Donald Culross Peattie Letter from RJO’s Library

RJO’s copy of Donald Culross Peattie’s An Almanac for Moderns (New York, 1935) includes this T.L.S. dated 31 March 1937 from Peattie to Barnet Ruder of New York apologizing for a mixup in presenting the wrong copies of his books to Ruder and to a Mr. Miner. (Perhaps Roy Miner?) The volume is inscribed on the front flyleaf, “Elmer W. Smith | XII-16-1942.” Donald Culross Peattie (1898–1964) was one of the most popular nature writers of the mid-twentieth century. A native of Chicago, he drew extensively on his experience of the Illinois landscape in his many volumes, some co-authored with his wife, Louise Redfield Peattie, who was herself a naturalist and popular writer. Peattie’s other works include A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America (1950) and A Natural History of Western Trees (1953).