Groucho's Letters

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
Gelatin silver photograph, ca. 1963
Manuscript Division
Gift of Groucho Marx,1967
(140A)

Groucho Marx (1890-1977) to
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
Typescript letter with emendations,
November 1, 1963
Page 2 - Page 3
Manuscript Division
Gift of Groucho Marx,1967 (140.8a-c)

At the entrance to this exhibition, Groucho Marx appears on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and discusses a request sent by the Librarian of Congress for the comedian's papers. Marx did, in fact, donate his papers to the Library and among those materials are a rich trove of letters to and from the comic, literary, and political luminaries of his day. Included in the collection is a series of letters between poet, playwright, and critic T.S. Eliot and Marx in which the correspondence evolves from mutual fan letters with an air of formality to affectionate exchanges with raucous dashes of wit.