Beschreibung:

Title: A significant archive of 3 letters to his future wife Mimi, 25 photocopied typescript with holograph corrections & additions by Mimi to correspondence with Random House for Fariña’s second book, first edition copies of Fariña’s two books, plus ephemera items Author: Fariña, Richard Place: [London to Paris; New York; Carmel] Publisher: Date: [1962-69] Description: Consists of: 3 folio holograph letters from Richard Fariña to his future wife and musical partner Mimi Baez Fariña; 25 pages of photocopied typescript, mailed from Christopher Cerf of Random House with extensive holograph pencil corrections and additions by Mimi Fariña that serve as chapter opening notes for the collected stories, poems and essays in his second book, posthumously published, Long Time Coming And A Long Time Gone, by Richard Fariña, with a foreword by Joan Baez and Notes by Mimi Fariña. Also included are copies of Fariña’s 2 books, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me (Random House, 1966) & Long Time Coming And A Long Time Gone (Random House, 1969), in original cloth and/or boards, pictorial jackets, first editions, first printings; plus a few related ephemeral pieces. Fariña (1937–1966), poet, novelist, composer, folksinger, who tragically died only 2 days after the publication of his first book. He was born of a Cuban father and an Irish mother, and lived with them, at various times, in Brooklyn, Cuba and Northern Ireland. At 18 he became associated with the Irish Republican Army and also visited Cuba several times when Castro was still in the mountains and when the revolutionary army was entering Havana. He attended Cornell, where he began his long friendship with Thomas Pynchon, who would write the jacket blurb for his first book, leaving in 1959 to live in London and Paris. After divorcing his first wife, Carolyn, he married folk singer, Mimi Baez and returned to Carmel, California to live. The two performed together at the Newport Folk Festival, and their Vanguard recording, Celebration For A Gray Day was selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best folk records of 1965. Fariña’s life and promising literary career was cut short by his untimely death at 29 years old. The letters, to Mimi Baez in Paris from London, where Fariña was living at the time, are extremely personal and introspective and were written just prior to his moving there to be with and subsequently marrying Ms. Baez. He would soon begin his only well received novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, which he would finish after moving back to the United States in 1963. Two days after the publication of the book, Fariña was killed in a motorcycle accident near Carmel, California, a few hours after attending a book signing and a day before planning to come to San Francisco for the publication party. The first, a 1-page letter of November 14, 1962, from Paris, in part “I’m sending you a storie (sic). I’ve never sent a storie to anyone before, and that’s true. Tend to be a snob about it and say wait till its printed then go read it. But I took time away from the book recently to get it done and I wanted you to see it, even if the carbon is a little hard to read. Keep it to yourself though, and I’ll get it again ‘round Xmas”. At a party last night, “Played my head off, (dulcimer) in that dangerously private way we all sometimes get into, and even though it was the birthday bash of a friend, people asked for my autograph. I don’t think I’ve ever gone into the autograph thing with you, but it invariably leaves me feeling sad, a little too full of pity, and nakedly immortal. Bet you didn’t know I dug chocolate bars, hot baths that you can lie in for an hour, live yogurt, milk shakes, and high heeled shoes, much love, The Great Cranberry”. Friday, the 30th, (ND) frustrated in not being able to get out of London, “I wish it were sooner because lurking in the dark cells of my brain is the knowledge that neither of us could ride this thin red line