34 CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S CARDS AND LETTERS; 14 FROM HENRY BESTON, 20 FROM ELIZABETH COATSWORTH

Nobleboro, Maine: Beston, Henry, Coatsworth, Elizabeth, 1976. Signed by Author. Original autographed cards, letters and stamped envelopes collection.

A RARE FIND -
Early 1929 drawing and personal greeting by Henry Beston!

"SHIP AHOY! A RISING TIDE AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO BOB AND FLORENCE AND BOBBY JR. FROM THEIR OLD FRIEND OF THE OUTERMOST PALAZZO. - HENRY. NEW YEARS 1929."
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Original autographed cards, letters and stamped envelopes. Written, signed and addressed by Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth. Most are addressed to Clayton and Hazel Smith, whose correspondence is referenced in the 2016 definitive Henry Beston biography, Orion on the Dunes, by Daniel G. Payne. An important collection for admirers and collectors of Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth.

From TBCL's private Beston Collection, this wonderful selection of Christmas and New Year's cards spanning a 32-year period from 1944 through 1976, gives rare insight into Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth's personal lives.

With one exception ... and exceptional find, an early 1929 drawing and personal greeting by Henry Beston (as cited above).

Highlights include:
Printed poems written by Elizabeth, inscribed and signed by Henry.
Illustrations, including a card illustrated by Canadian artist Thoreau MacDonald, who illustrated Henry Beston's Northern Farm.

Insights into Henry's holiday plans and his love of his beloved Chimney Farm. For example, in Hingham, Mass. with his in-laws in 1944 "I come against my will for suburban life is un natural to me, and this great childish, neurotic, tired, tense and bedevilled country is a kind of psychic forest I should hate to get lost in." He goes on to describe Maine winters and lament the war. In 1946 with his in-laws, he writes "Nobody could be more kind but oh! how I long for my own woodpile and my own hearth fire!".

The naturalist's frustration with the state of the world and his love of the natural order: "All of us who love and honor the earth must close ranks now and fight to the last wall. The destructionists shall not have our lovely and mysterious earth!"
"All goes well here, but the press with its porridge of daily violence is a bit too much for me. I prefer wolves and bears."
A photograph of the porch at Chimney Farm "... carved by the last of the ships' figurehead carvers of the region circa 1885."

A pre-printed card from 1964 "The Geese Fly South, and Bring You a Message From Us. We are not Sending out any Christmas Cards From Now On. But Our Good Wishes for Your Health and Happiness Will always Go To You." along with a personal message, signed by Elizabeth from both. There are, however, subsequent cards in the collection!


This compelling collection has been well-preserved over time.

Henry Beston was an American writer and naturalist, and is considered one of the fathers of the modern environmental movement. His now classic observations of Cape Cod are captured in his classic, The Outermost House, written after Beston spent what he called "a year of life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod", and has been called one of the motivating factors behind the establishment of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Author Rachel Carson said that Beston was the only author who ever influenced her writing. Beston married writer Elizabeth Coatsworth in 1929.

Elizabeth Coatsworth was an American writer of fiction and poetry for children and adults. She won the 1931 Newbery Medal from the American Library Association, an award recognizing The Cat Who Went to Heaven as the previous year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." A prolific writer whose publications spanned more than fifty years, she produced over ninety books of fiction and poetry for children. She also wrote numerous adult novels, books of verse, and works about Maine, and edited a volume of her husband's writings.