STEINBECK, John; Katharine Carruth Grover.
A Letter from John Steinbeck.
FIRST PRINTING, one of 150 copies. [Aptos, California]: Roxburghe & Zamorano Clubs, 1964. Printed at the Grace Hoper Press by Sherwood and Katharine Grover.
Quarto. [12] pp. Printed in red and black. Original printed wrappers. A very good plus copy, with a small ink mark to the front cover, minor wear to the extremities, and minor foxing. Goldstone & Payne A42.
A fine-press keepsake issued jointly by the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco and the Zamorano Club of Los Angeles — the two principal California bibliophilic societies — printing an early letter from John Steinbeck with an introductory note by Katharine Carruth Grover on how it came to light. Grover relates that the letter was written by the young Steinbeck — listed at Stanford as "ex-'22" — to her father, Professor Carruth, his teacher there, in answer to a question about Steinbeck's "training in versification"; she wrote to Steinbeck for permission to print it and received a warm and friendly reply from London.
The keepsake appeared in 1964, two years after Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, presenting a scrap of his Stanford-era apprentice work surfacing through his old teacher's family at the height of his international standing. The Grace Hoper Press, run by Sherwood and Katharine Grover after some twenty-five years with the Grabhorn Press, produced numerous joint Roxburghe-Zamorano keepsakes from its Aptos studio across the 1960s and 1970s; these joint imprints are core California fine-press collectibles.
SKU TO-2026-041
