Original manuscript letter signed to cartoonist C.D. Batchelor

N.p. N.p., 1959. Vintage manuscript letter signed from Alexandra Tolstoy, daughter of Leo Tolstoy, dated October 29, 1959, and addressed to Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist C.D. Batchelor. Included with the letter is the original mailing envelope.

A warm letter, thanking Batchelor for a drawing and expressing wishes to meet again and gather mushrooms at "Friends Advice," the Maryland home of General Albert C. Wedemeyer.

Alexandra Tolstoy was the youngest daughter of Leo Tolstoy. Serving as her father's secretary (and the eventual executor of his will), Tolstoy managed to save her father's estate during the Russian Revolution, although she herself was arrested five times and spent a year in prison for aiding an anticommunist group. Emigrating to the US in 1931, she founded a refugee aid nonprofit with fellow Russian expatriate Tatiana Schaufuss in 1939, and became a naturalized US citizen in 1941.

Letter 5.5 x 4 inches, with text on recto and verso. Envelope 5.5 x 4.5 inches. Letter Fine, envelope Very Good plus, with dealer annotations in manuscript ink on the front.

[Book #158587]