Typed Letter Signed / Unsigned Typed Manuscript

This American writer authored one bestselling book, the 1917 "Alone in the Caribbean: The Cruise of the 'Yakaboo' in the Lesser Antilles," a nonfiction boating classic, as well as magazine and newspaper stories and articles; a mechanical engineer, he specialized in yacht designs and improvements, some still in use today; he served in the U.S. Navy briefly during World War One and again from 1942 to 1945. TLS, 1p, 8½" X 11", Cohasset, MA, 23 January 1923. Addressed to "Professor Johannsen" -- Albert Johannsen (1871-1962), University of Chicago geology professor and author of "The House of Beadle and Adams and Its Dime and Nickel Novels" (1950), the definitive reference work and bibliography on the subject. Near fine. On imprinted letterhead, Fenger offers interesting insight into his writing and revising method. In part: "I am enclosing the first copy of pg. 21 of a book -- as yet without a name -- which I am now writing. In the next writing this chapter, number two, expanded as you can see by the figure 22, by a little more than half a page at that point. Since then it has been re-written twice more -- I go over my stuff at least four times and in many places eight or ten times. There is nothing pretty in such a first sheet and I often wonder at my own conceit in thinking that I may be able to lick it into such shape that people may care to read it...." Huge, bold full signature. The aforementioned "first copy of pg. 21" is also present, an unsigned Typed Manuscript, 1p, 8½" X 11", n.p., n.d. Double spaced on orange stock, with a few words added, crossed out, circled, etc. Three men up on a bluff overlooking a lake argue what to do about a man in a rowboat who's gone overboard -- melodramatic stuff. A most unusual pair.