Autograph Letter Signed ("Julia Child"), to Mrs. Fairbanks

Paris, 1953. One and one half page pen and ink letter (26.5 x 21.5 cm.) on single sheet of pale blue Paul Cushing Child stationery, with ink date stamp ("May 18 1953"), addressed, "USIS. 5 Place de Rome, Marseille (B du Rh)". ~ An early letter from Julia Child, written while she was living in Paris with her husband Paul and working on her first book, the seminal Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Child writes to a Mrs. Fairbanks: "What a nice hour we spent with you the other afternoon. I only wish it could be repeated, as I would love to hear more about Thomas Wolfe and all you know about him. It would also be fascinating for me to hear much much more (truncated) about your culinary experiences. Mrs. de Santillana [Child's editor] says you are the best cooks she knows, and I can well believe it from the interest you take. It is indeed a fascinating subject and a beau métier. Had a nice talk about friture de cheval pour les frites [possibly french fries cooked in horse fat] with your chauffeur on the way home … " Child closes with the excuse that she must get to work on her book, what would be published in 1961 as Mastering the Art of French Cooking, co-written with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. "I don't expect we'll be up this way for several months again — and I've got to get to work on our book ….” This same Mrs. Fairbanks is mentioned in Child's biography, A Life in France: "I was disappointed when our new editor, Dorothy de Santillana, allowed a friend of hers, a Mrs. Fairbanks, to try a recipe from our sauce chapter without first asking our permission. We had worked so hard to develop those recipes, and I considered a number of them to be real innovations, not to mention our intellectual property" (page 173). Toning at margins, creased from prior folding, paperclip stain. (Inventory #: 6718)