Estate / Collection: The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection of Raymond Chandler

CHANDLER, RAYMOND

A group of charming notes between Jean Fracasse and Raymond Chandler. 12 pages on 1/2 page or 1/4 page slips, typed in red or blue ink, some hand-annotation by Chandler, some variously signed in type "Ray" or initialed "R." Some stains or signs of handling.

From January 1957 until his death in March 1959, Raymond Chandler enjoyed a very close relationship with Jean Fracasse [later Jean Vounder-Davis]. While Jean was first hired as his personal secretary, she became not only his close friend and confidant, but also his fiancé and, most importantly, his muse inspiring him to complete his last novel Playback, which Chandler dedicated to her. Jean would visit Ray daily at his home La Jolla where typed notes often greeted her on arrival. These notes speak to Chandler's humor and whimsy but also some grumpiness when it comes to filing and other day-to-day issues. In the notes, Chandler greets Jean as "Dear Extra Efficient Secretary" or "Dear Lovely Note-Scrawler" and proceeds with biting, albeit tongue-in-cheek comments like "Your filing system, always deplorable, is now becoming sick-making" and "Every damn pad I pick up is written on, and I can't tell whether it is something you want or not. What not leave the Department of Utter Confusion to the New Yorker?"

As the two bond, the notes become more personal and loving. One note is headed with four lines from Jean in which she writes "Ray! Please don't scream like a wounded crocodile: I will truly tidy up this dreadful muddle tomorrow. Elephants are smarter but I love you more. Jean!" Ray's response to this is funny: "I never heard a wounded crocodile scream, but I have heard a Vice President grunt ... I once again tell you there are a lot of extra curtains ... if Willie Mae can't put them up, I shall get a nice kind duck-billed platypus who will, or a kangaroo... or possibly a Senior Wrangler from Cambridge, although I have always, perhaps wrongly, regarded Cambridge men as a slightly inferior order." He continues about the labeling of items in the kitchen he now frequently shares with Jean and her children: "... I do not have the endurance to spend two hours looking for a cheese grater. I am quite serious about this ... I regard it as the privilege of a creative genius (Ha, Ha!) to mess things up as much as he likes, but if he pays someone else rather liberally to straighten them out, he does not want them straightened out of existence. I am a poor sad unsuccessful writer who has been reduced by extreme penury to the writing of sonnets and so forth... P.S. When we go to dinner, please don't let me forget the wine..."