MONROE, MARILYN. Check Signed, on the Bankers Trust Company, to Hedda Rosten for $65.85. Approximately 3x7.5 inches sight size; cancellation stamp and perforations (not affecting signature). Nicely framed. New York, 6 October 1961 E2,000/3,000 Janis

MONROE, MARILYN. Check Signed, on the Bankers Trust Company, to Hedda Rosten for $65.85. Approximately 3x7.5 inches sight size; cancellation stamp and perforations (not affecting signature). Nicely framed. New York, 6 October 1961 E2,000/3,000 Janis Joplin, the bluesbelting Kozmic Mama "Pearl" of the late 1960s American music scene, catapulted herself to fame as the front woman for Big Brother and theHolding Company. But in May 1965, just a few months before hitting it big, the 22-year-old returned to her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas burned out from drugs and life on the fringe and determined to straighten out her life. She weighed a mere 88 pounds when she returned home after having spent the previous few years singing in coffee houses and small venues in San Francisco and New York and abusing alcohol, crystal meth, speed, and heroin. Attempting to distance herself from such a destructive lifestyle, Joplin enrolled ina local community college and decided to stop singing. When Joplin returned to Port Arthur, she left a lover in San Francisco whom she planned to marry within a few months. Shortly thereafter, he moved to New York, and Joplin spent the next four months yearning for him, writing to him nearly every day from 24 July to 11 November 1965. The letters cover a wide range of subjects and moods. There are intense love let-ters and letters about their wedding plans; mundane letters about quilting, cook-ing, shopping and school; letters about her past and present drug use; letters about her anxieties and depressions; andletters describing her tentative reentry into the local singing scene.Taken as a whole, the correspondence reveals the complexity and bitterirony of her life: she desperately feared her addiction, ago-nized over her physical appearance, and longed for the normalcy of a socially acceptable domestic existence. The following 28 lots of over 50 unpublished letters follow the romance in chronological order. Virtually all are Autograph Letters Signed, to Peter De Blanc, neatly handwritten, generally in blue or black ink, and many demonstrating her artistic talents, with full-page or small sketches. Most are on octavo size sheets, but some are written on larger pages torn from notebooks. She has signed her let-ters either as "Janis" or simply "J." Most have the original mailing envelopes. The condition of the letters varies, but is generally quite good. Shortly after the last letter was written, she resumed singing seriously and revert-ed to herdrug addictions. In the Spring of 1966, she moved to Austin to sing reg-ularly in clubs, and by June she was back in San Francisco where she joined Big Brother & the Holding Company. The famed blues band released its chart-top-ping first album a year later, featuring Joplin's renditions of Summertime and Piece of My Heart. After a year with Big Brother, Joplin quit the band, joined another, only to quit and join a third. It would be her last. Five years after these letterswere written, on 4 October 1970, at the age of 27, Joplin died from a hero-in overdose. Important Copyright Notice As stated in the Conditions of Sale at the front of this catalogue, neither Swann nor the consignor of the Janis Joplin material offered herein makes any representation that the purchasers will acquire any copyright or reproduction rights to said material.