The bookseller L. W. Currey, Inc. once auctioned a copy of William Winter's The Poems and Stories of Fitz-James O'Brien (1881) that was apparently Winter's presentation copy to George S. McWatters. In a letter to McWatters included with the book, Winter recalls the heyday of the bohemian scene at Pfaff's.
The bookseller L. W. Currey, Inc. once auctioned a copy of William Winter's The Poems and Stories of Fitz-James O'Brien (1881) that was apparently Winter's presentation copy to George S. McWatters. In a letter to McWatters included with the book, Winter recalls the heyday of the bohemian scene at Pfaff's.
Full text of the letter:
"Dear Mr. McWatters: I feel sure that you will find something to like in this book, and that you will sympathize with the purpose and spirit of my endeavor to rescue from forgetfulness the fast-perishing memory of our old friends of the Long Table and the Cave. You were so long & so intimately associated with that merry company that the reading of these pages cannot fail to revive remembrances of the past. I hope they will be pleasant and that the figure of the editor & biographer will not seem over prominent in the picture. Yours faithfully, William Winter."
Born in County Cork and raised primarily in Limerick, Ireland, Fitz-James O'Brien moved to New York City in 1852.
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