. A noted philanthropist, she donated Camp O Wood in Peppersauce Canyon to the Salvation Army for a local district camp that later became the Arizona Boys Ranch. In 1949 she donated another 400 acres that became the Triangle Y Ranch Camp. She died in 1862.
This personal archive contains 20 letters of acceptance (one rejection, and evidence of several others removed (also rejections??). Correspondents include: Sunset Magazine, owned by/with logo of Southern Pacific Railway Company; LIttle Folks Magazine of Salem, MA; Black Cat Magazine of Boston (who had published Jack London, Henry Miller, O'Henry, Rex Stout, and whose editor favored newer writers and paid according to "strength not length"); The Pacific Monthly ("Although we3 are already overstocked with stories and poems, your poem 'Security' appeals to us so strongly that we feel compelled to purchase it, and we are enclosing herewith our voucher check for $5.00...signed by then Managing Editor Fred Lockley."; The Spectator (Portland, OR) and The Evening Telegram (NY). Good Plus. Item #88058
Price: $1,500.00