This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/20/2022
CHANDLER, Raymond (1888–1959). Typed manuscript (“A Song of Love”), 14 June 1955. Large 8vo (254 x 203 mm), small tear at lower corner. Chandler’s poem asks the question “what is love?” and answers with “love is all the lovely things, that cannot be stone or bronze, that cannot come against the flowered spring, that whisper once into the breeze…”. Chandler, whose wife, Cissy Pascal died on 12 December 1954, is possibly still in mourning as he writes about love and death. Chandler would soon fall into despondency and alcoholism after her death, once attempting suicide in 1955. Provenance: H.N. Swanson, Chandler’s literary agent (rubberstamp at lower margin). Not in Bruccoli’s Chandler Before Marlowe and is probably unpublished. Chandler manuscripts are extremely elusive, and his poems even more so with none ever appearing for sale at auction.