Summary

Typed letter written by Alan D. Mickle addressed to Dr Dorothy Howard on 8 July 1954. Mickle writes in response to Dr Howard's request for people to contact her about their childhood games published in The Sun newspaper. Mickle states that he has recently written an unpublished autobiography, which includes anecdotes about the games, songs and books of his childhood. He goes on to describe some of his play traditions such as reading 'Penny Dreadfuls', the 'Deerfoot' series and the books of Fennimore Cooper and Bret Harte, singing Stephen Foster songs, and reciting the poems of Longfellow, Bryant and Riley. Mickle offers Dr Howard access to his manuscript for the interests of her project before discussing his earlier publication on the plays of Eugene O'Neill.

One of a collection of letters written to and from children's Folklorist Dr Dorothy Howard between 1954 and 1995. Dr Howard came to Australia in 1954-55 as an American Fulbright scholar to study Australian children's folklore. She travelled across Australia for 10 months collecting children's playground rhymes, games, play artefacts, etc. The original fieldwork she collected during this period is held in the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC) at Museum Victoria and includes index cards, letters and photographs.

Physical Description

Typed letter in black ink on paper. Hand signed and initialled in black ink on lower right portion. Text is printed on one side only.

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