A One Page Typed Letter
With a Hand Correction in Pen

Signed by Dorothy Gardiner

On Plain Stationary

Description: At an antiquarian book show I attended I bought a lot of letters from an autograph dealer. The lot was of letters written to an American high school teacher in response to his letters asking authors to comment on what getting an education had meant to them in terms of their careers, to be used, I assume, in persuading his students to stick with their educations. This letter is from Dorothy Gardiner, American author who wrote mysteries as well as books on the history of the American West, as well as being one of the editors for the book Raymond Chandler Speaks, a collection of his letter and essays, as well as a previously unpublished short story).

About the author (from Goodreads): Dorothy Gardiner was born November 5, 1894 in Naples, Italy to John Gardiner (a Scot) and Maud Clark; daughter of James Maxwell Clark - a founder of Greeley, Colorado, USA. Because of John's friendship with Sir Francis Galton (cousin of Charles Darwin, inventor of fingerprinting): Dorothy was the first baby ever to be fingerprinted. Her fingerprints are still housed at the Fingerprint Museum at Scotland Yard. John was the first head of biology at the University Of Colorado. Dorothy Gardiner grew up in Boulder and graduated from U Of C in 1917, with a degree in History. During World War II, from 1941 to1945, she was in charge of all the files and records for the North Atlantic Area office of the American Red Cross. In 1947 the U Of C awarded her its Recognition Medal. She was the Executive Secretary of the Mystery Writers Of America Inc. from 1950-1957. She became a well-known author publishing ten books (three on the early American West, one on the history of the West before the Union Pacific Railroad, and six detective novels). Her main series characters are Sheriff Moss Magill and Mr. Watson. She died December 4, 1979.

Text of Letter: 31st December, 1962

My dear Mr. Hartley:

It was a pleasure to hear from you, for two reasons: first, your delightful letter itself; second, because of copy of RAYMOND CHANDLER SPEAKING is due you, and letters sent to the one address we had were returned.

I shall today start operations for a copy of the book for you -- you had one, but when we were not sure of your address it was sent to me, and I sent it on to someone else. Now you will have another.

All Chandler's letters to you were in his files, but for various reasons it was impossible t use many of his best letters -- mainly because it was necessary to keep the book within reasonable limits. This unfortunately meant that many of the best letters were either eliminated, or cut -- often, in my opinion, cut too stringently. I have in my own files copies of most of his correspondence, including the one to you for Dec. 3, 1958 -- or do I? Come to think of it, this one may be missing. Anyway, to my regret, the publishers have decided, for the present at least, not to bring out another volume of the letters; if such a book should materialize later I will, of course, let you know.

Thank you again for your letter -- and my best wishes to you for 1963.

Cordially,

Dorothy Gardiner (Miss!)

Condition: Fine, fold creases from original mailing, otherwise like new.