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LIVIDONIA PORTO SANTO STEFANO (GROSSETO)

tent talk, in the end, will sell more books than advertising; and I am in hopes that if Maine people keep on talking, it will still take hold. This it has not yet done. The firest three months sales were terribly dosappointing, being slightly under 7000. Mr. Tark- ington had confidently predicted that if the publishers could once get it to 10,000, it would go to 300,000. This, it seems to me, is pretty violent predicting; but I am still in hopes that something will happen to give it the above that puts it over. God only knows what it is that makes a book take hold . . . . I hope that some day the state itself will realize what a tremendous advertising value such a book has, if it can attain a sufficient circulation; but I know, of course, that such things are not readily sensed. It is something that I cannot talk freely about, since practcally every- one that I spoke freely to would think that sort of book, any more than I of it, I'd have written it serial lenght-----from 70,000 to 80,000 words long; and it would have been almost entirely lacking in color, texture and accuracy. Well, it's a funny world. With best wishes and renewed thanks I am Very sincerely yours, [signed] Kenneth Roberts x[underlined]

I am very sorry to hear from Bill Abbott that he is leaving the Maine Development Commission, and I hope that something may occur to change his mind. The Page Cooper fo whom you speak is Miss Cooper: not Mr. Cooper.