The Groucho Letters: Letters from and to Groucho Marx

No personage is too big, no nuance too small, no subject too far out for Grouchoâs spontaneous, hilarious, and ferocious typewriter. He writes to comics, corporations, children, presidents, and even his daughterâs boyfriend. Here is Groucho swapping photos with T. S. Eliot (âI had no idea you were so handsome!â); advising his son on courting a rich dame (âDonât come out bluntly and say, âHow much dough have you got?â That wouldnât be the Marxian wayâ); crisply declining membership in a Hollywood club (âI donât care to belong to any social organization that will accept me as a memberâ); reacting with utmost composure when informed that he has been made into a verb by James Joyce (âThereâs no reason why I shouldnât appear in Finnegans Wake. Iâm certainly as bewildered about life as Joyce wasâ); responding to a scandal sheet (âGentleman: If you continue to publish slanderous pieces about me, I shall feel compelled to cancel my subscriptionâ); describing himself to the Lunts (âI eat like a vulture. Unfortunately the resemblance doesnât end thereâ); and much, much more. That mobile visage, that look of wild amazement, and that weaving cigar are wholly captured, bound but untamed, in The Groucho Letters.