Thomas Wolfe Letters Found By Couple in North Carolina

Two North Carolina residents recently found ten letters written by noted American author Thomas Wolfe between 1921 and 1938 which they are trying to sell.

The letters, which Wolfe wrote to his long-time friend, George W. McCall of Ashville, N.C., were found by Bill and Linda Hagan, Ashville furniture dealers who had purchased McCall's estate.

Written from New York City and London, the letters show that Wolfe wanted McCall's "honest opinion about what the people back home thought about his books," Linda Hagan said yesterday.

"People in Ashville didn't like what Wolfe revealed about them," Bill Hagan added. The letters show Wolfe feared that he was a failure.

Wolfe wrote the short story "Return" in 1937 at the estate now owned by the Hagans, and the piece originally appeared in the Ashville Citizen-Times, the local daily paper. One of the letters, written in 1924, describes Wolfe's trip to England.

A number of parties have expressed their desires to buy the letters, including St. Mary's College of North Carolina and the State of North Carolina. The Hagans have received a bid of $4000 for the letters.

Harvard's Houghton Library houses an extensive collection of Wolfe's papers, the gift of New Orleans businessman William B. Wisdom, and has "thousands of Wolfe's letters," Rodney J. Dennis, curator of manuscripts in the Harvard libraries, said yesterday.

However, Harvard "almost certainly wouldn't purchase the letters," Dennis said.

"When you have a great collection centered around an author, if you go out and buy individual letters, you soon have no money," Dennis added.