GREENE, Graham. Two typed letters signed to Gavin Young. Antibes. May 14 and July 24 1990.
8vo., 2 single sheets of Greene's 'La Residence des Fleurs' headed paper. Both letters folded once, otherwise on very good condition.
Greene's first letter dated May 14th is a reply to a letter Gavin Young had sent to him on April 21 (a photocopy of Young's letter is supplied). Young's letter reminds Greene that they had met for an interview a few years earlier (the interview was published in the Observer in March 1978, reprinted in Worlds Apart, 1987). Young goes on to explain that he is planning to write a book about Joseph Conrad and his travels and asks to meet Greene to have "a quiet gentle chat about places and people which I believe you are interested in - and by which I am quite enthralled."
Greene offers a warm reply "Many thanks for your letter. Your journeys sound of great interest and I shall look forward to your book. I think the only parts where our paths crossed are Bangkok and Singapore. I would like to hear you speak of it all over a drink, but alas my drink would be orange juice, as I am struggling with anaemia".
The second letter comes after Young and Greene had met. "It was a great pleasure for me too to see you again. I never thanked you properly for all those books you left with me...I have of course read yours which I enjoyed thoroughly and I'm sure was the best of the bunch. Djuna Barnes strikes a note in my memory and I shall read her next when I get back to Antibes... I'm afraid I would have been a bad companion on your trip round the world. I haven't got sufficient patience!"
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