Date: Fri 13-Mar-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: DONNAM

Quick Words:

Butterfield

Full Text:

Blacklisted Agents Archives At Butterfields In February

w 1 cut - LB

LOS ANGELES, CALIF. -- Books and manuscripts brought more than $541,000

Friday, February 13, at Butterfield & Butterfield's California Book Auction

Galleries' sale of fine and rare books and historical manuscripts, with

$178,500 paid for the extensive archive of a Hollywood literary agent and

strong prices fetched for the impressive book collection of blacklisted LA

Times critic Milton Merlin.

Scheduled to coincide with the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers

show in Los Angeles, the auction was quite successful. Top lots include the

$178,500 selling price for Hollywood literary agent H.N. Swanson's archive of

correspondence with the likes of James Cain, who wrote The Postman Always

Rings Twice and Double Indemnity , Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep ,

and John O'Hara, the author of Pal Joey , Butterfield 8 and From the Terrace .

The lot included 700 letters and documents ranging from half-hearted pitches

of silly movie ideas to sarcastic swipes at bone-headed studio executives and

witty letters from writers firing the agent. The archive, bought by a

prominent LA book dealer, offers a unique glimpse at the writer in Hollywood

-- overworked and, on occasion, underpaid. With an average price of $250 per

document, Hollywood agents may want to forgo the e-mail and archive all

correspondence as an investment.

The 300-title Milton Merlin collection of modern literature brought

above-estimate prices for most of the books within his library. Highlights

include the only-known copy with dust jacket of Jim Thompson's Now and On

Earth which sold for $6,325, Ask the Dust , 1939, by John Fante which fetched

$3,220 and Budd Schulberg's 1941 tome What Makes Sammy Run? , a first edition

review copy that brought $5,750. Merlin, born in LA in 1905, became a script

editor, radio and TV writer and associate producer of Millionaire , a

syndicated television program in the late 1950s. He was a founder of the Radio

Writers Guild of America and book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times , where

he reviewed a tremendous number of books, many of which have been recognized

as classics. Merlin passed away in 1996 at the age of 91.

Other auction highlights include McKenney and Hall's three-volume History of

the Indian Tribes of North America... which sold for $54,625 (est $20/25,000),

the Biedermann-Baker Collection of San Francisco and Oakland Letters written

between 1853-1855 that brought $23,000 (est $7/9,000), and an important

archive of letters, documents, photos and books relating to Edgar Rice

Burroughs and his work that sold within estimate for $21,850.