At the time of Marilyn’s passing, she had a collection of over 400 books showcasing her love of literature and commitment to self-development. From classic literature, poetry to philosophy and psychology, you can begin to discover Marilyn’s intellectual side. Here you can explore books she owned, mentioned, or was seen with. We have worked hard to not only curate her ultimate reading list but to give you fully sourced tidbits related to her reading.

_{“I refuse to let articles appear in movie magazines signed ‘By Marilyn Monroe,' I might never see that article and it might be O.K.’d by somebody in the studio. This is wrong, because when I was a little girl I read signed stories in fan magazines and I believed every word of them. Then I tried to model my life after the lives of the stars I read about. If I’m going to have that kind of influence, I want to be sure it’s because of something I’ve actually said or written." -Marilyn Monroe}

✦A Death in the Family - James Agee

✦Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Let's Make Love - Matthew Andrews

_{⟢A novel based on the screenplay of "Let's Make Love".}

✦Mischief - Charlotte Armstrong

_{⟢The book on which Marilyn's "Don't Bother to Knock" film was based.}

✦This Week’s Short Stories - Stewart Beach

✦The Unnamable - Samuel Beckett

✦The Woman Who Was Poor - Leon Bloy

✦The Mermaids - Eva Boros

✦The Gingko Tree - Sheelagh Burns

✦God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell

✦The Fall - Albert Camus

_{⟢Hear about Elisa Jordan's purchase of this book at the 1999 Christie's Auction on Season 1, Episode 2 of the " All Things Marilyn" Podcast.}

✦Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, The Hunting of the Snark - Lewis Carroll

✦Mister Johnson - Joyce Cary

_{⟢"She was then reading the poetry of E. E. Cummings. As for the 'Mister Johnson Club,' it was impulsively formed by us to commemorate the hero of the novel Mister Johnson by Joyce Gary. I had turned that book into a play that was produced on Broadway. In it, the hero, a young African of spirit and imagination who is called Mister Johnson, represented to her the spirit of innocence killed by the 'bad guys.' Marilyn would say it was 'them' against 'us' everywhere. The story with its tragic ending left a deep impression upon her."^{(Source: Marilyn: An Untold Story - Norman Rosten)}}

_{⟢The "Mister Johnson Club" is referenced in a letter Marilyn wrote to Norman Rosen. Viewable here.^{(Source: Fragments - Marilyn Monroe)}}

✦A Lost Lady - Willa Cather

_{⟢"'Ralph, do you know an author named Willa Cather?"Giving an inward jump,I replied, 'She's my favorite author. Why?''One of my favorite books of all time is her 'Lost Lady,' she said. 'I'd love to do a movie of it, and I've even investigated the possibility. It seems that a silent movie had been made of it, and Miss Cather so loathed it that she would never let anything of hers ever be done again. She left such instructions in her will.'I mentioned perhaps the statute of limitations had run out.'Oh, I wouldn't do anything like that, not if she felt so strongly,' Marilyn said."}

_{⟢Marilyn gave a copy to Jack Cardiff, inscribing:"Perhaps we'll make it together, Jack."^{(Source: Magic Hour: The Life of a Cameraman" - Jack Cardiff)}}

✦Lucy Gayheart - Willa Cather

_{⟢Contains a note from Ralph Roberts, Marilyn's masseur, which reads:"This is the book I spoke to you about and think you might like."^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe, Bibliophile", The Anniston Star - December 19th, 1999)}}

✦My Antonia - Willa Cather

✦Youth and the Bright Medusa - Willa Cather

_{⟢"She asked me to bring some books that I thought she would like.‘There's so much time in here,’ she said.I took her some of my favorite books I thought she probably hadn't read. ‘The Secret in the Daisy’ Carol Grace (Matthau); ‘The Journey Down’ by Aline Bernstein (her version of the romance with Thomas Wolfe); ‘Love Poems’ by Gloria Vanderbilt; ‘Custom of the Country’ by Edith Wharton; and “Youth and the Bright Medusa” a rather obscure volume by Willa Cather."^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦Short Novels of Colette by Sidonie Colette

✦Fancies and Goodnights - John Collier

✦The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad

✦I, Rachel - March Cost

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be found here.^{(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #273)}}

✦Six O'Clock Causal - Henry W. Cune

✦Three Famous French Romances - Alphonse Daudet, Antoine Francois Prevost, Prosper Merimee(?)

✦Three Circles of Light - Pietro Di Donato

✦Crime And Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Rupert Allan: “There was never any change in Marilyn. When I first met her she was reading Dostoyevsky and she pictures on her wall which she had got from a fine art magazine and had put up with scotch tape…She hadn’t enough money to put frames on them all…She had catholic tastes…[was] highly intelligent and self-educated…”^{(Source: The Marilyn Scandal by Sandra Shevey)}}

_{⟢"Marilyn Adores Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, totes around a worn copy of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters To A Young Poet" and admitted on the "Darling, I Am Growing Younger Set."^{Source: "Lancaster Wants Movies That Keep His Muscles Under Cover" By Erskine Johnson, Marshfield News-Herald - April 23rd, 1952"}}

✦The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky

_{"Classic-crowded bookshelves flanked the fireplace before which Marilyn so often had curled up on the rug. Those books were like chapters in Marilyn's life. "The Brothers Karamazov," a copy of "All My Sons" by one Arthur Miller, a book called "Wisdom of the Sands" by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a gift from Marilyn which she had feelingly inscribed, "Because I met you, I'm learning."^{(Source: "Marilyn at the Crossroads" by Alex Joyce, Photoplay - July 1957)}}

_{⟢"She indicated whe is still a bit mystified why some critics thought it uproariously funny a few years ago when she expressed an ambition to play the role of Grushenka in "The Brothers Karamasov." "I was asked why I wanted to be highbrow," she recalled, "But didn't. Most of those who thought my ambition funny had never read the book. "Grushenka was an earthy girl. Her name in Russian means juicy pear.' I love that! "I'd still like to play Grushenka, with Marlon Brando playing Dmitri. I'd go see that picture myself."}^{Source: "She's Co-Producer: Marilyn Monroe Has An Eye For Business" By Hal Boyle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram - June 10th, 1957"}

_{⟢(Speaking on "The Brothers Karamazov") "'It was the most touching thing I’d ever read or heard of,' she said later. 'I asked Natasha whether it would make a good movie. She said yes, but not for me—yet.'"^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe: The Biography Donald Spoto)}}

✦The House Of The Dead - Fyodor Dostoevsky

✦The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky

_{⟢In her year’s sabbatical from Hollywood, Marilyn not only has become a disciple of Actors’ Studio—where she met Miller—but also an habitué of such cheesecake centers as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Modern Museum in New York. She has become steeped in the world of Goya and Rembrandt, has become a serious student of the theatre—and one of its leading contemporary figures, Arthur Miller—and she curls up in bed with such escapist reading as James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” Dostoyevsky's “The Idiot,’ George Bernard Shaw’s “Letters To Ellen Terry,’ Shaw’s “Letters To Mrs. Patrick Campbell,” ad very heavy infinitum.^{(Source: "The Wedding of Sex and Culture" - Bill Tusher, Screenland September 1956)}}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

✦An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser

✦Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser

✦Camille - Alexandre Dumas

_{⟢Marilyn underlined texts with red pencil. Tucked inside was a sheet of notebook paper with the words, “house snake tree river” written on it, along with rough sketches of each.}

✦Balthazar - Lawrence Durrell

✦Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

✦Spartacus - Howard Fast

✦The Sound and the Fury: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

_{⟢With the publisher's compliments slip.}

✦The Great Gatsby - Scott F. Fitzgerald

_{⟢Marilyn's bookstore receipts feature a purchase for "The Great Gatsby"^{(Source: Julien's Auction's, "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg" Lot #273)_}}

✦The Last Tycoon - Scott F. Fitzgerald

_{⟢She asked me about Steinbeck's books and then said she'd been reading Scott Fitzgerald's last, unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, which she'd found an artful view of Hollywood but too romantic." 'He's missed out on the truly violent gangster element. The mob. Even his bastards seemed sort of civilized.'"^{(Source: "Conversations With Marilyn" - William J. Weatherby)}}

✦Tender is the Night - Scott F. Fitzgerald

_{⟢"'Have you ever read Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night?' I asked her. Books seemed to be the safest topic.
'I don't think so. Why?'}
...
_{'That's a nice title,' she said. 'The night is tender.'"^{(Source: "Conversations with Marilyn" - William J. Weatherby)}}

✦Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

_{⟢Two copies.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦From Russia, With Love - Ian Fleming

_{⟢Chapter 19 is titled "The Mouth of Marilyn Monroe."Excerpt from the chapter:"Bond rested his forearm against the door jamb and raised the tube to his right eye. He focused it on the patch of black shadow opposite. Slowly the black dissolved into grey. The outline of a huge woman's face and some lettering appeared. Now Bond could read the lettering. It said: NIAGARA. MARILYN MONROE JOSEPH COTTEN and underneath, the cartoon feature, BONZO FUTBOLUO. Bond inched the glass down the vast pile of Marilyn Monroe's hair, and the cliff of forehead, and down the two feet of nose to the cavernous nostrils. A faint square showed in the poster. It ran from below the nose into the great alluring curve of the lips. It was about three feet deep. From it, there would be a longish drop to the ground."}

✦Strike for a Kingdom - Menna Gallie

✦The Day the Money Stopped - Brendan Gill

✦The Secret in the Daisy - Carol Grace

⟢_{"She asked me to bring some books that I thought she would like.‘There's so much time in here,’ she said.I took her some of my favorite books I thought she probably hadn't read. ‘The Secret in the Daisy’ Carol Grace (Matthau); ‘The Journey Down’ by Aline Bernstein (her version of the romance with Thomas Wolfe); ‘Love Poems’ by Gloria Vanderbilt; ‘Custom of the Country’ by Edith Wharton; and “Youth and the Bright Medusa” a rather obscure volume by Willa Cather."}..._{(Marilyn) "The books are wonderful. Carol put her finger on unerringly exactly on the heart of the matter. It is almost the exact description of what I went through growing up. How could such a rich girl know so well the feelings and thoughts of a poor girl?”^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

_{⟢Carol Grace wrote the following article shortly after Marilyn's passing:"Marilyn Monroe" By Carol Grace"Guess you could just call this column, "Musings about Marilyn Monroe." Everyone is talking about her. With the exception of a few insensitive souls, everyone is thinking about her. I know I am. "MARILYN DEAD," the headlines screamed. "WHY?" another one asked.Why? Why? Does anyone really know except Marilyn Monroe? "Just a case of too much ambition and too little talent," hypothesized one man. "She was a weak girl, the poor leetle thing," said Mr. Rossi at the corner delicatessen. "Just a darn shame a terrible shame," said the clerk at the supermarket, shaking his head in befuddlement. Again, who really knows? Certainly I don't.But like everyone, I find the need to conjecture. Probe. And I see in Marilyn Monroe so many things. Marilyn Monroe was a symbol of sex. And doesn't every woman in Western Society, in some part of her personality, yearn to be this? Marilyn Monroe was a symbol of Success.One of the avenues for women for self-expression in our society is through the Arts--primarily, the theater. What woman, at some time in her life, hasn't yearned to be the center of the stage, receiving the adulation of millions? Marilyn Monroe was a symbol of the celebrity cult in America. Doesn't every woman, at some time or other, yearn to be accepted for herself, rather than solely through the identity of her husband? The list is endless. Our society prizes fame, celebrity, even notoriety, and at the same time, women are thrust into the position of achieving these things either through men, or through the lonely route of self-expression, which too often has meant being valued for their bodies, seldom for their brains, and saddest of all, for their youth. But most of all, I see in Marilyn Monroe a poignant desire to achieve a relationship in her adult life, which she missed as a child.And here is where you and I-and everyone in our society finds a tug at the heart and a compassion, which involves us deeply with someone like Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn was deprived, as a child, of the kind of unconditional love-of acceptance -that only a father could have given her. MANY girls today are being deprived of the one kind of relationship that will give them a sense of security, of acceptance, and a sense of femaleness that will produce, later, the kind of loving, adult women who will be able to give to their husbands and children? This, I feel strongly, was what Marilyn Monroe coveted. You can talk all you want to about sex, about fame-about ambition--but when it's all said and done, Marilyn Monroe was trying to go back to the state of unconditional love of which she was deprived. It's hard to love -especially hard, when you've never been taught how.Some of us-too many--give up the struggle to try.."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" - Carol Grace, The San Francisco Examiner - August 9th, 1962)}}

✦Brighton Rock - Graham Greene

✦His Brother’s Keeper - Milton Gross

_{⟢A three page extraction from December 1961's Reader's Digest}

✦The Best of All Worlds, Or, What Voltaire Never Knew - Hans Jørgen Lembourn

_{⟢Lembourn would later write "Forty Days with Marilyn".}

✦Miracle in the Rain - Ben Hecht

_{⟢Hecht ghostwrote Marilyn's autobiography, "My Story."}

✦A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

_{⟢"'You know,' she said, still upset about the cop, 'I don’t like Hemingway for that reason.' She said it shyly, as though she didn’t want me to think she was showing off her knowledge or was paying me back for mentioning Salinger. 'People tell me he loves shooting animals and killing fish. I think a writer — an artist — should set an example. He shouldn’t add to all the killing in the world. He should add to the love. That’s what those kids are trying to do.''The end is the same.''In all his work he is obsessed with death.''All the more reason not to add to it.'"^{(Source: "Conversations with Marilyn" - William J. Weatherby)}}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

_{⟢“[Marilyn] 'Did you ever meet Hemingway?''No, but when I was a boy, he once wrote me a letter.''What about?'I had read The Sun Also Rises, in which he says a bull was attracted by the color of the bullfighter's cape.''A red rag to a bull.''But my father told me bulls were color blind, so I wrote to ask Hemingway who was right. He sent back a long letter in which he didn’t answer the question, really, but discussed his experiences with bulls and eagles. Bulls, he said, had no depth of vision. They saw only in two-dimensional silhouettes. Then he ended by wishing my father good luck.'That was nice of him to go to such trouble for a boy. He must have been nicer man than he seems.'"^{(Source: "Conversations with Marilyn" - William J. Weatherby)}}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦The War Lover - John Hersey

✦Green Mansions - W.H. Hudson

✦A High Wind In Jamaica - Richard Hughes

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Life Among The Savages - Shirley Jackson

_{⟢"She stepped from the plane wearing a silk blouse and skirt, wide belt, gloves and shoes all dead white. She was carrying three books: "To The Actor" by Michael Chekhov, The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang and Life Among The Savages" by Shirley Jackson."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe Here For Movie" Los Angeles Mirror, July 8th, 1958)}}

✦A Cup of Tea for Mr. Thorgill - Storm Jameson

✦The Dubliners - James Joyce

✦Ulysses - James Joyce

_{⟢In her year’s sabbatical from Hollywood, Marilyn not only has become a disciple of Actors’ Studio—where she met Miller—but also an habituée of such cheesecake centers as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Modern Museum in New York. She has become steeped in the world of Goya and Rembrandt, has become a serious student of the theatre—and one of its leading contemporary figures, Arthur Miller—and she curls up in bed with such escapist reading as James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” Dostoyevsky's “The Idiot,’ George Bernard Shaw’s “Letters To Ellen Terry,’ Shaw’s “Letters To Mrs. Patrick Campbell,” ad very heavy infinitum.^{(Source: "The Wedding of Sex and Culture" - Bill Tusher, Screenland September 1956)}}

_{⟢"Among the books on an end table were Joyce’s Ulysses; How Stanislavsky Directs, by Michael Gorchakov; the letters of George Sand; Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology; and Emerson’s essays. I asked her if she had been reading Ulysses."'Here and there,' she said'You mean you started it in Los Angeles and finished it in New York? How long did it take you to read it? Did you have trouble reading it?''I mean I read it here and there partly.''What part?''Oh, any part that looked interesting.'}
...
_{'Well, what's your opinion of Joyce?''He's an interesting writer,' she said."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" - Maurice Zolotow)}}

_{⟢"Mute evidence of Marilyn’s widely publicized drama studies at the Actors’ Studio, where she was said to be seeking out the secrets of artistic acting, was a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Several lines of dialogue from that volume had been penciled on a piece of paper, obviously to be recited by or to a group of drama students; then the piece of paper had been thrust part way into the book."^{(Source: "The New Marilyn Monroe" - Pete Martin, Saturday evening Post - May 5th, 1956)}}

_{⟢Photographed reading the book by Eve Arnold in 1955.}

✦Blow Up a Storm - Garson Kanin

_{⟢Wrote "Moviola", a novel that incorporated elements of Marilyn's life.}

✦All The Naked Heroes - Alan Kapeliner

✦On the Road - Jack Kerouac

✦Fowlers End - Gerald Kersh

✦The Slide Area - Gavin Lambert

_{⟢Lambert wrote the following review for Niagara:"It had, of course, to happen It was only a matter of time before Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood’s No. 1 Pln-up girl and new popularity poll queen (recently described as the answer to a three - dimensional cameraman’s prayer) would have a rich reverent Technicolored film dedicated to her—all of her.The title prepares us for one of the seven wonders of the world but a lingering close-up soon makes It clear that producers consider Miss Monroe the eighth and most wonderful. Introduced smoking in bed with heavily rouged lips, we realize at once she is a bad girl. All the same, this is nothing beside the adventures to come.Miss Monroe-whom I cannot identify with her improbably named screen character, Mrs. Rose Loomis-is holidaying with her moody neurotic husband in a guest cabin just above The Falls. In between playing a record called Kiss ("There it no other song," she announces firmly) she plots with her lover, whom she meets in a Scenic Tunnel to push her husband into the Falls. But the plan misfires and the husband pushes the lover in.Miss Monroe at once attempts to leave town, but the husband catches up with her and strangles her in a belfry. Then he, also attempting to leave town, unwisely steals a motor launch that runs out of petrol at the approach to the Falls. So, over he goes at last. ’The story is memorable in its lunatic way but, like Niagara counts for little beside Miss Monroe.This well-formed but rather mysterious girl, affecctionately photographed in shower-bath and shift, humming "Thrill me, thrille me thrille me" in an off-hand kind of way, does not fit into any of the cinema’s established categories for blondes. Her acting can best be described as reluctant. She is too passive to be a vamp; she is no menace, because so easily frightened; and she is certainly not a bombshell for she never bursts.She walks-only this can account for the enormous swaying of her hips- as if the whole earth were a tightrope on which she has to balance. Her face with its eyes inclined to pop and mouth perpetually parted for a kiss looks vaguely drugged. For all the wolf calls that she gets and deserves there Is something oddly mournful about Miss Monroe. She doesn't look happy She lacks the pin-up’s cheerful grin. She seems to have lost something or to be waking up from a bad dream. Maybe from Niagara.^{(Source: "No Laughing Matter This Monroe Girl - Gavin Lambert, Evening Standard - April 23rd, 1953)}}

_{⟢Lambert wrote "On Cukor", a book detailing his interviews with George Cukor. The book mentions Cukor's experiences with Marilyn.}

✦Son and Lovers - D.H. Lawrence

_{⟢1922 Edition & 1960 Edition}

✦The Portable D.H. Lawrence

✦Independent People - Halldór Laxness

✦To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

_{⟢Supposedly read in the last weeks of Marilyn's life.⟢"At the present time I’m reading Capt. Newman M.D. and To Kill a Mockingbird— in times of crisis | do not turn to a book—I try to think and to use my understanding"^{(Source: "Fragments" - Marilyn Monroe)}⟢"She told me she was reading two wonderful books: Captain Newman and To Kill a Mockingbird."^{(Source: "Marilyn: Her Life In Her Own Words" - George Barris)}}

✦Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place - Malcolm Lowry

✦The Deer Park - Norman Mailer

_{⟢"She burrowed in her bag and brought out the copy of The Deer Park I’d given her and pushed it across the table. 'He’s too impressed by power, in my opinion.'”^{(Source: "Conversations With Marilyn" - W.J. Weatherby)}}

_{⟢Wrote "Marilyn: A Biography", published in 1973.}

_{⟢"Years later, her life would be taken up by a writer whose stockin-trade was the joining of sexuality and the serious, but avowedly desperate for money to pay his several alimonies, he could only describe what was fundamentally a merry young whore given to surprising bursts of classy wit. If one looked closely, she was himself in drag, acting out his own Hollywood fantasies of fame and sex unlimited and power. Pain of any kind would have unnecessarily soiled the picture even though he was describing a woman on the knife edge of self-destruction all her adult life.I had to wonder if her fate at the great author's hands would have been better had she agreed back in the fifties to my suggestion that we invite him for dinner some evening. I had heard that Norman Mailer had bought a house in Roxbury, and from what everyone knew of him, he would have rushed to meet her. Though I remembered our short conversation long ago in front of the Brooklyn Heights brownstone where we both lived — when, astonishingly, he had announced that he could write a play like Alll My Sons anytime and presumably would when he got around to it — I dismissed it as a youthful overflowing of envy, which every writer feels and does well to outgrow. Now, some ten years later, he might make good company for an evening. I thought then that we were too much alone and more visitors might ease her distrust of strangers. But she rejected the idea of inviting Mailer, saying she "knew those types" and wanted to put them behind her in this new life she hoped to create among civilians who were not obsessed with images, their own or other people's. Reading his volume, with its grinning vengefulness toward both of us — skillfully hidden under a magisterial aplomb — I wondered if it would have existed at all had we fed him one evening and allowed him time to confront her humanity, not merely her publicity.”^{(Source: "Timebends: A Life" - Arthur Miller)}}

✦The Assistant - Bernard Malamud

✦The Magic Barrel - Bernard Malamud

✦Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann

✦Last Essays by Thomas Mann

✦The Thomas Mann Reader

✦The Building - Peter Martin

✦Jeremy Todd - Hamilton Maule

✦Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham

_{⟢Publisher's advance copy.}

_{⟢A letter from assumingly Arthur P. Jacobs, her press agent, discusses Marilyn's possible interest in a remake of "Of Human Bondage":"Dear Marilyn,Before Lee Strasberg left on his trip, he discussed with me his several meetings with Joe Moskowitz.Lee said that the meetings had resulted in only one prospect, your probable interest in a re-make of "Of Human Bondage."Lee said that Fox would be prepared to acquire the rights and that he thought that Marlon Brando might well want to do the film with you.}~_{Early last week I met with Moskowitz, who told me that Fox had taken an option on "Of Human Bondage" and was prepared to put a writer to work on doing a treatment. Before doing so, however, they wanted some direct expression from you of your interest in the project.Moskowitz suggested that Marlon Brando would not be available but perhaps Paul Schofield would be and that Schofield, in his opinion, would be an interesting co-star.Joe Moskowitz still inquired as to your interest in "Celebration" with George Roy Hill directing.I explained to him that George Roy Hill held no specific, inimitable interest for you and that it was my understanding that you were not interested in "Celebration."For the Director of "Of Human Bondage" Moskowitz suggests Jose Ferrer."}

_{⟢Marilyn was to play Sadie Thompson from Somerset Maugham's short story "Rain", but the project fell through.}

_{⟢"Well, I'm going to play Sadie Thompson in Rain for television. You know, I had a letter from Somerset Maugham the other day, saying how happy he was that I was going to play the part, and telling me something about the real woman on whom he based the character. I'm really excited about doing the part because she's so interesting. She was a girl who knew how to be gay, even when she was sad. And that's important-you know?"^{(Source: "A Revealing Last Interview with Marilyn Monroe" by Margaret Parton, Look Magazine - February 1979)}⟢A letter from Somerset Maugham, dated January 31, 1961:Dear Miss Monroe,Thank you for your charming telegram of good wishes on my birthday. It was extremely kind of you to think of me; I was touched and much pleased.I am so glad to hear that you are going to play Sadie in the T.V. production of "Rain." I am sure you will be splendid. I wish you the best of luck.Yours very sincerely,
W. Somerset Maugham"^{(Source: "MM-Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe" - Louis Banner)}}

_{⟢Marilyn wrote to the Strasbergs when she was at Payne Whitney Psychiatric Hospital. She breifly mentions "Rain"."Dear Lee & Paula,Dr. Kris has had me put into the New York Hospital-psychiatric divion under the care of two idiot doctors-they both should not be my doctors.You haven't heard from me because I'm locked up with all these poor nutty people. I'm sure to end up a nut if I stay in the nightmare-please help me Lee, this is the last place I should be-maybe if you called Dr. Kris and assured her of my sensitivity and that I must get back to class so I'll better prepared for "Rain."Lee, I try to remember what you said once in class "that art goes far beyond science."And the scary memories around me I'd like to forget-like screaming woman etc.Please help me-if Dr. Kris assures you I am all right-you can assure her I am not.I do not belong here!I love you both.
Marilyn"P.S. forgive the spelling-and there is nothing to write on here. I'm on the dangerous floor!! It's like a cell can you imagine-cement blocks. They put me in here because they lied to me about calling my doctor & Joe and they had the bathroom door locked so I broke the glass and outside of that I haven't done anything that uncooperative,^{(Source: "Fragments - Marilyn Monroe)}}

✦The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe - Carson McCullers

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Photographed at a lunch with McCullars, Baroness Karen Blixen, and Arthur Miller at McCullars' home in 1959}

_{⟢Became close friends with McCullers while living in New York.^{(Sources: "The Ballad of Carson McCullers; A Biography" - Oliver Wendell Evans & Marilyn Monroe - Barbara Leaming)}}

_{⟢"A lunch was given in honor of Baroness Karen Blixen at McCullers' home. Marilyn and Arthur Miller were among the guests as Blixen wished to meet her. McCullers recounted the meeting:"After lunch everybody danced and sang. A friend of Ida's [Mrs. McCullers' cook] had brought in a motion picture camera, and there were pictures of Tanya dancing with Marilyn, me dancing with Arthur, and a great round of general dancing."^{(Source: "The Ballad of Carson McCullers; A Biography" - Oliver Wendell Evans)}}

_{⟢"During the dinner the baroness told Carson that before she left Europe she had four people in mind she most wanted to meet in America: Carson, Marilyn Monroe, E. E. Cummings, and Ernest Hemingway...Carson replied that she could easily arrange a meeting with Marilyn Monroe, whom she said she knew quite well; her husband, Arthur Miller, was seated that moment at the next table. Immediately Carson introduced Miller to Miss Dinesen, then announced that she would give a luncheon and bring them together at her home as soon as it could be arranged.}..._{Other guests besides Miss Dinesen, Marilyn Monroe, and Arthur Miller (whom Carson knew only slightly, but enormously admired for his Death of a Salesman) were Jordan Massee, Felicia Geffen, executive secretary of the National Institute and National Academy of Arts and Letters, and Miss Svendsen.}..._{Marilyn Monroe, who had a marvelous sense of humor and whom the guests found charming, entertained the group with an anecdote from her own kitchen. She told with much cleverness a tale on herself involving some homemade noodles she had tried to create one night for her husband like his mother used to make in the "old country." The conglomeration was such a failure that she was afraid she had lost not only a meal, but a husband, in the process. Miller aptly defended his wife for her other attributes, however, and assured the group that Miss Monroe's cooking was no problem to him.'"^{(Source: "The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers" - Virginia Spencer)}}

_{⟢"[Arthur] Miller said: 'I do not know that Marilyn had ever read any of Carson's works, although she may well have seen her play The Member of the Wedding. However, at the luncheon there was certainly a sort of natural sympathy between the two women who lived close to death.'"^{(Source: "The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers" - Virginia Spencer)}}

✦The Woman of Rome - Alberto Moravia

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦En Mands Ansight - Arthur Miller

_{⟢"He wakes up people. I love the things that he writes. He's good for us. I've read all his books and plays. He's the real writer of our times-the writer for my generation. He's still young, and didn't he write 'All My Sons' when he was only 32?"^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe's 10 Most Fascinating Men" by Sheilah Graham - October 17th, 1953)}}

✦Focus - Arthur Miller

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Photographed reading in 1951 by an unknown photographer at the Beverly Carlton Hotel.}

✦Hawaii - James Michener

_{⟢Inside features a bookplate reading “With Best Wishes, From the Author”}

✦The Color of Evening - Robert Nathan

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be seen at Julien's Auction.}

✦The Story of Esther Costello - Nicholas Monserrat

✦Say You Never Saw Me - Arthur Nesbitt

✦The Guide - R.K. Narayan

✦Strange Prologue - Alberta O'Connell

✦Jonathan - Russell O'Neil

✦The Little Disturbances Of Man - Grace Paley

✦The Collected Short Stories - Dorothy Parker

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be seen at Julien's Auction}

✦The Portable Dorothy Parker

_{⟢There appears to be two copies of the book.}

✦Venetian Red - L.M. Pasinetti

_{⟢With the publisher's compliments slip.}

✦Fever in the Blood - William Pearson

✦The Medals and Other Stories - Luigi Pirandella

✦Cities of the Plain - Marcel Proust

_{⟢"Marilyn has a pash for good reading. Her pet authors are Freud and Proust."^{(Source: "Man About Town" By Walter Winchell for The Times - June 17th, 1952)}}

_{⟢Jack Paar, costar from "Love Nest", remembered:"She used to carry books around by Marcel Proust with their titles facing out, but I never saw her read one."^{(Source: "Cracks At Marilyn Monroe Typical of Jack Paar As Big Man On TV" By Del Johnson, The Fargo Forum, Daily Republican, and Moorhead Daily News - July 24th, 1959)}}

✦The Captive - Marcel Proust

✦The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust

✦Swann's Way - Marcel Proust

_{⟢"I'm glad you found that copy of 'Swann's Way' for me."^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits")}}

_{⟢"When the train began moving down the tracks, she settled herself in the privacy of her bedroom. She told herself she was on the way. It had to be. Then she began to read, but not the publicity release. She had brought along Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Wolfe’s The Web and the Rock, Swann’s Way by Proust, and An Actor Prepares, by Konstantin Stanislavsky. She never did study the treatise on Love Happy."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" Maurice Zolotow)}}

✦Don’t Call Me By My Right Name and Other Stories by James Purdy

✦Malcolm - James Purdy

✦On Such a Night - Anthony Quayle

_{⟢Marilyn attended his performance of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge" on October 11, 1956.}

_{⟢Photographed next to Marilyn while meeting Queen Elizabeth II on October 29th, 1956,}

_{⟢"On coming back to England I was immediately offered the part of Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge which was to be directed by Peter Brook. It gave me the change of diet and direction that I badly needed at the time.Through this production I saw a lot of Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe — a strangely incongruous pair, I thought. There have been so many books written about Marilyn that I do not want to add another word to them beyond saying that she was a most enchanting, lovable, self-destructive creature."^{(Source: "A Time To Speak" - Anthony Quayle)}}

✦The Works of Rabelais - François Rabelais

✦The Carpetbaggers - Harlod Robbins

_{⟢Recalled by Marjorie Stenge:"On the end table, The Nation is sitting, and I. F. Stone’s Weekly. On the night table in the bedroom is The Carpetbaggers and a volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay."^{Souce: "Marilyn, A Biography" - Norman Mailer}}

✦Captain Newman, M.D. - Leo Rosten

_{⟢Supposedly read in the last weeks of Marilyn's life.
⟢Novel loosely based on Dr. Ralph Greenson's, Marilyn's psychiatrist, WWII experiences as an army medic.⟢"At the present time I’m reading Capt. Newman M.D. and To Kill a Mockingbird— in times of crisis | do not turn to a book—I try to think and to use my understanding"^{(Source: "Fragments" - Marilyn Monroe)}⟢"She told me she was reading two wonderful books: Captain Newman and To Kill a Mockingbird."^{(Source: "Marilyn: Her Life In Her Own Words" - George Barris)}}

✦The Mark of The Warrior - Paul Scott

✦The Dancing Bear - Edzard Schaper

✦The Seventh Cross - Anna Seghers

✦Best Russian Stories: An Anthology -Thomas Seltzer

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦The Magic Christian - Terry Southern

✦Miss America - Daniel Stern

✦The Red and The Black - Stendhal

✦The Red Pony - John Steinbeck

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Marilyn attended the premiere of film adaptation of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" on March 9, 1955.}

_{⟢Marilyn: "Once I heard John Steinbeck say: 'You know what's wonderful about a wife? She's there!' It was at a dinner party, so of course the conversation wasn't entirely serious-but you know, it meant something, what he said."^{(Source: "A Revealing Last Interview with Marilyn Monroe" by Margaret Parton, Look Magazine - February 1979)}}

_{⟢"She said Steinbeck was a friend of Arthur Miller’s and asked me what I thought of him. What could I say? Steinbeck had been a hero of my boyhood. I told her about his fear of popularity. 'It’s a murderous thing,' he’d told me, 'because it creates a self-consciousness which makes it difficult to work without getting away from people. It also creates a self-consciousness in other people toward you, so that they are no longer themselves. They become actors and characters and react as characters rather than as they normally would. That loss of anonymity is a terrible thing-''But if I hadn't become popular,' she said. 'I'd still be a Hollywood slave. Nobody made me except the people. My popularity with them set me free.'}
...
_{She asked me about Steinbeck's books and then said she'd been reading Scott Fitzgerald's last, unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, which she'd found an artful view of Hollywood but too romantic."^{(Source: "Conversations With Marilyn" - William J. Weatherby)}}

_{⟢"She said Steinbeck was a friend of Arthur Miller’s and asked me what I thought of him. What could I say? Steinbeck had been a hero of my boyhood. I told her about his fear of popularity. 'It’s a murderous thing,' he’d told me, 'because it creates a self-consciousness which makes it difficult to work without getting away from people. It also creates a self-consciousness in other people toward you, so that they are no longer themselves. They become actors and characters and react as characters rather than as they normally would. That loss of anonymity is a terrible thing-''But if I hadn't become popular,' she said. 'I'd still be a Hollywood slave. Nobody made me except the people. My popularity with them set me free.'}
...
_{She asked me about Steinbeck's books and then said she'd been reading Scott Fitzgerald's last, unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, which she'd found an artful view of Hollywood but too romantic."^{(Source: "Conversations With Marilyn" - William J. Weatherby)}}

_{⟢John Steinbeck wrote a letter to Marilyn, dated April 28th, 1955:"Dear Marilyn:In my whole experience I have never known anyone to ask for an autograph for himself. It is always for a child or an ancient aunt, which gets very tiresome, as you know better than I. It is therefore, with a certain nausea that I tell you that I have a nephew- in-law who lives in Austin, Texas, whose name is Jon Atkinson. He has his foot in the door of puberty, but that is only one of his problems. You are the other.I know that you are not made of celestial ether, but he doesn't. A suggestion that you have normal functions would shock him deeply and I'm not going to be the one to tell him.
On a recent trip to Texas, my wife made the fatal error of telling Jon that I had met you. He doesn't really believe it, but his respect for me has gone up even for lying about it.Now, I get asked for all kinds of silly favors, so I have no hesitation in asking one of you. Would you send him, in my care, a picture of yourself, perhaps in pensive, girlish mood, inscribed to him by name and indicating that you are aware of his existence. He is already your slave. This would make him mine.
If you will do this, I will send you a guest key to the ladies' entrance of Fort Knox and, furthermore, I will like you very much.Yours sincerely
John Steinbeck"^{(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Lot#259, Julien's Auction - Viewable here.}}

✦The Short Reign of Pippin IV - John Steinbeck

_{⟢Marilyn is mentioned briefly in the book:"Let us say the president must make a speech. Nothing is left to accident. He is rehearsed by an authority in speech, in pronunciation, and in emotion; couched by a man who has proved beyond doubt his-what they call 'draw'"
"Like Marilyn Monroe-"}
...
_{"She then reached the phase when she spent her afternoons at the movies and her evenings arguing the merits of Gregory Peck, Tab Hunter, Marlon Brando, and Frank Sinatra. Marilyn Monroe she found overbloomed and Lollobrigida bovine."^{(Source: "The Short Reign of Pippin IV" - John Steinbeck)}}

✦Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Lie Down In Darkness - William Styron

✦Set This House on Fire - William Styron

✦They Came to Cordura - Glendon Swarthout

✦Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog - Dylan Thomas

_{⟢"Sunday, Marilyn and I spent the entire day cleaning the apartment, and we prepared dinner. The arrangement was that I did the real cooking and she did the dishes and cleaning up. Not only could Marilyn not cook, if you handed her a leg of lamb, she just stared at it. Once I asked her to wash the salad while I went to the store. When I came back an hour later, she was still scrubbing each leaf. Her idea of making a salad was to scrub each lettuce leaf with a Brillo pad.I didn't know at the time why she was making such a big deal of this occasion. She went to the empty lot next door (which is still there on Holloway Drive west of La Cienega; I think Hollywood has forgotten who owns it) and collected lots of white wildflowers, which she put in glasses on our little TV tables out on our little balcony. Maybe she knew Dylan Thomas was a famous poet, but she certainly didn't tell me if she did. She had set up this nest of tables on the balcony so we could overlook the lights of Hollywood (on those smogless nights you could see all the lights, all the way to the airport; there were no tall buildings or Century City to obstruct the view, and on a clear day you could see Catalina). She put Japanese lanterns along the awning and set out a hurricane lamp with candles. Marilyn loved lamps that had plants growing out of their bases, and she got an extension cord and put one out on the balcony. Our other guest was Sidney Skolsky, the famed columnist, and if he knew what an illustrious guest we had, he kept it a secret too."^{(Source: "The Middle of My Century" - Shelley Winters)}}

_{⟢"She liked poetry, and I gave her Dylan Thomas's poems, which she read avidly."^{(Source: "Magic Hour: Life of a Cameraman" - Jack Cardiff)}}

✦Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

_{*⟢Photographed with Marilyn in 1951 by Earl Theisen}

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢"Soaking up art and literature, Marilyn spends free evenings reading scripts and books--recent favorites: Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe: A Serious Blonde Who Can Act" by Rupert Allan, Look Magazine - October 23rd, 1951)}}

_{⟢"She [Natasha Lytess] told me what to read. I read Tolstoy and Turgenev. They excited me, and I couldn't lay a book down till I finished it.^{(Source: "My Story" - Marilyn Monroe with Ben Hecht)}}

✦War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

_{⟢Photographed reading at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢Marilyn Adores Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, totes around a worn copy of Rainer Maria Rike's "Letters To A Young Poet" and admitted on the "Darling, I Am Growing Younger Set":^{Source: "Lancaster Wants Movies That Keep His Muscles Under Cover" By Erskine Johnson, Marshfield News-Herald - April 23rd, 1952"}}

_{⟢"In the past, it has been standard operating procedure for some press agents to suggest that the harebrained cuties they publicize are really 14-carat intellects who furrow their brows nightly over Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The astonishing fact is that Marilyn does just that-not because she is an old friend of those writers, but because she would like to be. On a shelf over her bed and in her three tier bookcase is an impressive array of well-thumbed volumes by such people as Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Milton and Lincoln Steffens (plus Schweitzer, Tolstoy, and Emerson)."^{(Source: "1951 Model Blonde" by Robert Cahn, Collier's Magazine September 1951)}}

✦Smoke - Ivan Turgenev

_{⟢"She [Natasha Lytess] told me what to read. I read Tolstoy and Turgenev. They excited me, and I couldn't lay a book down till I finished it.^{(Source: "My Story" - Marilyn Monroe with Ben Hecht)}}

✦The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

_{⟢"When I told Maureen that Marilyn wanted reading Maureen that Marilyn wanted reading material, she took a copy of 'Huckleberry Finn' from her shelves, wrote on the fly-page, 'Dear Marilyn, he's the real Mr. Right. Love, Maureen.' Marilyn giggled with delight 'I do love her.'"^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn and the Makings of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦The American Claimant and Other Stories and Sketches by Mark Twain

✦Add a Dash of Pity - Peter Ustinov

✦The Law - Roger Vailland

✦The Contenders - John Wain

_{⟢Publisher's advance copy.}

✦An Anthology Of American Negro Literature - Sylvestre C. Watkins

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦The Devil's Advocate - Morris L. West

✦The Custom of the Country - Edith Wharton

_{⟢"She asked me to bring some books that I thought she would like.‘There's so much time in here,’ she said.I took her some of my favorite books I thought she probably hadn't read. ‘The Secret in the Daisy’ Carol Grace (Matthau); ‘The Journey Down’ by Aline Bernstein (her version of the romance with Thomas Wolfe); ‘Love Poems’ by Gloria Vanderbilt; ‘Custom of the Country’ by Edith Wharton; and “Youth and the Bright Medusa” a rather obscure volume by Willa Cather."^{(Source: Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & the Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦The Mountain Road - Theodore H. White

✦The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone - Tennessee Williams

_{⟢Tennessee William discussed Marilyn in an interview with James Grissom:“It was obvious that she [Marilyn Monroe] did not see time as an ally or a friendly guest. This we shared. However, our dread was based on different foundations of fear: Marilyn had spent her life operating on a clock that always ran out; odds were never in her favor, until puberty, cosmetics, and changes to the moral index of the country suddenly thrust her into the limelight and into favor. She never trusted her good fortune: Someone was always going to pull the cloth from her well-stocked table; the other shoe would not only drop but beat her about the head; age and decay would be home presently.I feared talent and energy running out, but Marilyn feared time--the very essential ingredient known as time--was running out.I would say that she should have understood that time can be a friend, an asset, a virtue, but I myself don't believe this: I fear time always.We do what we can with time. And pray. And wait.”}
^{(Source: James Grissom)}_{⟢Marilyn spent her 34th birthday at Rupert Allan’s home for dinner along with Tennessee Williams.
Rupert Allan:“Tennessee was a close friend, and whenever he was in town he'd come for dinner. (He loved the house) Once he said," I know that you are a close friend of Marilyn Monroe. If it is at all possible I would love to meet Marilyn Monroe." When I told her that she was very excited. She said, “Of course, I would like to meet him. I can't tell about his plays, what his humor is, but it is a more sophisticated intellectual humor depending upon how they are played and read.
It was a small gathering - just the Williams family (his mother and brother) and us. It was a great success. He wanted to meet her. He was a great fan of hers. She had a great sense of humor. So did he. It is an L-shaped house with a cocktail bar and table. They laughed so hard they almost fell off the couch roaring. Just like a house on fire…”^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donold Spoto, The Marilyn Scandal: The True Story by Sandra Shevey*,}}

_{⟢"I told her about my meeting with Paula Strasberg. 'She and Lee Strasberg really believe you're going to be a great stage actress.''Oh, I hope. I’m working very hard to be good enough to have the confidence. Their belief in me helps me to keep going, especially when I’m not sleeping and haven’t much energy. They work so hard with me on the essentials-like a pianist and his scales. Projection, movement, breath control-all those things. And I’m doing short scenes like I did with Mr. Chekhov. I read once the role of Blanche Du Bois in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. I’d like to play that on Broadway when I’m older. I like the last line so much. She says- I forget the exact words-something about she’s always had to depend on strangers for kindness. I know what she meant. Friends and relatives can let you down. You can depend on them too much. But don’t depend too much on strangers, honey. Some strangers gave me a hard time when I was a kid.'^{(Source: "Conversations with Marilyn" - William J. Weatherby)}}

_{⟢Marilyn attended the opening of Tennessee Williams's play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in March 24, 1955.}

✦Hurricane Season - Ralph Winnett

✦Look Homeward Angel - Thomas Wolfe

_{⟢"She likes to talk about such cultural big-wigs as writers Thomas Wolfe and Walt Whitman, musicians Mozart, Beethoven."^{(Source: "The Fact about Cheesecake: Marilyn is Two Girls!" , Press-Telegram - June 10th, 1951)}}

_{⟢“Because I play sexy, dumb blondes, people laugh when it’s suggested I read books. But if you want your arm talked off, mention Thomas Wolfe to me. I’ve practically memorized his books.”~
~^(Source: “Marilyn Monroe Takes a Good Look at - Marilyn” The Des Moines Register, August 6th, 1953)^⟢“Nick Ray, the director, had dated Marilyn quite a few times and told me that she was a very sensitive, interested girl. But interested in all kind of things that no one has any idea about-like Thomas Wolfe, philosophy, the classics, art and matters of intellectual taste.”^{(Source: That Girl Marilyn! by Jane Russell, 1953)}⟢“When I mentioned something about a picture she exclaimed, “Oh you mean that calendar?” I said I didn't wish to discuss that but, trying for a new angle, added that I had heard that she was a fan of the writer Thomas Wolfe. At that, Marilyn woke up. Taking over the interview, she began to ply me with questions about Wolfe’s works. Even his obscure ones. I could see that the girl knew what she was talking about and that she was hungry for more knowledge.Our studio publicist, having another appointment, was growing restless with the length of our interview. Three times I arose and closed my notebook indicating our talk was over but still Marilyn continued to discuss books. I looked curiously at the pin-up girl again, mentally reviewing the drudgery of her background and haphazard skip into fame. Now she seemed a lonely being striving for self-betterment.
I was struck with a batch of notes that consisted mostly of Marilyn Monroe's views on Thomas Wolfe.”^{(Source: “Meet The New Marilyn Monroe” by William Bruce, Movieland November 1954)}}

_{⟢"She went to her room and read Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel. The loneliness pictured in Wolfe’s riot of language struck the note that was vibrating in her. She didn’t feel hungry. She read until early morning. Then she fell into a deep sleep for two hours and awakened, filled with new hope."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" - Maurice Zolotow)}}

_{⟢"I've always admired Thomas Wolfe, but sometimes a little put off by his, to me, 'overwriting.'"^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦The Web and the Rock - Thomas Wolfe

_{⟢"When the train began moving down the tracks, she settled herself in the privacy of her bedroom. She told herself she was on the way. It had to be. Then she began to read, but not the publicity release. She had brought along Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Wolfe’s The Web and the Rock, Swann’s Way by Proust, and An Actor Prepares, by Konstantin Stanislavsky. She never did study the treatise on Love Happy."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" Maurice Zolotow)}}

✦Nana - Emile Zola

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦Oh Careless Love - Maurice Zolotow

_{⟢Zolotow published the biography "Marilyn Monroe" in 1960.}

_{⟢You can view the book and Marilyn’s annotations at “The Marilyn Monroe Collection”}

✦Bedside Book of Famous Short Stories

✦New World Writing: Number 16

✦Short Story Masterpieces

✦The Portable Irish Reader

_{^{Includes prayers and meditations.}}

_{⟢Alan Young: Marilyn Monroe looked shapely then-even under the name of Norma Jean Doherty[sic]...There were several girls on the float, but she smiled a lot. I asked her to go to a cocktail party with me.When I got to her house, I was met by her aunt. I noticed several Christian Science books. As my parents are Christian Scientists, I asked Marilyn when we started out whether she practiced 'Science' and she said no-but she'd gone to that Sunday School.She had a touching story of being hit once by a street car and walking away unhurt, and never having to call a doctor. We ran into a thick fog on the way to the party and I got lost. All I could do was to drive to my own house. My mother and father are old country people. They think when you bring a girl home, you're going to marry her.They looked at Norma Jean Doherty [sic] in her real tight sweater, and goodness! My mother went white! I'm a coward. I hurried out to make a phone call. I couldn't believe hang around and see my mother have a heart attack.*When I cam back in Mother and Marilyn were talking about Christian Science. Mother didn't want her to leave, either."}

_{^{(Source: "It Happened Last Night" By Earl Wilson- The Tribune -February 5rd, 1953)}}

_{⟢...One evening when Marilyn returned home, she slumped rather than traipsed into the room. I knew something was wrong. "They ditched me at Columbia Studios today dropped my option." That was all she said. No selfpity, no mournful elaboration. Instead she went to the bookcase and simply increased the dosage of her daily medicine: reading the scriptures of her church.Her belief in God, and herself. was strong. She reacted to adversity by refusing to dwell on it and by taking immediate positive action. During the next few days, she systematically stormed the gates of every other studio in Hollywood.}

_{^{(Source: "I was Marilyn Monroe's Roomate" By Clarice Evans, as told to Leslie Lieber - Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 21th, 1954)}}

✦Bahai Prayers

_{⟢Inscribed inside:
"Marilyn Monroe Maybeline. A gift for my darling Maybeline, with all my love. Charlzetta"}

✦Catechism For Young Children

_{⟢Has an unidentified inscription of "Miss Marilyn Monroe"}

✦Prayer Changes Things

_{⟢Sheilah Graham reported seeing Marilyn carrying it around.^{(Source: "Hollywood Diary: Miss Taylor May Get Vivien Leigh Role" - Sheilah Graham)}}

✦The Form of Daily Prayers (1922)

✦The Holy Bible

_{⟢"She would always read the Bible. But she would put a Life magazine in front of it so no one would know. She told me, 'Every time I turn around people think I'm doing some publicity stunt. I don't want to think that about reading the Bible.""^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe: Goddess lives on 20 years after her tragic death" - Bob Thomas, Standard-Speaker - August 2nd, 1982)}}

✦The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text

_{⟢Has printed presentation: "Presented to Marilyn by Paula, Sunday July 1, 1956"}

✦The New Testament

_{⟢Seen reading the New Testament at lunch.^{(Source: "Hollywood Today" - Sheilah Graham - November 8th, 1954)}}

_{⟢"If her handbag dropped and fell open on the sidewalk, passersby would be tickled at the contents that trickled out, including the usual girl treasures--cosmetics, lipstick, mascara, cigarettes, mad money, and keys, etc.--but also a tiny leather copy of the New Testament."^{(Source: "Hy Gets Closeup Of Marilyn Monroe" by Hy Gardner - May 31st, 1955)}}

_{⟢"And yet Tom Ewell tells of watching Marilyn each day as she came into the 20th-Century Commissary for lunch. She always carried a small book. One day she happened to drop it and Tom picked it up. It was a copy of the New Testament. Marilyn's friends know that she reads her Bible religiously and that a pocket-size edition of the New Testament is always carried in her purse."^{(Source: "What Hollywood Did to Marilyn Monroe" by Betty Randolph, Movie Show - November 1955)}}

✦Sephath Emeth (Speech of Truth): Order of Prayers for the Whole Year in Hebrew and English

✦Union Prayer Book I

_{⟢“Marilyn Monroe Miller" is custom-embossed on the cover.
⟢“Inscribed inside:"“For Marilyn–
with all of my best wishes and deepest respect –
fondly –
Bob.”^{(Source: "Hollywood Legends 2018", julien's Auction, Lot#628)}}

✦The Tales Of Rabbi Nachman - Martin Buber

✦The Secret Books Of The Egyptian Gnostics - Jean Doresse

✦Poems, including Christ and Christmas - Mary Baker Eddy

✦Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures - Mary Baker Eddy

_{⟢"He [Andre de Dienes] picked up a small brown leather book. It was a copy of Mary Baker Eddy's "Science and Health"'Look, this is what she wrote in this book got me' he said.On the flypage was the inscription, in careful, schoolgirlish handwriting:'Dearest Andre,}Line 10 and 11 on page 494 of this book is my prayer for you always.Love, Norma Jeane'_{The lines she has referred to were:'Divine love always has met and always will meet every human need...since to all mankind and in every hour, divine love supplies all good.'"^{(Source: "'I Loved Marilyn, Started Career,' Mourns Hollywood Photographer" By Jack Smith, The Los Angeles Times - Auguist 8th, 1962)}}

✦Christliches Vergissmeinnicht - K. Ehmann

✦The Last Temptation of Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis

✦The Saviours Of God: Spiritual Exercises - Nikos Kazantzakis

✦What Is A Jew? - Morris Kertzer

✦And It Was Told Of A Certain Potter - Walter C. Lanyon

_{⟢Muliple newspaper prayers and poems inside.}

✦Memories Of A Catholic Girlhood - Mary McCarthy

✦Meditation-Letters on the Guidance of the Inner Life by Friedrich Rittelmeyer and translated into English by M. L. Mitchell

_{⟢"When I arrived at 444 a few days later for the afternoon massage, Marilyn handed me two books. ‘I would like for you to read these. I have found them interesting.’One was entitled ‘Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology,’ by Rossell Hope Robbins. The other was ‘Meditation- Letters on the Guidance of the Inner Life’ by Friedrich Rittelmeyer and translated into English by M. L. Mitchell. Marilyn was the first person I knew to be into meditation.Seeing my surprise look, she explained ‘I’m sure from your army days, you must have come across the dictum ‘know the strength and capabilities of the enemy.’ When one is pursued by demons and Furies, it’s best to know all one can about them. The other book is a good source of strength to call upon. Anyhow, I have found them of value. I don't know if you're into any of this, but you do read mysteries.’”^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦Why I Am Not A Christian - Bertrand Russell

✦A Partisan Guide To The Jewish Problem - Milton Steinberg

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

• The Blonde
• The Bookshelf
• The Brunettes

_{Rupert Allan: “There was never any change in Marilyn. When I first met her she was reading Dostoyevsky and she had pictures on her wall which she had got from a fine art magazine and had put up with scotch tape…She hadn’t enough money to put frames on them all…She had catholic tastes…[was] highly intelligent and self-educated…”}

_{^{(Source: "The Marilyn Scandal" by Sandra Shevey)}}

✦Delacroix - Jean Cassou

✦Jean Dubuffet - Daniel Cordier

✦Max - Pericle Giovannetti

✦Leonardo Da Vinci: The Artist - Ludwig Goldscheider

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Michelangelo The Sculptures - Ludwig Goldscheider

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by Dave Cicero.}

✦The Paintings of Michelangelo - Ludwig Goldscheider

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by Dave Cicero.}

✦The Family of Man - Carl Sandburg

_{⟢"But one thing about fame is the bigger the people are or the simpler the people are, the more they are not awed by you! They don’t feel they have to be offensive, they don’t feel they have to insult you. You can meet Carl Sandburg and he is so pleased to meet you. He wants to know about you and you want to know about him, Not in any way has he ever let me down."^{(Source: "Marilyn Let's Her Hair Down About Being Famous" - Life Magazine, August 3rd, 1962}}

_{⟢Carl Sandburg on Marilyn:"I had a great respect for her as an artist and as a person."
"She was a lovely girl. She had a good mind.
"That girl's got character. The first sixteen years of her life was enough to floor most of us."
"She never fully realized herself. The best years for her were ahead of her, the best years were the years to come."^{(Source: "Carl Sandburg Talks About Marilyn Monroe" - Cavalier Magazine, January 1963)}}

_{⟢Carl Sandburg on Marilyn: "I think she’s one thing NOT wrong with the country.”^{(Source: Dorothy Kilgallen - The Atlanta Journal, June 22nd, 1961)}}

✦Van Gogh's Great Period: Arles, St. Rémy and Auvers sur Oise - W. Scherjon and Jos. de Gruyter.

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be found here.^{(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #273)}}

✦Botticelli - Bettini Sergio

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

✦Renior - Albert Skira

_{⟢Multiple bookplates missing.}

✦Goya: In The Democratic Tradition - John Addington Symonds By F.D. Kingender

_{⟢"She confided to a guest that she was searching for a book on Goya.
She had seen the Goya etching at the Metropolitan Museum and she said she loved Goya. Also she loved El Greco."^{(Source: "Marilyn Shuns Hollywood, Seeks Culture", Mirror-News, Los Angeles Mirror - October 5th, 1955)}}~

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦The Life of Michelangelo - John Addington Symonds

_{⟢"It was Johnny, too, who started me reading. Now I have to restrain myself from buying out Pickwick's Book Store on Hollywood Boulevard! There's a beautiful set of Michelangelo's paintings reproduced in book form I'd like to own as soon as I can."^{(Source: Movieland Magazine - May 1951)}}

✦Max Webber

_{⟢Inscribed inside:“Marilyn, Max Weber will fall in love with you and show your pictures that Iain Denton (?) didn't like - love Sam'.”}

✦The Sculpture of William Zorach - Paul S. Wingert

_{⟢Inscribed inside:
To Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller
In admiration from William Zorach
Jan 1st, 1957⟢Includes a letter from The Downtown Gallery that inquires whether Marilyn received the Zorach sculpture, "Young Woman," which she bought before Christmas.}

_{⟢"I read a little bit of everything but mostly non-fiction.”}

_{^{(Source: "New Pin-Up Queen Likes Good Books" by Bob Thomas, News-Pilot - January 5th, 1951)}}

✦Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story - Zwy Aldouby and Quentin James Reynolds

✦Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A. - Richard Aldrich

_{⟢Among the books which seemed in current use were Bernard Shaw’s Letters to Ellen Terry, Shaw’s Letters to Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A., by Richard Aldrich.^{(Source: "The New Marilyn Monroe" - Pete Martin, Saturday evening Post - May 5th, 1956)}}

✦The Forest and the Sea - Marston Bates

✦The Journey Down - Aline Bernstein

_{⟢"She asked me to bring some books that I thought she would like.‘There's so much time in here,’ she said.I took her some of my favorite books I thought she probably hadn't read. ‘The Secret in the Daisy’ Carol Grace (Matthau); ‘The Journey Down’ by Aline Bernstein (her version of the romance with Thomas Wolfe); ‘Love Poems’ by Gloria Vanderbilt; ‘Custom of the Country’ by Edith Wharton; and “Youth and the Bright Medusa” a rather obscure volume by Willa Cather.""The economy Miss Bernstein uses is startling. So much said with so little verbiage. I've always admired Thomas Wolfe, but sometimes a little put off by his, to me, 'overwriting.'"^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦Part of a Long Story; Eugene O’Neill as a Young Man in Love - Agnes Boulton

✦Garbo - John Bainbridge(?)

_{⟢"Curiously, she is a well-read young lady. One book she read recently was Garbo and another was Ben Hecht's Child Of The Century. The book about Garbo was given to Marilyn by a friend who inscribed it, 'To one who is even prettier than Garbo.' Marilyn was especially interested in the sections of the book which told of Garbo's battle with her studio."^{(Source: "In Defense of Marilyn" by Earl Wilson - Modern Screen, June 1955)}}

✦To the One I Love the Best - Ludwig Bemelmans

✦Great Stars of the American Stage - Daniel Blum

_{⟢Inscribed inside:"For Marilyn
With my love and admiration
Paula S
May 29-1956."^{(Source: "Icons and Idols: Hollywood, Bob Mackie and Sharon Tate" Julien's Auction, Lot #343)}}

✦The Negro in American Literature - William Stanley Braithwaite

_{⟢"In the corner was a bookcase filled with books I certainly didn’t expect to find in her apartment. I remember a few of the titles: The Story of Fabian Socialism, The Negro in American Literature, books by the great Russians, and other extremely intellectual works. I realized that here was a girl not satisfied with what nature or education had given her and who worked all the time trying to improve herself." -Philippe Halsman(^{Source: "Holding a Good Thought for Marilyn" - Stacy Eubank})}

✦The Support of the Mysteries by Paul Breslow

✦Marilyn Monroe - George Capozi

_{⟢Inscribed inside by Cappozi:“To Marilyn. I hope you enjoy my story of that wondrous creature, that phenomenon of our time known as M.M. Very sincerely, George Capozzi.”}

_{⟢Interviewed Marilyn and photographed with her in January of 1955.}

_{⟢Also published "The Agony of Marilyn Monroe" in 1962.}

✦My Father Charlie Chaplin - Charles Chaplin Jr.

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be seen at Julien's Auctions.}

_{⟢"There was one young girl I brought up about this time who especially impressed my father. She was just about my age, twenty-one, an appealing little obscure starlet by the name of Norma Jean Dougherty who was under stock contract to Twentieth Century-Fox.“Oh, she’s a beauty,” Dad used to tell me. “What a figure! I admire your taste, son, very much.”Dad liked to converse with Norma Jean. I don’t know what they talked about, but I know he did most of the talking, because she was always so in awe of him.“She does have a way of speaking, doesn’t she?” he would tease me afterwards. And then he would mimic Norma Jean!“Charrllieee,” he would say in that wispy voice that has since become famous, “what are we going to do tonight?”But despite his joking. Dad wasn’t letting anything pass by, either. He could see how much I was coming to think of the beautiful little starlet.“Just watch out, son,” he said. “Don’t fall in love yet. You have that education to take care of first.”But Dad didn’t need to worry about Norma Jean and me. “Well, Charrllieee,” she told me one day, “my name now is Marilyn Monroe.”:Marilyn Monroe started going to the top fast, and it was the duty of her studio publicity department to keep her name in the papers by dating her here and there with other eligible young men. So she and I drifted apart, and I haven’t seen her for years.^{(Source: "My Father Charlie Chaplin" -Charles Chaplin Jr.)}}

_{⟢"Charlie Chaplin Jr., with Marilyn Monroe at Slapsy Maxie's to see Martha Raye."^{(Source: "Louella O. Parsons' Hollywood", The Duluth News Tribune - December 17th, 1946)}}

_{⟢"Charlie Chaplin Jr. rushing Marilyn Monroe..."*^{(Source: "Little Old New York", - Ed Sullivan, Daily News - March 22nd, 1947 )}}

_{⟢"Charlie Chaplin Jr. and Marilyn Monroe, 20th Century Fox young actress, at Frank Kerwin's Seacombers."*^{(Source: "Hollywood",Louella O. Parsons, The Duluth News Tribune - May 31st, 1947)}}

✦Dance to the Piper - Agnes DeMille

✦Glory Reflected - Martin Freud

✦The Letters of Sigmund Freud - Ernest Freud

_{⟢"Marilyn has a pash for good reading. Her pet authors are Freud and Proust."^{(Source: "Man About Town" By Walter Winchell for The Times - June 17th, 1952)}}

_{⟢"I will not discuss psychoanalysis except to say that I believe in the Freudian interpretation."^{(Source: "A Revealing Last Interview with Marilyn Monroe" by Margaret Parton, Look Magazine - February 1979)}}

_{⟢Don Murray: "At age thirty she was going through what we did at eighteen: reading Freud and so on. I remember that about her. She was Freudian-obsessed."^{(Source: "The Marilyn Scandal" by Sandra Shevey)}}

_{⟢"I believe more in Freud than in religious mysticism, and yet there’s a mystical side in Freud, isn’t there? I do not believe I could ever take the road of religion, and yet I believe in many things that can’t be explained by science. I know that I feel stronger if the people around me on the set love me, care for me, and hold good thoughts for me. It creates an aura of love, and I believe I can give a better performance."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" by Maurice Zolotow)}}

_{⟢Cameron Mitchell: "At first, till you know her a little, you figure her for the standard platinum blonde, no brains, just out for money, looking for a sugar daddy to give her the minks and the diamonds. Then as you know her, you find out she’s no goddam gold-plated birdbrain. She’s a serious dame. At the time I first met her, she was on a big psychiatry kick. She was studying Freud, Menninger, that kind of thing. Well, I had the usual Broadway actor’s attitude toward a dumb movie starlet, and she gassed me. She was a real offbeat girl."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" by Maurice Zolotow)}}

_{⟢Reportedly Marilyn turned down a role in John Houston's "Freud" as she claimed Anna Freud did not want the movie made.^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" by Barbara Leaming)}}

✦Flaubert-Sand: The Correspondence - George Sand and Gustave Flaubert

_{⟢"Among the books on an end table were Joyce’s Ulysses; How Stanislavsky Directs, by Michael Gorchakov; the letters of George Sand; Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology; and Emerson’s essays. "^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" - Maurice Zolotow)}}

✦D.H. Lawrence: A Basic Study of his Ideas by Mary Freeman

✦Close to Colette by Maurice Goudeket

_{⟢Two copies.}

✦Bound for Glory - Woody Guthrie

✦This Demi-Paradise - Margaret Halsey

✦Mythology - Edith Hamilton

_{⟢"Among the books on an end table were Joyce’s Ulysses; How Stanislavsky Directs, by Michael Gorchakov; the letters of George Sand; Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology; and Emerson’s essays. "^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" - Maurice Zolotow)}}

✦Age Cannot Wither by Bertita Harding

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Act One - Moss Hart

✦The Album of the Cambridge Garrick - Harlan Hatcher

✦Child of the Century - Ben Hecht

_{⟢"Curiously, she is a well-read young lady. One book she read recently was Garbo and another was Ben Hecht's Child Of The Century. The book about Garbo was given to Marilyn by a friend who inscribed it, 'To one who is even prettier than Garbo.' Marilyn was especially interested in the sections of the book which told of Garbo's battle with her studio."^{(Source: "In Defense of Marilyn" by Earl Wilson - Modern Screen, June 1955)}}

_{⟢Hecht ghostwrote Marilyn's autobiography, "My Story."}

✦This is America - Max J. Herzberg

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Year 1949 - Paul G. Hoffman of ECA

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by Dave Cicero.}

✦Charlie Chapman by Theodore Huff

_{⟢"I've decided comedy can be just as dramatic as drama. Charlie Chaplin made great drama out of his pictures. And they were all very funny."^{(Source: "News From Hollywood", The Courier-Gazette - September 11th, 1958)}}

_{⟢Marilyn briefly dated his son, Charles Chaplin Jr.}

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by Dave Cicero.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Plutarch's Lives, Only Volumes 3-6 - William and John Langhorne

_{⟢Covers are all detached.
⟢Cover of Volume 3 is missing.}

_{⟢"They say that Marilyn Monroe that bookworm, is now carrying a copy of "Plutarch's Lives" under her arm."}^{Source: "In Hollywood", Muskogee Times-Democract - January 24th, 1955"}

✦Lincoln: A Picture Story of His Life Stefan Lorant

_{*⟢Photographed with Marilyn by Eve Arnold in 1955.}

✦Napoleon - Emil Ludwig

✦God Protect Me From My Friends - Gavin Maxwell

✦The Summing Up - W. Somerset Maugham

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Marilyn was to play Sadie Thompson from Somerset Maugham's short story "Rain", but the project fell through.}

_{⟢"Well, I'm going to play Sadie Thompson in Rain for television. You know, I had a letter from Somerset Maugham the other day, saying how happy he was that I was going to play the part, and telling me something about the real woman on whom he based the character. I'm really excited about doing the part because she's so interesting. She was a girl who knew how to be gay, even when she was sad. And that's important-you know?"^{(Source: "A Revealing Last Interview with Marilyn Monroe" by Margaret Parton, Look Magazine - February 1979)}}

_{⟢"Well, I'm going to play Sadie Thompson in Rain for television. You know, I had a letter from Somerset Maugham the other day, saying how happy he was that I was going to play the part, and telling me something about the real woman on whom he based the character. I'm really excited about doing the part because she's so interesting. She was a girl who knew how to be gay, even when she was sad. And that's important-you know?"^{(Source: "A Revealing Last Interview with Marilyn Monroe" by Margaret Parton, Look Magazine - February 1979)}⟢A letter from Somerset Maugham, dated January 31, 1961:Dear Miss Monroe,Thank you for your charming telegram of good wishes on my birthday. It was extremely kind of you to think of me; I was touched and much pleased.I am so glad to hear that you are going to play Sadie in the T.V. production of "Rain." I am sure you will be splendid. I wish you the best of luck.Yours very sincerely,
W. Somerset Maugham"^{(Source: "MM-Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe" - Louis Banner)}}

✦Situation Normal - Arthur Miller

_{⟢"He wakes up people. I love the things that he writes. He's good for us. I've read all his books and plays. He's the real writer of our times-the writer for my generation. He's still young, and didn't he write 'All My Sons' when he was only 32?"^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe's 10 Most Fascinating Men" by Sheilah Graham - October 17th, 1953)}}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln

_{⟢Arthur Miller in a letter to Marilyn:"'If you want someone to admire, why not Abraham Lincoln? Carl Sandburg has written a magnificent biography of him.' The first part of this letter seemed not to have impressed Marilyn as much as the last, for she bought the volumes by Sandburg on Lincoln and began reading them. Her admiration for Lincoln carried over to the author himself, and within a few years she had met Carl Sandburg and become his friend."^{(Source: Norma Jean: The Life of Marilyn Monroe - Fred Lawrence Guiles)}}

_{Carl Sandburg: "She had vitality, a readiness for humor. She was a warm and plain girl. The first time we met it was as if she wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see her. We hit it off and talked long. The last time I saw her I didn't rise and escort her to the elevator when it was time for her to leave. I've never been good at manners. But I am eighty-four years old. I hope she forgave me."^{(Source: "The Love Letters That Could have Saved Marilyn's Life" - Ed DeBlasio, Photoplay - June 1963)}}

_{"Her favorite biographical reading is about Abraham Lincoln."^{(Source: "Impertinent Interview" - Mike Connolly, Photoplay - June 1952)}}

_{⟢Carl Sandburg on Marilyn: "I think she’s one thing NOT wrong with the country.”^{(Source: Dorothy Kilgallen - The Atlanta Journal, June 22nd, 1961)}}

_{⟢Carl Sandburg on Marilyn:"I had a great respect for her as an artist and as a person."
"She was a lovely girl. She had a good mind.
"That girl's got character. The first sixteen years of her life was enough to floor most of us."
"She never fully realized herself. The best years for her were ahead of her, the best yearrs were the years to come."^{(Source: "Carl Sandburg Talks About Marilyn Monroe" - Cavalier Magazine, January 1963)}}

✦I Knock at the Door - Sean O’Casey

_{⟢Mention by Marilyn in a letter to Dr. Ralph Greenson:
“...I’m reading Sean O’Casey’s first autobiography –(did I ever tell you how once he wrote a poem to me?) This book disturbs me very much in a way one should be disturbed for these things –after all…”^{(Source: Classic Blondes)}}

_{⟢Marilyn wished to Meet O’Casey during her trip to England. Upon hearing her wish, O’Casey commented,“I would love to see her and in particular, I would like to meet her husband, Arthur Miller-one of the greatest American playwrights.” Further adding, “I’d be pleased to meet her not as a film star–I’m not interested in that-but as a very beautiful, intelligent young woman. I’m always interested in meeting beautiful, intelligent young women.” Continuing, “Crowds of Americans come down to see me. They seem more interested in my work than the English. Remember she’s no different from you or I. She lives the same way, she breathes the same air. She just happens to be a beautiful young woman.” His reasoning for not giving a formal invitation back to Marilyn, “I invite nobody. It isn’t fair. They might find me very boring.”^{(Source: “She Wants to Meet Mr. Sean O’Casey” - Herald Express, July 16th, 1956)}}

_{⟢Later in August of 1962, O’Casey commented on Marilyn’s death:“Do you think Marilyn Monroe would have died if we had had socialism? Who killed Marilyn Monroe-that’s a question. That was a tragedy that affected me very much. I hate the idea of Hollywood in which she had to survive. She said she wanted to meet me when she was over here and I wish I had. I would have liked to have talked with her…Sometimes someone can help another person. Who knows? It’s so easy to be foolish and so hard to be wise. I never knew she had such a hard upbringing-all those foster homes, never a real home. It was incredible that it didn’t make her hard and bitter-”.^{(Source: The Sting and the Twinkle” by W.J. Weatherby - The Guardian, August 15th, 1962)}}

✦The Shook-Up Generation by Harrison E. Salisbury

✦Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography(?) - Albert Schweitzer

_{⟢"She doesn't drink or smoke and she doesn't like night clubs. She'd rather read a book. "I have only one charge account," she remarked proudly, "and that's at a Beverly Hills book store." Right now she is plowing through a Life of Albert Schweitzer, the renowned philosopher-missionary."^{(Source: "New Pin-Up Queen Likes Good Books" by Bob Thomas, News-Pilot - January 5th, 1951)}}

_{⟢"In the past, it has been standard operating procedure for some press agents to suggest that the harebrained cuties they publicize are really 14-carat intellects who furrow their brows nightly over Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The astonishing fact is that Marilyn does just that-not because she is an old friend of those writers, but because she would like to be. On a shelf over her bed and in her three tier bookcase is an impressive array of well-thumbed volumes by such people as Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Milton and Lincoln Steffens (plus Schweitzer, Tolstoy, and Emerson)."^{(Source: "1951 Model Blonde" by Robert Cahn, Collier's Magazine September 1951)}}

✦A Correspondence by Bernard Shaw

✦Letters to Ellen Terry by Bernard Shaw

_{⟢In her year’s sabbatical from Hollywood, Marilyn not only has become a disciple of Actors’ Studio—where she met Miller—but also an habituée of such cheesecake centers as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Modern Museum in New York. She has become steeped in the world of Goya and Rembrandt, has become a serious student of the theatre—and one of its leading contemporary figures, Arthur Miller—and she curls up in bed with such escapist reading as James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,’ George Bernard Shaw’s “Letters To Ellen Terry,’ Shaw’s “Letters To Mrs. Patrick Campbell,” ad very heavy infinitum.^{(Source: "The Wedding of Sex and Culture" - Bill Tusher, Screenland September 1956)}⟢Among the books which seemed in current use were Bernard Shaw’s Letters to Ellen Terry, Shaw’s Letters to Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A., by Richard Aldrich.^{(Source: "The New Marilyn Monroe" - Pete Martin, Saturday evening Post - May 5th, 1956)}}

✦Mrs. Patrick Campbell: A Correspondence by Bernard Shaw

_{⟢In her year’s sabbatical from Hollywood, Marilyn not only has become a disciple of Actors’ Studio—where she met Miller—but also an habituée of such cheesecake centers as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Modern Museum in New York. She has become steeped in the world of Goya and Rembrandt, has become a serious student of the theatre—and one of its leading contemporary figures, Arthur Miller—and she curls up in bed with such escapist reading as James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” Dostoyevsky's “The Idiot,’ George Bernard Shaw’s “Letters To Ellen Terry,’ Shaw’s “Letters To Mrs. Patrick Campbell,” ad very heavy infinitum.^{(Source: "The Wedding of Sex and Culture" - Bill Tusher, Screenland September 1956)}}

_{⟢Among the books which seemed in current use were Bernard Shaw’s Letters to Ellen Terry, Shaw’s Letters to Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A., by Richard Aldrich.^{(Source: "The New Marilyn Monroe" - Pete Martin, Saturday evening Post - May 5th, 1956}}

✦Leo Tolstoy by Ernest J. Simmons

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢"Marilyn Adores Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, totes around a worn copy of Rainer Maria Rike's "Letters To A Young Poet" and admitted on the "Darling, I Am Growing Younger Set":^{(Source: "Lancaster Wants Movies That Keep His Muscles Under Cover" By Erskine Johnson, Marshfield News-Herald - April 23rd, 1952")}}

✦The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens

_{⟢"One of them excited me more than any other I had read. It was The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. It was the first book I'd read that seemed to tell the truth about people and life. It was bitter but strong. It didn't just echo the half lies I d always heard— about how people loved each other and how justice always triumphed and how the important people of the nation always did the right thing for their country."^{(Source: "My Story" - Marilyn Monroe with Ben Hecht)}}

✦Once There Was a War by John Steinbeck

_{⟢Marilyn: "Once I heard John Steinbeck say: 'You know what's wonderful about a wife? She's there!' It was at a dinner party, so of course the conversation wasn't entirely serious-but you know, it meant something, what he said."^{(Source: "A Revealing Last Interview with Marilyn Monroe" by Margaret Parton, Look Magazine - February 1979)}}

✦Thomas Wolfe’s Letters to his Mother by John Skally

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢“Because I play sexy, dumb blondes, people laugh when it’s suggested I read books. But if you want your arm talked off, mention Thomas Wolfe to me. I’ve practically memorized his books.”
^{(Source: “Marilyn Monroe Takes a Good Look at - Marilyn” The Des Moines Register, August 6th, 1953)}⟢“Nick Ray, the director, had dated Marilyn quite a few times and told me that she was a very sensitive, interested girl. But interested in all kind of things that no one has any idea about-like Thomas Wolfe, philosophy, the classics, art and matters of intellectual taste.”^{(Source: That Girl Marilyn! by Jane Russell, 1953)}
⟢“When I mentioned something about a picture she exclaimed, “Oh you mean that calendar?” I said I didn't wish to discuss that but, trying for a new angle, added that I had heard that she was a fan of the writer Thomas Wolfe. At that, Marilyn woke up. Taking over the interview, she began to ply me with questions about Wolfe’s works. Even his obscure ones. I could see that the girl knew what she was talking about and that she was hungry for more knowledge.Our studio publicist, having another appointment, was growing restless with the length of our interview. Three times I arose and closed my notebook indicating our talk was over but still Marilyn continued to discuss books. I looked curiously at the pin-up girl again, mentally reviewing the drudgery of her background and haphazard skip into fame. Now she seemed a lonely being striving for self-betterment.
I was struck with a batch of notes that consisted mostly of Marilyn Monroe's views on Thomas Wolfe.”^{(Source: “Meet The New Marilyn Monroe” by William Bruce, Movieland November 1954)}}

_{⟢"Marilyn, whose current reading matter includes Thomas Wolfe's Letters to His Mother and biographical works on her favorite actresses of yesteryear, Eleanora Duse, is a little more articulate than most."^{(Source: "Marilyn Doesn't Believe in Hiding Things" by Michael Sheridan, Screenland - August 1952)}}

_{⟢"She likes to talk about such cultural big-wigs as writers Thomas Wolfe and Walt Whitman, musicians Mozart, Beethoven."^{(Source: "The Fact about Cheesecake: Marilyn is Two Girls!" , Press-Telegram - June 10th, 1951)}}

✦A Book About Bees - Edwin Way Teale

✦The Thinking Body - Mabel Elsworth Todd

_{⟢"...In an odd way, then, the seriousness of her intent was having unfortunate side-effects, for whereas Natasha's unremitting quest for perfection had turned Marilyn's natural speech into selfconscious and exaggerated diction, Chekhov's sessions made her even more terrified of presenting herself as unacceptable. He asked her to read a dense book called The Thinking Body, Mabel Elsworth Todd, and although she tried for several years to understand its teachings and theories on the interconnection between anatomy, psychology and emotions, she felt poorly equipped to comprehend its idiosyncratic language (as have many readers before and since)."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe: the Biography" - Donald Spoto)}⟢"When I was studying with Michael Chekhov, one day I said to myself, ‘I really want to become an actress. Not just a starlet, not a dilettante, but a real honest-to-goodness actress…I told him this and asked him what things I should do. He told me to study, to read, to do scenes. To see Lotte Goslar, work in her mime classes. He said to learn how to express through the body those inner feelings so that the audience would be able to experience them, and to find a book called ‘The Thinking Body.’ I found it in a second-hand bookstore, luckily, as it had been out of print for some time. I read it-didn't understand a word. I told him. He said to read it again and again. The second time I read it, it started to make some sense. I remember getting terribly excited when I got the basic exercise under my belt, so to speak. ‘Walking on the sitting bones.’ I kept working on it and, from that, by walk emerged. Haven't you noticed the book around? I take it with me wherever I go. Just to know that is with me, that I can open it and find something new. Something that I've read dozens of times, but which, at a certain moment, registers.”^^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & the Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}⟢"Marilyn Monroe carries around a book, 'The Thinking Body' which, presumably, she reads."^{(Source: "Louella Parson's Good News", Modern Screen July 1952)}⟢"The third meeting occurred on Saturday, March 24, 1962, when both the president and Marilyn were houseguests of Bing Crosby in Palm Springs. On that occasion, she telephoned Ralph Roberts from the bedroom she was sharing with Kennedy.'She asked me about the solus muscle,’' according to Ralph, ‘which she knew something about from the Mabel Ellsworth Todd book [The Thinking Body], and she had obviously been talking about this with the president, who was known to have all sorts of ailments, muscle and back trouble.’' Ralph clearly recalled not only the origin and detail of Marilyn’s question but also the ease with which Kennedy himself then took the phone and thanked Roberts for his professional advice."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe: the Biography" - Donald Spoto)⟢Seen photographed alsongside Marilyn by Ernest Bachrach.}}

✦In Defense of Harriet Shelley and other Essays by Mark Twain

✦Almanach. Das 73 Jahr - S. Fischer Verlag

✦Dürer and His Times - Wilhelm Waetzoldt

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by Dave Cicero}

✦Codfish, Cats, and Civilisation - Gary Webster

✦Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It - Mae West

✦The Story of a Novel by Thomas Wolfe

_{⟢"She likes to talk about such cultural big-wigs as writers Thomas Wolfe and Walt Whitman, musicians Mozart, Beethoven."^{(Source: "The Fact about Cheesecake: Marilyn is Two Girls!" , Press-Telegram - June 10th, 1951)}⟢“Because I play sexy, dumb blondes, people laugh when it’s suggested I read books. But if you want your arm talked off, mention Thomas Wolfe to me. I’ve practically memorized his books.”
^{(Source: “Marilyn Monroe Takes a Good Look at - Marilyn” The Des Moines Register, August 6th, 1953)}⟢“Nick Ray, the director, had dated Marilyn quite a few times and told me that she was a very sensitive, interested girl. But interested in all kind of things that no one has any idea about-like Thomas Wolfe, philosophy, the classics, art and matters of intellectual taste.”^{(Source: That Girl Marilyn! by Jane Russell, 1953)}⟢“When I mentioned something about a picture she exclaimed, “Oh you mean that calendar?” I said I didn't wish to discuss that but, trying for a new angle, added that I had heard that she was a fan of the writer Thomas Wolfe. At that, Marilyn woke up. Taking over the interview, she began to ply me with questions about Wolfe’s works. Even his obscure ones. I could see that the girl knew what she was talking about and that she was hungry for more knowledge.Our studio publicist, having another appointment, was growing restless with the length of our interview. Three times I arose and closed my notebook indicating our talk was over but still Marilyn continued to discuss books. I looked curiously at the pin-up girl again, mentally reviewing the drudgery of her background and haphazard skip into fame. Now she seemed a lonely being striving for self-betterment.
I was struck with a batch of notes that consisted mostly of Marilyn Monroe's views on Thomas Wolfe.”}^{(Source: “Meet The New Marilyn Monroe” by William Bruce, Movieland November 1954)}

✦The Flower in Drama and Glamour by Stark Young

_{⟢Inscription from, Lee Strasburg:“Christmas 1955To Marilyn -
Who has the one and will soon possess the other
Love Lee."}

✦Marilyn Monroe - Maurice Zolotow

_{⟢"She said she hadn't read my book. She said her friends had read it. Then she said well, she had read some pages-the 'good' pages. She suddenly said, 'Well, thanks.'"^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe: Revised Edition - Maurice Zolotow)}}

_{"Yes, that WAS Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio hand-in-handing in a candy store recently and they seemed to be 'getting many a chuckle reading fragments from an MM biography."^{(Source: "Belafontes Expect 2d; MM Seeing Joe Again" - Dorothy Kilgallen, The Times-Tribune)}}

_{⟢"Photographers were waiting at 444 to catch her making her entrance there. James Haspiel and the Monroe Six had raced over to get their pictures. James had a copy of Maurice Zolotow's biography, 'Marilyn Monroe,' which he wanted her to autograph. Her inscriptionn was, "You could have done a better job, Marilyn'.”^{(Source: Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & the Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}"On June 14th, Marilyn returned from Hollywood, and she was with Ralph Roberts, her masseur and good friend. We greeted. I had the Zolotow book with me. I knew well by this time that the book was a sore subject with her, that it wasn’t something you could bring up lightly, surely not an item you would place before her face. Regardless, I chose to tell her in detail the story of Maurice Zolotow’s visit to my home, about my letter to him and all that had followed because of the tone of it. By the time I had finished telling her the story, Marilyn’s nose was quite literally inches from mine, her beautiful eyes very wide open, and she asked, ‘What did he write in the book, Jimmy?’ That was the signal I was waiting for, so I produced the volume, suggesting, 'Why don’t you read what he wrote to me, Marilyn?’ She took the book from my hand and read Zolotow’s inscription, a look of satisfaction, of victory coming upon her face. It was then that I dared ask, 'Would you sign it, too, Marilyn?’ She turned to Roberts, asking, ‘Do you have a pen, Ralph?’ He reached into his jacket pocket and passed a pen to her, then Marilyn looked me square in the eyes and advised, 'This is the only one I'll ever write in, Jimmy!’, the pen pointed at me for obvious emphasis, her words edged with genunine determination, and she wrote. The page reads as follows:To Jim Haspiel
who could have written a better book on MM -
sincerely Maurice Zolotow-to which the flesh and blood personage outside of the book added:That's right!
Marilyn Monroe
xoxo"^{(Source: Marilyn: The Ultimate Look At The Legend - James Haspiel)}}

✦A Biography of Eleanora Duse

_{⟢"Marilyn, whose current reading matter includes Thomas Wolfe's Letters to His Mother and biographical works on her favorite actresses of yesteryear, Eleanora Duse, is a little more articulate than most."^{(Source: "Marilyn Doesn't Believe in Hiding Things" by Michael Sheridan, Screenland - August 1952)}}

• The Blonde
• The Bookshelf
• The Brunettes

✦Peace in Piccadilly - Sheila Birkenhead

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be seen at Julien's Auction}

✦London - Jacques Boussard

✦A Time In Rome - Elizabeth Bowen

✦The Heart Of India - Alexander Campbell

✦The Twain Shall Meet - Christopher Rand

✦Man-Eaters Of India - Jim Corbett

✦Jungle Lore - Jim Corbett

✦My India - Jim Corbett

✦Russian Journey - William O. Douglas

✦The Golden Bough - James G. Frazer

✦Etruscan Places - D.H. Lawrence

✦The Sawbwa And His Secretary - C.Y. Lee

✦Kingdom Of The Rocks - Consuelo De Saint-Exupery

✦Roughing It - Mark Twain

✦New York State - Vacationlands

✦Everyman’s Search by Rebecca Beard

_{⟢"Women’s League Library/ Old First Church/ Huntington, N.Y." is stamped on the title page.}

✦Out Of My Later Years by Albert Einstein

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦From Hiroshima To The Moon - Daniel Lang

✦Man Alive by Daniel Colin Munro

_{⟢Contains the following inscription:To Renna Campbell from Lorraine?.}

✦Doctor Pygmalion by Maxwell Maltz

✦The Open Mind - J. Robert Oppenheimer

✦Our Knowledge Of The External World by Bertrand Russell

✦Common Sense And Nuclear Warfare by Bertrand Russell

✦Panorama: A New Review by R.F. Tannenbaum Edition

✦Of Stars and Men - Harlow Shapley

_{⟢You can view the book at “The Marilyn Monroe Collection”}

✦De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem - Andreas Vesalius

_{"I remember a series I shot with Marilyn, oh back in nineteen forty-six or nineteen forty seven. I picked her up at her place and I saw a big book on the human anatomy open and all marked up, and I said what was the idea, and she said, 'I'm studying the bone structure of the body. Your body does what your bones do. Did you know that?' Anything she does is calculated and is based on a more scientific knowledge of the human body than anybody has except doctors."A modern edition of De Humani Corporis, by Andreas Vesalius, 1543, with drawings by Von Kalkar, a painter of the Titian school."^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe: Biography by Maurice Zolotow)}}

_{“At lunchtime, an awed hush cancels the noise of guzzle and gossip in Twentieth Century-Fox’s studio commissary. Every eye in the place follows with varying degrees of calculation as a neatly delineated blonde makes her way, like a cat picking its way across a muddy path, to a far table. Oblivious to all, starlet Marilyn Monroe (23 years old; unmarried; 5’51/2”; 118 pounds; 34” hips; 23” waist; 36 1/2” bust) sits down to her lunch, calmly opens a book on anatomy. For others, the chatter and staring continue. Monroe is busy studying to be a serious actress."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe: A Serious Blonde Who Can Act" by Rupert Allan, Look Magazine - October 23rd, 1951)}}

✦Sexual Impotence In The Male - Leonard Paul Wershub

✦Angina Pectoris And Coronary Occlusion

_{⟢Photographed with Marilyn by Earl Leaf in 1950.}

_{“I like to go in the kitchen and thumb through the cookbook to find something that looks interesting. I’m pretty good, too. I’ve baked bread and made noodles, though I guess you shouldn’t print that.”}

_{^{(Marilyn to Bob Thomas - November 6th, 1957)}}

_{“She was practicing cooking. My wife and I would sometimes come by at her apartment and be dutiful food testers. Cookbook stuff mostly. Stews. Wild omelettes. Roast beef…However she was very good at desserts and her color schemes (peas and carrots), if not striking, managed to be consistent.}

_{^{(Marilyn: An Untold Story by Norman Rosten)}}

_{“...Norma Jeane was a very good cook, especially when she paid close attention to a cookbook. She eventually became an excellent cook, and very proficient in cooking game…”}

_{^{(‘To Norma Jeane with Love, Jimmie’ - Jim Dougherty as told to LC Van Savage)}}

✦Elena's Famous Mexican and Spanish Recipes by Elena Zelayeta

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be found here.^{(Sources: "Property From the Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien’s Auctions, Lot #107)}}

✦The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer

_{Inside:⟢An index card with with stapled newspaper recipes for “Hearty Hot Lettuce Salad” and “Dinner with Lamb”⟢A booklet torn from a magazine, featuring recipes for “Frankfurter Spaghetti”, “Beefsteak Bundle”, “Beef and Potato Loaf”, and more.⟢Page 53 would be marked with a torn piece of newspaper. This page would contain “Quick Main Dishes” and “Buffet Meals”. The opposite page 52 contains “Using Leftovers” and “Meals to Prepare Quickly”.⟢Page 254, separate recipe for Avery French Dressing. This page contains a recipe for “Brown Sauce”. The opposite page, 255, contains recipes for “Spanish Sauce”, “Creole Sauce”, and “Bordelaise Sauce”.⟢Page 342, papers with a handwritten menu of “Beef Bourguignon”, “Corn Beef and Cabbage”, and “Marrow Bone Soup”. All three recipes are contained inside the cookbook. Another paper has a short shopping list for 6 or 8 marrow bones and bouillon cubes. Page 342 contains the recipe for “Corn Beef” and “Corned Beef and Cabbage”. The opposite page 342, includes “Timetable for Roasting Beef at 300°” and “Carving Roast Beef”.⟢Page 694, a blank Thank You card with a marking around the “Thank You”. Page 694 contains recipes for “Hot Water Sponge Cake” and “Cream Sponge Cake”. The opposite page 695, contains recipes for “Rum Cake”, “Jelly Roll”, and “Party Cakes”.⟢Page 696, a grocery list containing “rib roast, tomatoes, milk, cream, and coffee”. On page 696, it contains recipes for “Vienna Cake”, “Chocolate Sponge Cake”, “Daffodil Cake or Marble Sponge Cake” and “Sunshine Cake”. The opposite page 697 contains recipes for “Angel Food Cake” and “Mock Angel Cake”.^{(Sources: Siegel Auction Galleries , Julien’s Auctions, Site Owner’s copy of the same edition)}}

✦The Gold Cook Book by Master Chef Louis P. De Gouy

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be found here.^{(Sources: "Property From the Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien’s Auctions, Lot #109)}}

✦The Household Searchlight Recipe Book by The Household Magazine

_{Inside:⟢The index tab for the meat section is missing.
⟢The pages in the meat section have cooking stains.^{(Sources: "Property From the Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien’s Auctions, Lot #108)}}

✦The New Joy of Cooking by Irma S. and Marion Rombauer Becker

_{“There’s this wonderful cookbook I’m reading, called the ‘The Joy of Cooking.’ I read it every day and I’m learning.”
^{(Source: ‘What is Marilyn Really Like?’ by Margaret McManus for The Boston Globe - June 25th, 1957)}⟢“And I'm learning to be a pretty good cook by following the recipes in 'The Joy of Cooking' .”
^{(Source: ‘"The Empty Crib in The Nursery" - Radie Harris, Photoplay - December 1959)}⟢“Have you ever read The Joy Of Cooking? It's a cookbook that gives fine recipes but it also emphasizes the actual happiness there is connected with cooking — and it can be a big pleasure in a woman's life, not a chore. I read it often and it makes me feel happy.”
^{(Source: ‘"I Am Going To Adopt a Baby" -Louella Parsons, Modern Screen - July 1960)}⟢“I started from scratch. In fact, from below scratch. I bought a book called The Joy of Cooking. Maybe it’s joyous, but I notice that some people seem to find cooking quite tedious. When I was a kid, I learned to do a lot of things. I could scrub marvelously, I could dust, I could clean anything; but they never let me near the food-that was too valuable. So that’s why I say I started from below scratch. There were no dishes I was wonderful at. Now, when I go to the supermarket, I know just what I want. I make a list before. My favorite cooking is baking. I’m very good at baking bread.”[‘Isn’t that pretty advanced?’]“Well, you just follow the instructions in the Joy of Cooking. But do you know what that book leaves out? About noodles. For homemade noodles. I roll the dough out very thin, then I slice it into narrow strips-like this-then, the book says, ‘Wait till they dry.’ We were expecting guests for dinner. I waited and waited. The noodles didn’t dry. The guests arrived; I gave them a drink; I said, ‘You have to wait for dinner until the noodles dry. Then we’ll eat.’ I had to give them another drink. In desperation. I went and got my little portable hair dryer and turned it on. It blew the noodles off the counter, and I had to gather them all up and try again. This time I put my hand over the strips, with my fingers outspread, and aimed the dryer through them. Well…the noodles finally dried. So they do leave out a few instructions. I’ve wanted to write in and ask, ‘Please, let people know how long it takes to dry noodles.’ But I never did.”
^{(Source: ‘Marilyn Monroe: The Sex Symbol Versus the Good Wife’ - Cosmopolitan December 1960)}Inside:
⟢Page 135 contains a printed Borden’s recipe.
⟢Page 274 contains a typed diet plan.
⟢Page 279 contains a note to buy a phonograph needle.
⟢Page 523 has a blank envelope.
⟢Page 633 contains a “Hole in the Wall Delicatessen” business card with “Marilyn Monroe, 8827 Doheny Dr. Los Angeles" written on the back.
⟢Page 635 contains recipes from the New York Post and a Pyrex pie plate.
⟢Page 757 contains a recipe for “Cheese Lasagne”. In the same clipping contains doodles on an advertisement.
⟢Page 787 contains a shopping list for “”, and a Nature’s Own pamphlet.
⟢Page 899 contains New York attorney business cards with names and a phone number written on it.
^{(Sources: Siegel Auction Galleries, Site Owner’s copy of the same edition)}}

✦Man’s Supreme Inheritance - F. Matthias Alexander

_{⟢You can view the book and mentions of Marilyn’s annotations at “The Marilyn Monroe Collection”}

✦The Use of Self - F. Matthias Alexander

_{⟢A stamp inside indicates it from Foyles Booksellers of London.
⟢"Maybe it's true" is written on a small piece of paper is nestled inside the book.^{(Source: "Hollywood Legends Auction", Julien's Auction, Lot #579)}}

✦The Magic Of Believing - Claude M. Bristol

✦Troubled Women - Lucy Freeman

_{⟢Freeman went on to later write "Why Norma Jean Killed Marilyn Monroe".}

✦Psychopathology of Everyday Life - Sigmund Freud

_{⟢"When the train began moving down the tracks, she settled herself in the privacy of her bedroom. She told herself she was on the way. It had to be. Then she began to read, but not the publicity release. She had brought along Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Wolfe’s The Web and the Rock, Swann’s Way by Proust, and An Actor Prepares, by Konstantin Stanislavsky. She never did study the treatise on Love Happy."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" Maurice Zolotow)}}

✦Moses and Monotheism - Sigmund Freud

_{⟢"Marilyn has a pash for good reading. Her pet authors are Freud and Proust."^{(Source: "Man About Town" By Walter Winchell for The Times - June 17th, 1952)}}

_{⟢Cameron Mitchell: " At first, till you know her a little, you figure her for the standard platinum blonde, no brains, just out for money, looking for a sugar daddy to give her the minks and the diamonds. Then as you know her, you find out she’s no goddam gold-plated birdbrain. She’s a serious dame. At the time I first met her, she was on a big psychiatry kick. She was studying Freud, Menninger, that kind of thing. Well, I had the usual Broadway actor’s attitude toward a dumb movie starlet, and she gassed me. She was a real offbeat girl."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" by Maurice Zolotow)}}

✦A Prison, A Paradise - Loran Hurnscot

✦The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 Volumes - Ernest Jones

_{⟢Book receipt for the purchase of these volumes can be seen at Julien's Auction.^{(Source: "Man About Town" By Walter Winchell for The Times - June 17th, 1952)}}

✦Relax and Live - Joseph Kennedy

✦Something To Live By - Dorothea S. Kopplin

✦Peace of Mind - Joshua Loth Liebman

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Man Against Himself - Karl A. Menninger

_{⟢You can view the book and Marilyn’s annotations at “The Marilyn Monroe Collection”}

✦The Miracles Of Your Mind - Joseph Murphy

_{⟢You can view the book and Marilyn’s annotations at “The Marilyn Monroe Collection”}

✦The Mature Mind - H.A. Overstreet

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Conditioned Reflex Therapy - Andrew Salter

_{Harriet Parson's, producer of Clash By Night: “She's bringing thick philosophy books on the stage with her and spends all her spare time reading them. I thought it was a pose until I talked with her. I'm not sure how much she's getting out of those books, but she takes them deathly seriously. And I thought she was just another sexy blonde.”}

_{^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe's Hidden Fears" by Louella Parsons, Modern Screen - March 1962)}}

✦As a Man Thinketh - James Allen

_{⟢"Miss [Rose] Steinberg noticed how young and shy Marilyn seemed to be, and began to talk to her. Marilyn asked how she could become a star. Miss Steinberg answered as best as she could. She gave Marilyn a book called 'As a Man Thinketh', a philosophical study, and told Marilyn that the book ought to make her realize that she could do anything she set out to do.'Do you really think so?" Marilyn replied, opening her big blue eyes wide and staring, open-mouthed, at Miss Steinberg.""^{(Source: "Marilyn, The Tragic Venus" - Edwin P. Hoyt, *Rose Steinberg was a script supervisor for "Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!")}}

✦Theory of Poetry and Fine Art - Aristotle

✦Metaphysics - Aristotle

✦The Magic Word L.I.D.G.T.T.F.T.A.T.I.M. - Robert Collier

✦The Philosophy of Schopenhauer - Irwin Edman

_{⟢"Dr. Edith Sitwell has in mind a diet of improved reading for Marilyn. 'Schopenhauer,' she mused, 'should suit her."^{"Marilyn Becomes Protegee of English Poet" from Bill Strutton, The Australian Women's Weekly - April 6th, 1955)}}

✦Self-Reliance - Ralph Waldo Emerson

_{⟢""One of the first teacher I stumbled upon was Emerson. His essay, 'Self-Reliance,' helped me more than I can tell. I used to cringe at change because I had a dread of the unknown but I count on the unexpected happening. Nor am I not afraid to contradict myself, for Emerson pointed out "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." He said it's like being concerned with our shadow on a wall. If we do what is honest and natural this hour, if we'll be true to our own ideals, we'll find our path, he declared. I can say Yes wholeheartedly one day, and have a new reason to perhaps add No the next day. I ask myself this question: Is it good, and is it good for me with what I've since found out?Why do we want to remind others of someone else? asks Emerson. Why be deceived by glitter when the genuine comes from relying on the tastes we can develop to suit our own personality? And why hide, frantically, what each person has a right to express? Why, he asked, devote our time to recalling the past and postponing what might be? By living in the present, attending to duties we know better than anyone else, we don't have to lean. We needn't look everywhere else for our answers. Search our own heart, he explained, be brave, and this will carry us through.
So, in my own way, I've tried to rely upon myself-my intuition to lead me, my courage to see me through. Who am I? The trimmings aren't to be confused with what's beneath them."^{(Source: "I'm Not Afraid To Say Yes!" by Marilyn Monroe, Silver Screen December 1952)}}

_{⟢Kazan would write in a letter to Marilyn:"...Rely on yourself. Read Ralph Waldo Emerson on Self Reliance..."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe: The Red Velvet Images" Butterfields, 2001)}}

_{⟢"Among the books on an end table were Joyce’s Ulysses; How Stanislavsky Directs, by Michael Gorchakov; the letters of George Sand; Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology; and Emerson’s essays. "
^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" - Maurice Zolotow)}}

✦The Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson - Brooks Atkinson

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦The Art of Loving - Erich Fromm

_{⟢Inscribed inside by Darryl F. Zanuck,
“Hope you’re feeling better-Darryl”}

✦The Tower And The Abyss - Erich Kahler

✦How to Develop Your Thinking Ability - Ken Keyes Jr.

_{⟢Photographed reading by John Florea in 1951.}

✦Of the Nature of Things - Lucretius

✦The Open Self - Charles Morris

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Main Currents in American Thought - Vernon Louis Parrington

_{⟢Seen by Philippe Halsman in Marilyn's personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952^{(Source: “Shooting Marilyn’” by Philippe Halsman, Photography Magazine - June 1953)}}

✦The Philosophy of Plato - Plato

✦The Philosophy of Spinoza - Joseph Ratner

_{⟢"A picture of Abraham hung on one wall. Among the books scattered around the living room were "the Philosophy of Spinoza," the Tales of Edgar Allen Poe, a volume by Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and a smaller one entitled "Film Culture.' which may have been a mystery."^{"She's Co-Producer: Marilyn Monroe Has an Eye for Business" Hal Boyle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram - June 10th, 1957.}}

_{⟢"Most evenings she stays home with an album of classical music on her bedside record player and Spinoza propped up on her ample bosom.""^{(Source: "Too Hot To Handle" - Jack Wade, Modern Screen - March 1952)}}

_{⟢"There was considerable snickering a few months back when Marilyn began showing up at the studio with volumes of poetry and philosophy tucked under her dainty arm. One day when she toted a heavy edition of Spinoza to work with her, a fellow actor took it from her, hefted it a few times, and cracked, 'Isn't that an awfully heavy book to use for balancing on your head, honey?' 'What're you doing with that thing-pressing flowers?' was another typical comment. The last thing anyone would have suspected was that she might be reading it. Which indeed she was, with admitted difficulty and little understanding, as part of the philosophy and literature courses she's taking at UCLA. Marilyn recently told a columnist who asked her about her studies, 'I don't mind if people think I'm a dumb blonde, but I dread the thought of being a dumb blonde.'"^{(Source: "Too Hot To Handle" - Jack Wade, Modern Screen - March 1952)}}

✦The Wisdom of the Sands - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢"She doesn't drink or smoke and she doesn't like night clubs. She'd rather read a book. "I have only one charge account," she remarked proudly, "and that's at a Beverly Hills book store." Right now she is plowing through a Life of Albert Schweitzer, the renowned philosopher-missionary. She is also reading all the works of Antoine De Saint Exupery, the French novelist."^{(Source: "New Pin-Up Queen Likes Good Books" by Bob Thomas, News-Pilot - January 5th, 1951)}}

_{⟢Marilyn gave a copy of the book to Natasha Lytess, she would inscribe:
"Because I met you, I'm learning."^{(Source: "Marilyn at the Crossroads" by Alex Joyce, Photoplay - July 1957)}}

✦Some Characteristics Of Today - Rudolf Steiner

_{⟢Dame Edith Sitwell on her meeting with Marilyn in February of 1953:"We talked mainly, as far as I remember, about Rudolf Steiner, whose works she had just been reading."^{(Source: "Taken Care Of" - Edith Sitwell")}}

_{⟢"I was impressed by her dignity and bearing. But what really surprised me was her interest in the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. She was the first person I'd met in this part of the world in years who talked about him" -Dame Edith Sitwell}^{"Marilyn Becomes Protegee of English Poet" from Bill Strutton, The Australian Women's Weekly - April 6th, 1955)}~

✦The Importance of Living - Lin Yutang

_{⟢"She stepped from the plane wearing a silk blouse and skirt, wide belt, gloves and shoes all dead white. She .was carrying three books: "To The Actor" by Michael Chekhov, The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang . and Life Among The Savages" by Shirley Jackson."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe Here For Movie" Los Angeles Mirror, July 8th, 1958)}}

_{"I write poetry. Usually sentimental and philosophical. Not the best in the world, let’s face it, but I get satisfaction from putting my thoughts on paper. I like to write on rainy nights."}

_{^{(Source: “Marilyn Monroe Takes a Good Look at - Marilyn” The Des Moines Register, August 6th, 1953)}}

_{"She has only two charge accounts-both at book stores. 'You'll usually find her in the poetry department,' said a clerk recently.” She writes a verse herself. 'My poems are kind of sad,' she says, 'but then so is life.'"}

_{^{(Source: "The Fact about Cheesecake: Marilyn is Two Girls!" , Press-Telegram - June 10th, 1951)}}

_{"Earl Holliman, of Police Woman fame, was a struggling actor in the early 1950s and worked at Wil Wright’s. He remembers that Marilyn would come in every night and order an ice cream sundae, then she would sit and read a book of poetry while eating her ice cream."}

_{^{(Source: "Holding a Good Thought for Marilyn: 1926-1954 The Hollywood Years" Stacy Eubank)}}

_{^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe's Ambition Is To Be Competent Actress" - Edith Kermit Roosevelt, Lubbock Avalanche Journal - December 28th, 1952)}}

_{"I like the classics, I also write I listen to the rain beating on my roof. Then I write, about death, destruction and the broken heart."}

_{Ed Clark: “One day, a friend at 20th Century Fox called to tell Clark that the studio had just signed 'a hot tomato,' who turned out to be Marilyn Monroe...She was unknown then, so I was able to spend a lot of time shooting her...We'd go out to Griffith Park and she'd read poetry. I sent several rolls to Life in New York, but they wired back, 'Who the hell is Marilyn Monroe?' Later, though; they did a cover of my shot of Marilyn and Jane Russell in 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.'”}

_{^{(Source: Tallahassee Democrat, April 11th, 1999)}}

✦Selected Poems - Rafael Alberti

✦The Portable Blake - William Blake

✦Poems of Robert Burns - Henry and William Beattie

✦The Vapor Trail - Ivan Lawrence Becker

_{⟢Inscribed inside by the author to Arthur Miller, along with a presentation slip to Marilyn:Dear Mrs. Miller: I hope you do not mind my taking the liberty of sending you a copy of my little book The Vapor Trail.
Sincerely good wishes
Ivan Lawrence Becker “”}

✦The Poetical Works of Robert Browning

_{⟢"Marilyn's intellectual bent is nothing new. She has long tried to compensate for a sense of inferiority by improving her mind. Her well-educated musical taste runs from Beethoven to Bartok. Back in 1951, she was taking literature courses at U.C.L.A. Visitors to her home have often marveled that her library contained books by Rilke, Wolfe and Robert Browning".^{(Source: "The Very Private Life of MM" by William Barbour, Modern Screen - October 1955)}}

✦The Sweeniad - Myra Buttle

✦Poetry: A Magazine Of Verse - Myra Buttle

✦The Poetical Works of John Milton - H.C. Beeching

_{⟢"In the past, it has been standard operating procedure for some press agents to suggest that the harebrained cuties they publicize are really 14-carat intellects who furrow their brows nightly over Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The astonishing fact is that Marilyn does just that-not because she is an old friend of those writers, but because she would like to be. On a shelf over her bed and in her three tier bookcase is an impressive array of well-thumbed volumes by such people as Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Milton and Lincoln Steffens (plus Schweitzer, Tolstoy, and Emerson)."^{(Source: "1951 Model Blonde" by Robert Cahn, Collier's Magazine September 1951)}}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson

✦The Poetry and Prose of Heinrich Heine - Frederich Ewen

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by Dave Cicero.}

✦The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran

_{⟢"She was reading Kahlil Gibran and asked me what I thought of his philosophy in, ‘Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together. For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.’ She is intensely serious and studies longer and harder about everything.”^{(Source: "Holding a Good Thought for Marilyn: 1926-1954 The Hollywood Years" - Stacy Eubank)}}

_{⟢Photographed alongside Marilyn by David Cicero in 1951.}

_{⟢There appear to be four copies of the book.}

✦William Shakespeare: Sonnets - Mary Jane Gorton

✦The Penguin Book of English Verse - John Hayward

✦A Shropshire Lad - A.E. Houseman

✦Selected Poetry - Robinson Jeffers

✦Aragon: Port of the French Resistance - Hannah Josephson and Malcolm Cowley

✦An Unknown Volume of Keats

_{⟢On her favorite writers:“Dostoyevski, J.D. Salinger. George Bernard Shaw. I liked “Stanislavsky Directs”, a new book. Poetry - “The Plain and the Shadow,” by Norman Rosten. Then I love Keats. Also I like Walk Whitman. I keep Walt Whitman next to my bed. I keep going back to him all the time. I’m reading G.B. Shaw little by little.”^{(Source: Cultured Marilyn Talks of Life, Love and Art” - Earl Wilson, Los Angeles Mirror, October 6th, 1955)}}

_{⟢""The first time I met Marilyn Monroe was when we had a luncheon date in the 20th Century-Fox commissary. She slank in carrying a volume of Keats under her arm. 'A Keats fan?' I asked. 'I don't know,' she shrugged, 'but the books the right weight to balance on my head to learn to walk right.'"^{(Source: "Hy Gets Closeup Of Marilyn Monroe" by Hy Gardner - May 31st, 1955)}}

✦Selected Poems - D.H. Lawrence

✦Poet In New York - Federico Garcia Lorca

✦The Havamal - D.E. Martin

✦The Life And Times Of Archy And Mehitabel - Don Marquis

✦Collected Sonnets - Edna St Vincent Millay

_{⟢Recalled by Marjorie Stenge:"On the end table, The Nation is sitting, and I. F. Stone’s Weekly. On the night table in the bedroom is The Carpetbaggers and a volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay."^{Souce: "Marilyn, A Biography" - Norman Mailer}}

✦The American Puritans: Their Prose & Poetry - Perry Miller

✦The Poems of John Milton - Oxford Editions of Standard Authors

✦Selected Works - Alexander Pope

✦The Poems, Prose & Plays Of Alexander Pushkin

✦Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke

_{⟢"Soaking up art and literature, Marilyn spends free evenings reading scripts and books--recent favorites: Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe: A Serious Blonde Who Can Act" by Rupert Allan, Look Magazine - October 23rd, 1951)}}

_{⟢"Marilyn Adores Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, totes around a worn copy of Rainer Maria Rike's "Letters To A Young Poet" and admitted on the 'Darling, I Am Growing Younger Set'":^{Source: "Lancaster Wants Movies That Keep His Muscles Under Cover" By Erskine Johnson, Marshfield News-Herald - April 23rd, 1952"}}

_{⟢Joseph Leo Mankiewicz: "There is one particular remembrance I have of Marilyn which I think tells a great deal about her at the time. One day on the set -we were shooting the party sequence- she walked by me, carrying a thin book. Had she been carrying a thin snake, I would have thought nothing of it. But a book. I called her over and asked what she was reading. She didn't say; she justt handed it to me. It was Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet I'd have been less taken aback to come upon Herr Rilke studing a Marilyn Monroe calendar.I asked Marilyn if she knew who he was. She shook her head. 'No. Who is he?' I told her Rilke had been a German poet, that he was dead, that I myself had read less of him and knew less about him than I should-and askedher how the hell she came to be reading him at all, much less particular work of his. Had somebody recommended it to her? Again, a shake of her head: 'No. Nobody. You see, in my whole life I haven't read hardly anything at all. I don't know how to catch up. I don't know where to begin. So what I do is, every now and then I go into the Pickwick (a bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard, one of the very few in the entire City of the Angels which exists independent of being a required adjunt to an institution of learning) and just look around I leaf though some books, and when I read something that interests me-I buy the book. So last night I bought this one. Is it wrong?' No, I told her, that was far from wrong. That in fact, it was the best possible way for anyone to choose what to read. She was not accustomed to being told she was doing anything right, She smiled proudly and moved on. The next dat Marilyn sent me a copy of Letters to A Young Poet. I have yet to read it."}^{(Source: "More about All about Eve" By Joseph L. Mankiewicz)"}

_{⟢"In the past, it has been standard operating procedure for some press agents to suggest that the harebrained cuties they publicize are really 14-carat intellects who furrow their brows nightly over Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The astonishing fact is that Marilyn does just that-not because she is an old friend of those writers, but because she would like to be. On a shelf over her bed and in her three tier bookcase is an impressive array of well-thumbed volumes by such people as Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Milton and Lincoln Steffens (plus Schweitzer, Tolstoy, and Emerson)."^{(Source: "1951 Model Blonde" by Robert Cahn, Collier's Magazine September 1951)}}

✦Tales of Edgar Allan Poe: With an Introduction by Hervey Allen(?) - Rainer Maria Rilke

_{⟢"A picture of Abraham hung on one wall. Among the books scattered around the living room were "the Philosophy of Spinoza," the Tales of Edgar Allen Poe, a volume by Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and a smaller one entitled "Film Culture.' which may have been a mystery."^{(Source:"She's Co-Producer: Marilyn Monroe Has an Eye for Business" Hal Boyle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram - June 10th, 1957.)}}

✦100 Modern Poems - Selden Rodman Edition

✦Songs For Patricia - Norman Rosten

_{⟢Thanks the most for your book of poetry - which I spent all Sunday morning in bed with. It touched me very much -- I used to think if I had ever had a child I would have wanted only a son - but after "Songs for Patricia" - I know I would have loved a littie girl as much - but maybe the former feeling was only Freudian anyway or something-^(Source: "Marilyn: An Untold Story", Norman Rosten)}

✦The Poetical Works of Shelley

✦Poems - John Tagliabue

✦Star Crossed - Margaret Tilden

✦Robert Frost’s Poems - Louis Untermeyer

_{⟢"Americans Mr. and Mrs. Louis Untermeyer arriving here with the breathtaking news that Marilyn Monroe can cook."^(Source: "London Likes", The Sydney Morning Herald - June 27, 1957)}

✦Love Poems - Gloria Vanderbilt

_{⟢"She asked me to bring some books that I thought she would like.‘There's so much time in here,’ she said.I took her some of my favorite books I thought she probably hadn't read. ‘The Secret in the Daisy’ Carol Grace (Matthau); ‘The Journey Down’ by Aline Bernstein (her version of the romance with Thomas Wolfe); ‘Love Poems’ by Gloria Vanderbilt; ‘Custom of the Country’ by Edith Wharton; and “Youth and the Bright Medusa” a rather obscure volume by Willa Cather.""I loved Gloria's poems. I hadn't known she was a poet. I would like to know what she thinks of my poems.”^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦Yuan Mei Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet - Arthur Waley

✦Poe: Complete Poems - Richard Wilbur

✦Wordsworth - Richard Wilbur

✦The Poems and Fairy Tales - Oscar Wilde

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦The Pocketbook Of Modern Verse - Oscar Williams

✦Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

_{⟢Photographed reading at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1952.}

_{⟢"She likes to talk about such cultural big-wigs as writers Thomas Wolfe and Walt Whitman, musicians Mozart, Beethoven."^{(Source: "The Fact about Cheesecake: Marilyn is Two Girls!" , Press-Telegram - June 10th, 1951)}}

_{⟢"In the past, it has been standard operating procedure for some press agents to suggest that the harebrained cuties they publicize are really 14-carat intellects who furrow their brows nightly over Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The astonishing fact is that Marilyn does just that-not because she is an old friend of those writers, but because she would like to be. On a shelf over her bed and in her three tier bookcase is an impressive array of well-thumbed volumes by such people as Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Milton and Lincoln Steffens (plus Schweitzer, Tolstoy, and Emerson)."^{(Source: "1951 Model Blonde" by Robert Cahn, Collier's Magazine September 1951)}}

_{⟢Photographed reading in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Photographed reading in 1951 by David Cicero.}

✦The Portable Walt Whitman

✦A Stone, A Leaf, A Door -Thomas Wolfe

_{⟢"She likes to talk about such cultural big-wigs as writers Thomas Wolfe and Walt Whitman, musicians Mozart, Beethoven."^{(Source: "The Fact about Cheesecake: Marilyn is Two Girls!" , Press-Telegram - June 10th, 1951)}}

_{⟢“Because I play sexy, dumb blondes, people laugh when it’s suggested I read books. But if you want your arm talked off, mention Thomas Wolfe to me. I’ve practically memorized his books.”^{(Source: “Marilyn Monroe Takes a Good Look at - Marilyn” The Des Moines Register, August 6th, 1953)}⟢“Nick Ray, the director, had dated Marilyn quite a few times and told me that she was a very sensitive, interested girl. But interested in all kind of things that no one has any idea about-like Thomas Wolfe, philosophy, the classics, art and matters of intellectual taste.”^{(Source: That Girl Marilyn! by Jane Russell, 1953)}⟢“When I mentioned something about a picture she exclaimed, “Oh you mean that calendar?” I said I didn't wish to discuss that but, trying for a new angle, added that I had heard that she was a fan of the writer Thomas Wolfe. At that, Marilyn woke up. Taking over the interview, she began to ply me with questions about Wolfe’s works. Even his obscure ones. I could see that the girl knew what she was talking about and that she was hungry for more knowledge.Our studio publicist, having another appointment, was growing restless with the length of our interview. Three times I arose and closed my notebook indicating our talk was over but still Marilyn continued to discuss books. I looked curiously at the pin-up girl again, mentally reviewing the drudgery of her background and haphazard skip into fame. Now she seemed a lonely being striving for self-betterment.
I was struck with a batch of notes that consisted mostly of Marilyn Monroe's views on Thomas Wolfe.”^{(Source: “Meet The New Marilyn Monroe” by William Bruce, Movieland November 1954)}}

✦Good Fellowship - Samuel Francis Woolard

_{⟢Inside front cover has "MM 12/53" written in pencil.
⟢Numerous pages are folded at the corners.
⟢Some passages are marked with brackets around them, some of them include the following:""My character may be my own, but my reputation belongs to any old body that enjoys gossiping more than telling the truth""Here's to the woman who has a smile for every joy, a tear for every sorrow, a consolation for every grief, an excuse for every fault, a prayer for every misfortune, an encouragement for every hope. - Sainte Foix""Here's to the only true language of love: A Kiss"We'll drink to love!! Love, the one irresistible force that annihilates distance caste, prejudice and principles; Love, the pastime of the Occident, the passion of the East; Love that stealeth upon as like a thief in the night, robbing us of rest, but bestowing in its place a gift more precious than the sweetest sleep! Love us the burden of my toast. Here's to looking at you!"^{(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Juliens Auctions, Lot #155)}}

✦Love Poems & Love Letters For All The Year

✦The Portable Poe

✦A Friend is Someone Who Likes You - Joan Anglund

✦How to Travel Incognito - Ludwig Bemelmans

✦Wake Up, Stupid - Mark Harris

✦How to Talk at Gin - Ernie Kovacs

✦Snobs - Russell Lynes

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦How to Do It, or, The Lively Art of Entertaining - Elsa Maxwell

_{⟢Advanced copy from publisher.}

✦Merry Christmas, Happy New Year - Pyllis McGinley

_{⟢Advanced copy from publisher.}

✦VIP Tosses a Party - Virgil Partch

✦Who Blowed Up the Church House and Other Ozark Folk Tales - Vance Randolph

✦The Hero Maker - Akbar Del Piombo and Norman Rubington

✦Stoned Like a Statue: A Complete Survey of Drinking Cliches, Primitive, Classical and Modern - Howard and Don Safran

_{⟢A typed note inside by Dean Martin,
“Dear Marilyn, A very merry Christmas to you from all of us here in the Martin household! Besides a few chuckles from this silly book, we hope with all our hearts this New Year will bring you health, joy, and warm, warm friendships. Jeanne and Dean Martin.””}

✦Men, Women, and Dogs - James Thurber

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

✦Thurber Country - James Thurber

_{^{Includes scripts, and materials related to acting and performance.}}

Updated: 05/19/2025

✦Two Plays: Peace and Lysistrata - Aristophanes

✦Jean Of Lorraine - Maxwell Anderson

✦Antigone - Jean Anouilh

✦The Women - Clare Boothe

✦Sixteen Famous European Plays - Bennett Cerf and Van H. Cartmell

✦Theatre '53- John Chapman

✦The Cherry Orchard - Anton Chekhov

_{⟢One afternoon Michael and I were doing a scene from 'The Cherry Orchard'. To set a scene with Michael Chekhov in his house was more exciting than to act on any movie set I had known. Acting became important. It became an art that belonged to the actor, not to the director or producer, or the man whose money had bought the studio. It was an art that transformed you into somebody else, that increased your life and mind. I had always loved acting and tried hard to learn it. But with Michael Chekhov, acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion."^{(Source: "My Story" by Marilyn Monroe with Ben Hecht}}

✦The Plays Of Anton Chekhov

_{⟢"[Micheal] Chekhov is a great artist, a wonderful director and the nephew of the great Anton Chekovv. He's also a great human being, warm and sincere. He's interesting and fascinating to talk to. I've known him for a year and attended some of his classes. He's most concerned with the young generation of actors. He's written a book, 'To the Actor.' He gives the impression he's lived through everything."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe's 10 Most Fascinating Men" by Sheilah Graham, October 17th, 1953)}}

✦The Viking Library: Portable Anton Chekhov

✦To The Actor - Michael Chekhov

_{⟢"[Micheal] Chekhov is a great artist, a wonderful director and the nephew of the great Anton Chekovv. He's also a great human being, warm and sincere. He's interesting and fascinating to talk to. I've known him for a year and attended some of his classes. He's most concerned with the young generation of actors. He's written a book, 'To the Actor.' He gives the impression he's lived through everything."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe's 10 Most Fascinating Men" by Sheilah Graham, October 17th, 1953)}}

_{⟢"She stepped from the plane wearing a silk blouse and skirt, wide belt, gloves and shoes all dead white. She .was carrying three books: "To The Actor" by Michael Chekhov, The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang . and Life Among The Savages" by Shirley Jackson."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe Here For Movie" Los Angeles Mirror, July 8th, 1958)}}

_{⟢"The most brilliant man I have ever known is Michael Crekhov, the actor and author. He is a descendant of Anton Chekhov, the great Russian dramatist and story writer. He is a man of great spiritual depth. He is selfless and saintlike and witty, too. In Russia he was the best actor they had. And in Hollywood in the half dozen movies he played, he was considered superb. There was no character actor who could hold a candle to Michael Chekhov—who could play clown and Hamlet, and love interest, half as wonderfully. But Michael retired from the screen. The last picture in which he played was Specter of the Rose in which his performance was hailed as brilliant.As Michael's pupil, I learned more than acting. I learned psychology, history, and the good manners of art-taste.One afternoon Michael and I were doing a scene from The Cherry Orchard. To set a scene with Michael Chekhov in his house was more exciting than to act on any movie set I had known. Acting became important. It became an art that belonged to the actor, not to the director or producer, or the man whose money had bought the studio. It was an art that transformed you into somebody else, that increased your life and mind. I had always loved acting and tried hard to learn it. But with Michael Chekhov, acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion.^{(Source: "My Story" by Marilyn Monroe with Ben Hecht}}

_{⟢Photographed reading by Ed Feingersh in 1955*"}

✦Actors on Acting - Toby Cole & Helen Frich Chinoy

_{⟢Photographed alongside Marilyn at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1952.}

✦Untitled and Other Radio Dramas - Norman Corwin

✦Thirteen by Corwin - Norman Corwin

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦More by Corwin - Norman Corwin

✦Fallen Angels - Noël Coward

_{⟢"He [Lee] went on to suggest working with Maureen Stapleton on a scene from 'Fallen Angels.' He knew Maureen and I were quite close friends, and that she would be kind, helpful and supportive.'}'_{We worked for months, rehearsing, discussing; she was absolutely wonderful in every way.'"^{(Source: Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}⟢"Waiting for Lois Weber, I roamed the apartment. On a table lay a play manuscript. Typed on its cover was: Fallen Angels, by Noel Coward."^{(Source: "The New Marilyn Monroe" - Pete Martin, Saturday Evening Post - May 5th, 1956)}}

✦Bell, Book And Candle - John Van Druten

✦Critics's Choice - Jack Gaver

✦Twenty Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre - John Glassner

✦How Stanislavsky Directs - Nikolai Gorchakov

_{⟢On her favorite writers:“Dostoyevski, J.D. Salinger. George Bernard Shaw. I liked “Stanislavsky Directs”, a new book. Poetry - “The Plain and the Shadow,” by Norman Rosten. Then I love Keats. Also I like Walk Whitman. I keep Walt Whitman next to my bed. I keep going back to him all the time. I’m reading G.B. Shaw little by little.”^{(Source: Cultured Marilyn Talks of Life, Love and Art” - Earl Wilson, Los Angeles Mirror, October 6th, 1955)}}

_{⟢"Among the books on an end table were Joyce’s Ulysses; How Stanislavsky Directs, by Michael Gorchakov; the letters of George Sand; Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology; and Emerson’s essays. "^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" - Maurice Zolotow)}}

✦The Potting Shed - Graham Greene

✦Modern American Dramas - Harlan Hatcher

✦Frankie and Johnny - John Huston

_{⟢Inscribed to Marilyn from Houston:"Marilyn Dear
all those years ago when you were hardly born I wrote this for you - the perfect Frankie - Johnny (himself) Huston."}

✦Arthur Miller's Adaptation of of "An Enemy of the People"' - Henrik Ibsen

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢Photographed reading by Ben Ross in 1951.}

✦Heroines of the Modern Stage - Forrest Izard

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦The Complete Plays of Henry James

✦Born Yesterday - Garson Kanin

_{⟢"One other project, at another studio, was simultaneously occupying my attention. Columbia Pictures had bought the film rights to my play, Born Yesterday, and production plans were under way. I was urging Harry Cohn, the dynamic and didactic president of Columbia, to use Judy Holliday and Paul Douglas in the roles they had so stunningly created.Cohn would have none of it.He had an actor, Broderick Crawford, under contract who was, in his opinion, perfect for the part. Moreover, Crawford had recently won an Academy Award for his performance in All the King's Men.As to the girl, he owned Rita Hayworth (a big star). Also Kim Novak, also Lucille Ball. There was even a little dark (blonde?) horse, a contract bit player named Marilyn Monroel (In fact, she made a test for the part, but Cohn did not take the trouble to step into the projection room adjoining his office to look at it.)"^{(Source: Tracy and Hepburn" - Garson Kanin)}}

✦All About Eve - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦Film Culture - Jonas Mekas(?)

_{⟢"A picture of Abraham hung on one wall. Among the books scattered around the living room were "the Philosophy of Spinoza," the Tales of Edgar Allen Poe, a volume by Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and a smaller one entitled "Film Culture.' which may have been a mystery."^{(Source: "She's Co-Producer: Marilyn Monroe Has an Eye for Business" Hal Boyle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram - June 10th, 1957.)}}

✦All My Sons - Arthur Miller

_{"Classic-crowded bookshelves flanked the fireplace before which Marilyn so often had curled up on the rug. Those books were like chapters in Marilyn's life. "The Brothers Karamazov," a copy of "All My Sons" by one Arthur Miller, a book called "Wisdom of the Sands" by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a gift from Marilyn which she had feelingly inscribed, "Because I met you, I'm learning."^{(Source: "Marilyn at the Crossroads" by Alex Joyce, Photoplay - July 1957)}}

_{⟢"He wakes up people. I love the things that he writes. He's good for us. I've read all his books and plays. He's the real writer of our times-the writer for my generation. He's still young, and didn't he write 'All My Sons' when he was only 32?"^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe's 10 Most Fascinating Men" by Sheilah Graham - October 17th, 1953)}}

✦Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦Plays By Moliere - Moliere

✦Politics in the American Drama - Caspar Nannes

✦Collected Plays (Two Volumes) - Sean O’Casey

_{⟢Marilyn wished to Meet O’Casey during her trip to England. Upon hearing her wish, O’Casey commented,“I would love to see her and in particular, I would like to meet her husband, Arthur Miller-one of the greatest American playwrights.” Further adding, “I’d be pleased to meet her not as a film star–I’m not interested in that-but as a very beautiful, intelligent young woman. I’m always interested in meeting beautiful, intelligent young women.” Continuing, “Crowds of Americans come down to see me. They seem more interested in my work than the English. Remember she’s no different from you or I. She lives the same way, she breathes the same air. She just happens to be a beautiful young woman.” His reasoning for not giving a formal invitation back to Marilyn, “I invite nobody. It isn’t fair. They might find me very boring.”(Source: “She wants Meet Mr. Sean O’Casey” - Herald Express, July 16th, 1956)*}

_{⟢Later in August of 1962, O’Casey commented on Marilyn’s death:“Do you think Marilyn Monroe would have died if we had had socialism? Who killed Marilyn Monroe-that’s a question. That was a tragedy that affected me very much. I hate the idea of Hollywood in which she had to survive. She said she wanted to meet me when she was over here and I wish I had. I would have liked to have talked with her…Sometimes someone can help another person. Who knows? It’s so easy to be foolish and so hard to be wise. I never knew she had such a hard upbringing-all those foster homes, never a real home. It was incredible that it didn’t make her hard and bitter-”.^{(Source: The Sting and the Twinkle” by W.J. Weatherby - The Guardian, August 15th, 1962)}}

✦Red Roses for Me - Sean O’Casey

✦Selected Plays - Sean O’Casey

✦The Green Crow - Sean O’Casey

✦Clash By Night - Clifford Odets

_{⟢Marilyn would be in the film adaptation of the play in 1952.⟢In 1959, Marilyn was offered a role in another film adaptation of Odets. This time for “The Story on Page One”, however it would fall through and ultimately go to Rita Hayworth.^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donald Spoto)}⟢In 1947, Marilyn attended classes at the Actor’s Lab. She later recalled:
“She (Phoebe Brand) asked us to read his play Clash By Night, which starred Tallulah Bankhead on Broadway. It’s one of the few plays I thought I could do, because there was the part of a girl that reminded me of myself.”^{(Sources: Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donald Spoto)}⟢According to Peter Bogdanovich,“Playwright Clifford Odets told me that she used to come over to his house and talk, but that the only times she seemed really comfortable were when she was with his two young children and animals, she relaxed with them, felt no threat. With everyone else, Odets said she seemed nervous, intimidated, frightened. When I repeated to Miller this remark about her with children and animals, he said, “Well, they didn’t sneer at her.”~^{(Source: Who the Hell’s In It by Peter Bogdanovich)}}~⟢Odets gave Marilyn a copy of “The Cat with Two Faces” by Gordon Young, inscribing on a piece of paper:“Dear M.M, Xmas greetings and light reading, Affectionately Clifford Odets”

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Golden Boy - Clifford Odets

_{⟢Marilyn’s copy from her time at the Actor’s studio. Written inside, along with her initials in the upper corner, is Phil Roth’s phone number. She would perform the scene with Roth, recalled by Susan Strasberg:“Next she did her first scene in the private class. She’d been watching for over a year. It was from Odets’s Golden Boy……She was playing Lorna Moon, a woman who desperately wants to change from her old life of conniving and hustling because she has fallen in love, Marilyn started slowly. The scene opened on a stifling hot day, and she created the heat of the day so well, she actually began to sweat……The initial jealousy and resentment of the other students melted as the scene began. She moved around, doing bits of business. This was a Marilyn no one had ever seen on the screen. This was the girl who roomed with me on Fire Island.Her movements were natural, graceful, not the exaggerated sexy walk she was famous for. She was a real person. When she spoke, there was nothing to dispel the humanity and simplicity of that impression. She gazed at an imaginary road before her. “Look at all those cars…” She was gutsy, vulnerable, charming, sad, in love, desperate, soft, with an edge…no whispering or breathiness, just herself……The scene ended. Before his critique, Pop couldn’t resist turning around to the roomful of students and asking, “So, was that excellent or not?” She’d proven herself that day before one of the toughest audiences she would ever have. She was justifiably proud of herself afterward, like a kid who’d crossed the stress alone for the first time. It was obvious my father was proud, too…”^{(Source: Marilyn and Me: Sisters, Rivals, Friends by Susan Strasberg)}⟢Pages 27-31, Act I Scene 4,have multiple notes and annotations.⟢Pages 48-54, Act II Scene 3, have the following annotations:
“I feel full of crap”
“Look at Bob listen Try to use him if possible”
“Desert”
“Red Rock”
“Dairy”
“driving by”
“voice on phone”
“at resort in phone booth.”Below Lorna’s line, “You don’t know what you’re talking about“, Marilyn added on writing “...anything about my life…my struggles.”“Substitute J.H. + including how he looks guilty for him”
“his sickness and pain”
“also to feel his human warmth and shelter”
“Maybe father like.,.”
“also - my need for Joe since my physical aliveness depends on him - yet he is not what I’m not secure with…”}

✦The Country Girl - Clifford Odets

✦Six Plays of Clifford Odets

✦Anna Christie, The Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape - Eugene O'Neill

_{⟢"We discussed other scenes, including one from 'Anna Christie,' which she recommended. We read it, and the very first time it seemed right."^{(Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & the Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)"}}

_{⟢"I don't think of myself as a comedienne only, and I don't want to do just light roles always. Some people say I should, maybe because they've never seen me do more serious things. But I can-I did Anna Christie at the Actor's Studio and other plays like that. And anyway...the serious and the sad and comedy are all tied together in life."^{(Source: "A Revealing Last Interview with Marilyn Monroe" by Margaret Parton, Look Magazine - February 1979)}}

_{⟢Franchot Tone: "Let me tell you something. Maureen's a great actress. No doubt about that! But when she and Marilyn played Anna Christie Marilyn gave an ever finer performance."^{(Source: "“I'll Never Be The Same” " by Elsa Maxwell, Movieland - September 1957)}}

_{⟢Joan Copeland: "It was a rough scene from O’Neill’s Anna Christie—a far cry from the little sex-pot role she played in The Seven Year Itch, and that sort of thing. She was very nervous about it, studying four scenes for a month before she finally decided on one of them. And when the day came on which day she’d appear, she asked another girl to sign her name on the scene board. She wanted those kids who might not believe that the Studio name to the scene board—those who wouldn’t ordinarily be there, to stay away. Believe me when I say that Marilyn got out there and did her scene in front of one of the toughest audiences in the world—an audience composed of students trained to be critical, and students who hadn’t liked her—sight unseen.It went beautifully! She glowed—you know—the kind of talent it was hard to believe she had. I saw Marilyn that night and she was radiant. “A couple of the kids we knew raved,” she said, “and even the others gave me a good hand.”^{(Source: "They Really Like Me!" by Joan Copeland, Modern Screen - January 1957)}}

✦Long Day’s Journey into Night , 1956 & 1959 Edition - Eugene O'Neill

✦The Passionate Playgoer - George Oppenheimer

✦Medea - Jeffers Robinson

✦Selected Plays of Bernard Shaw

_{⟢On her favorite writers:“Dostoyevski, J.D. Salinger. George Bernard Shaw. I liked “Stanislavsky Directs”, a new book. Poetry - “The Plain and the Shadow,” by Norman Rosten. Then I love Keats. Also I like Walk Whitman. I keep Walt Whitman next to my bed. I keep going back to him all the time. I’m reading G.B. Shaw little by little.”^{(Source: Cultured Marilyn Talks of Life, Love and Art” - Earl Wilson, Los Angeles Mirror, October 6th, 1955)}}

✦Elizabethan Plays - Hazelton Spencer

✦An Actor Prepares - Konstantin Stanislavsky

_{⟢"When the train began moving down the tracks, she settled herself in the privacy of her bedroom. She told herself she was on the way. It had to be. Then she began to read, but not the publicity release. She had brought along Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Wolfe’s The Web and the Rock, Swann’s Way by Proust, and An Actor Prepares, by Konstantin Stanislavsky. She never did study the treatise on Love Happy."^{(Source: "Marilyn Monroe" Maurice Zolotow)}}

_{⟢"Instead of studying the whole Love Happy script as she was asked to do, Marilyn carries a volume of The Actor Prepares by Stanislavsky. She immerses herself in a study of "The Method," by which actors draw on their emotions and experiences to create realistic characterizations."^{(Source: "My Sister Marilyn : A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe" - Berniece Baker Miracle and Mona Rae Miracle)}}

✦My Life in Art - Konstantin Stanislavsky

_{⟢Seen by Philippe Halsman in Marilyn's personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952^{(Source: “Shoot Marilyn’” by Philippe Halsman, Photography Magazine - June 1953)}}

✦Sons of Men - Herschel Steinhardt

✦Redemption & Other Plays - Leo Tolstoy

_{⟢"Marilyn Adores Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, totes around a worn copy of Rainer Maria Rike's "Letters To A Young Poet" and admitted on the "Darling, I Am Growing Younger Set":}^{Source: "Lancaster Wants Movies That Keep His Muscles Under Cover" By Erskine Johnson, Marshfield News-Herald - April 23rd, 1952"}

_{⟢"In the past, it has been standard operating procedure for some press agents to suggest that the harebrained cuties they publicize are really 14-carat intellects who furrow their brows nightly over Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The astonishing fact is that Marilyn does just that-not because she is an old friend of those writers, but because she would like to be. On a shelf over her bed and in her three tier bookcase is an impressive array of well-thumbed volumes by such people as Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Milton and Lincoln Steffens (plus Schweitzer, Tolstoy, and Emerson)."^{(Source: "1951 Model Blonde" by Robert Cahn, Collier's Magazine September 1951)}}

_{⟢"In the past, it has been standard operating procedure for some press agents to suggest that the harebrained cuties they publicize are really 14-carat intellects who furrow their brows nightly over Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The astonishing fact is that Marilyn does just that-not because she is an old friend of those writers, but because she would like to be. On a shelf over her bed and in her three tier bookcase is an impressive array of well-thumbed volumes by such people as Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Milton and Lincoln Steffens (plus Schweitzer, Tolstoy, and Emerson)."^{(Source: "1951 Model Blonde" by Robert Cahn, Collier's Magazine September 1951)}}

✦A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams

_{⟢"The Strasbergs held a European-style Sunday soirée where you might come across just about anyone prominent in New York’s theatrical circle, as well as refugees from Hollywood, starting with Marilyn Monroe.In person without makeup Marilyn was pretty ordinary looking. She had magnificent eyes but none of the Hollywood blond-bombshell look. In fact her hair was curly and reddish at the roots, and her cheeks were always ruddy. She was a great comedienne and gave us a glimpse of her dramatic talents when she gave a poetic and moving performance in a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. She did the scene where Blanche says to the delivery boy, “Young man! Young, young, young man! Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young prince out of the Arabian Nights?!” I also remember in that scene she was sweating profusely, from every part of her body—she must have been terrified.She was always striving to better herself, both as an actress and as a person. Once in Strasberg’s kitchen she walked up behind Bonnie, who was having an intense conversation about the art of theater with director Walter Beakel, and she said, “I want to feel what it’s like to be talked to like an intelligent person.”^{(Source: "There I Go Again: How I Came to Be Mr. Feeny, John Adams, Dr. Craig, KITT, and Many Others" by William Daniels)}}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

_{⟢Some annotations from Marilyn written inside.}

✦Camino Real - Tennessee Williams

✦Orpheus Descending - Tennessee Williams

✦27 Wagons Full of Cotton, and Other Plays - Tennessee Williams

_{⟢In 1955 Marilyn would attend the play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, that featured Maureen Stapleton. Marilyn to Stapleton:
“I saw you in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and I really liked it.”^{(Source: A Hell of a Life by Maureen Stapleton)}}

✦The Cat With Two Faces - Gordon Young

_{⟢Inscribed on a piece of paper,“Dear M.M, Xmas greetings and light reading, Affectionately Clifford Odets”}

✦Best American Plays, Third Series, 1945-1951

The Actor’s Lab

_{“All I could think of was this far, far away place called New York where actors and directors did very different things than stand around all day arguing about a close up or camera angle. I had never seen a play, and I don't think I knew how to read one very well. But Phoebe Brand and her company somehow made it all very real. It seemed so exciting to me, and I wanted to be a part of that life. But I’d never been out of California.”}

_{While at the Actor’s Lab in 1947, Marilyn read, or causally read, the following plays:}

✦1931 by Claire and Paul Sifton
✦Night Over Taos by Maxwell Anderson
✦Men In White by Sidney Kingsley
✦Awake and Sing! By Clifford Odets
✦Weep for Virgins by Nellise Child
✦The Case of Clyde Griffiths by Erwin Piscator and Lena Goldschmidt
✦Golden Boy by Clifford Odets

_{^{(Source: Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donald Spoto)}}

✦Schubert - Ralph Bates

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦Music for the Millions - David Ewen

✦Paris Blues - Harold Flender

✦Beethoven: His Spiritual Development - J.W.N. Sullivan

_{⟢"It was Johnny, too, who started me reading. Now I have to restrain myself from buying out Pickwick's Book Store on Hollywood Boulevard! There's a beautiful set of Michelangelos paintings reproduced in book form I'd like to own as soon as I can. I'd also like to own all the Beethoven recordings."^{(Source: Movieland Magazine - May 1951)}}

_{⟢"She likes to talk about such cultural big-wigs as writers Thomas Wolfe and Walt Whitman, musicians Mozart, Beethoven."^{(Source: "The Fact about Cheesecake: Marilyn is Two Girls!" , Press-Telegram - June 10th, 1951)}}

✦Men of Music - Wallace Brockway and Herbert Weinstock

✦After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It - Irving Berlin
✦Marilyn - Ervin Drake and Jimmy Shir
✦Running Wild - Joe Grey and Leo Wood
l✦Happy Christmas Little Friend - Oscar Hammerstein
✦Sweet Sue - Just You - Will J. Harris
✦Believe Your Heart - Rick Jones
✦I'm Though With Love - Gus Kahn
✦Music - Matt Malneck and Fud Livingston
✦Marilyn...! - Pierre Mars
✦Black Magic - Arrangement by Billy May for Marilyn Monroe
✦Hits - Jimmy McHugh
✦Experience Unnecessary - Sarah Vaughan
✦Music Victor YoungMarilyn's Songbook
_{^{(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg, Julien's Auction, Lot #256)}
Includes the following songs:}
✦You're An Old Smoothie - DeSylva, Henderson and Brown
✦You're Blase - Ord Hamilton
✦Whisper That You Love Me John Klenner
✦The White Dove Franz Lehár
✦You Do Something To Me Cole Porter
✦A Wonderful Guy Richard Rodgers
✦Wonderful One - Paul Whiteman
✦While We're Young Alec Wilder and Morty Palitz

✦Truman Capote Reading his A Christmas Memory from Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
_{^{Inscribed from Capote on the front:
"For Marilyn, with love from Truman, 1959."
"(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #431)}}
✦Goin' Down the Road: American Folksongs sung by Clarence Cooper - Clarence Cooper
_{^{Inscribed on the back cover to Marilyn.}}
✦Judy At Carnegie Hall - Judy Garland
_{^{"(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #533)
She is in her new, partly furnished home and while she is talking–thinking out loud, really–her phonograph is playing a song by Judy Garland called "Who Cares?"
(Source: "MM's Early Grief: A Deserted Mom" By Theo Wilson, Daily News -August 16th, 1962}}
✦Judy in Person - Judy Garland
_{^{"(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #533)}}
✦The Lonesome Train- Earl Robinson and Millard Lampell
_{^{Inscribed on the front cover to Marilyn.}}
✦Marilyn (20th Fox Records, 1962) - Marilyn Monroe
_{^{"(Source: "Julien's Auctions and TCM Present Hollywood Legends", Julien's Auction, Lot #1011)}}
✦Franz Schubert His Story And His Music - Joseph Machlis Allin Robinson
_{^{"(Source: Photographed with Marilyn at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by André De Dienes)}}
✦Come Back to Sorrento - Frank Sinatra
_{^{"(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #532)}}
✦Swing Lovers - Frank Sinatra
_{^{"(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #532)}}
✦Swing Affair - Frank Sinatra
_{^{"(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #532)}}
✦Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam - Harold Spina and Jim Ameche
_{^{Inscribed on the front cover to Marilyn.}}
✦Love Nest The Hi-Lo's
_{^{"(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #273)}}
✦Some Like It Hot: Original Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack
_{^{"(Source: "Julien's Auctions and TCM Present Hollywood Legends", Julien's Auction, Lot #1011)}}
✦Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Some Day My Prince Will Come
_{^{"(Source: "Icons and Idols: Hollywood, Bob Mackie and Sharon Tate", Julien's Auction, Lot #396)}}

_{"(On politics) It's a good second subject."}

_{^{(Source: "Hollywood Report" - Mike Connolly, Modern Screen 1952)}}

✦The un-Americans - Aalvah Bessie

✦The Wall Between - Anne Braden

✦A View Of The Nation – An Anthology : 1955-1959 - Henry Christian Edition

✦The Story of Fabian Socialism - Margaret Cole

_{⟢"In the corner was a bookcase filled with books I certainly didn’t expect to find in her apartment. I remember a few of the titles: The Story of Fabian Socialism, The Negro in American Literature, books by the great Russians, and other extremely intellectual works. I realized that here was a girl not satisfied with what nature or education had given her and who worked all the time trying to improve herself." -Philippe Halsman^{Souce: "Holding a Good Thought for Marilyn" - Stacy Eubank}}

✦The Right Of The People - William Douglas

✦The Roots Of American Communism - Theodore Draper

✦The Jury Is Still Out - Irwin Davidson and Richard Gehman

✦American Rights: The Constitution In Action - Walter Gellhorn

✦Rededication To Freedom - Benjamin Ginzburg

_{⟢You can view and learn more surrounding the book at Marilyn Geek.}

✦The Ignorant Armies - E.M. Halliday

✦America The Invincible - Emmet John Hughes

✦First Degree - William Kunstler

✦The Unfinished Country - Max Lerner

_{⟢Contains a presentation copy from the author, publisher's compliments slip. and 2 business cards.”}

_{⟢"He's the editor of the New York Times Magazine, one of the top journalists in the world. He's one of the first people I met in New York, and we had an instant rapport. I have always had an affinity for writers. Him, Max Lerner. We talk with each other quite often on the phone.^{(Source: Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn and the Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}.”~

_{⟢“Max Lerner, author and newspaper columnist, declared: ‘I find it hard to believe that having a beautiful young wife who has a lovely job and world fame does this to a writer. I suspect it's the other way around: not that Miller's writing damned up because he married Marilyn, but he sought out Marilyn because he sensed he had come to a dead end in his writing.”
When I took Lerner's comment to Marilyn, she told me that if I published it, I must also print her response in its entirety. Her response was “No comment.”.^{(Source: “Marilyn Monroe: ‘A Good Long Look At Myself” by Alan Levy, Redbook August 1962)}}.”~

✦Background & Foreground – The New York Times Magazine: An Anthology - Lester Markel

_{⟢(Talking about Markel) "We're old friends, and I admire him very much. He's one of the most intellectual people I know.”"He's the editor of the New York Times Magazine, one of the top journalists in the world. He's one of the first people I met in New York, and we had an instant rapport. I have always had an affinity for writers. Him, Max Lerner. We talk with each other quite often on the phone."^{(Source: Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn and the Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦Das Kapital - Karl Marx

✦The Captial - Karl Marx

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at her apartment on Doheny Drive in 1953 by Bob Beerman.}

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1951 by John Florea.}

_{⟢Photographed at her Beverly Carlton Hotel suite in 1951 by John Florea.}

✦The Truth About The Munich Crisis - Viscount Maugham

✦The Failure Of Success - Esther Milner

✦Red Mirage - John O’Kearney

✦The Alienation Of Modern Man - Fritz Pappenheim

✦The Rights Of Man - Thomas Paine

_{⟢While fliming "Some Like It Hot":"During much of the shooting, Monroe was reading Paine’s Rights of Man."^{Souce: "Marilyn, A Biography" - Norman Mailer}}

✦Night - Francis Pollini

✦Journey To The Beginning - Edgar Snow

✦The Devil In Massachusetts - Marion Starkey

✦A Socialist’s Faith - Norman Thomas

✦Democracy In America (Volume II Only) - Alexis De Tocqueville

✦The Study Of History - Arnold Toynbee

✦World Underworld - Andrew Varna

✦Commonwealth Vs Sacco & Vanzetti - Robert P. Weeks

✦A Train Of Powder - Rebecca West

✦Lidice - Eleanor Wheeler

_{⟢Contains compliments slip of Czechoslovak Embassy.”}

✦A Piece Of My Mind - Edmund Wilson

✦I.F. Weekly (Unknown Edition)

_{⟢Recalled by Marjorie Stenge:"On the end table, The Nation is sitting, and I. F. Stone’s Weekly. On the night table in the bedroom is The Carpetbaggers and a volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay."^{Souce: "Marilyn, A Biography" - Norman Mailer}}

_{"While I was carrying the table to the car, she wandered around. She wanted her garden books...'...he [Arthur Miller] knew my garden books would be the first place I'd go.'"}

_{^{(Source: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn and the Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦Flower Arranging For Fun - Hazel Peckinpaugh Dunlop

✦Landscaping Your Own Home - Alice Dustan

_{⟢Has extensive water damage.}

✦Outpost Nurseries Publicity Brochure - Alice Dustan

✦The Wise Garden Encyclopedia - E.L.D. Seymour, 1938 & 1957 Edition

✦An Encyclopedia of Gardening Unknown Edition

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be found here.^{(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #273)}}

✦Pet Turtles - Julien Bronson

✦Flower Arranging For Fun - Hazel Peckinpaugh Dunlop

_{⟢Presentation copy. Includes car of Pascal Covici of the Viking Press}

✦How To Live With A Cat - Margaret Cooper Gay

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be seen at Julien's Auction.}

✦Searchlight Homemaking Guide - Household Topeka, Kansas

_{^{(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg, Julien's Auction, Lot #110)}}

✦Spoken French For Travelers And Tourists - Charles Kany & Mathurin Dondo

_{⟢Photographed in her personal library at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in 1952 by Philippe Halsman.}

✦The Little Engine That Could - Watty Piper

_{⟢Scribbles would be found on a page reading “thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could.”⟢Eunice Murray recalled the book in her own memoir of Marilyn:
“But singing with a sultry voice in your own bathroom is quite different from getting up before thousands of people and TV cameras in Madison Square Garden and singing like that to the President of the United States. Marilyn was so nervous at the prospect that she almost didn’t make it to New York.Everyone she knew encouraged her. As kind of a joke, Joanie Greenson gave her a book to read on the plane, The Little Engine That Could, a childhood story of positive thinking. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” the little engine kept telling itself as it chugged to the top of the hill.”^{(Source: Marilyn: The Last Months by Eunice Murray with Rose Shade)}}

✦Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology - Rossell Hope Robbins

✦Mujer - Lina Rolan

_{⟢Inscription from author to Marilyn.}

✦Baby & Child Care - Dr. Benjamin Spock

✦Roget’s Pocket Thesaurus - C.O. Mawson & K.A. Whiting

✦A Volume of Frank Llyod Wright

_{⟢"A picture of Abraham hung on one wall. Among the books scattered around the living room were "the Philosophy of Spinoza," the Tales of Edgar Allen Poe, a volume by Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and a smaller one entitled "Film Culture.' which may have been a mystery."^{(Source: "She's Co-Producer: Marilyn Monroe Has an Eye for Business" Hal Boyle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram - June 10th, 1957.)}}

✦Hugo’s Pocket Dictionary: French-English And English-French

✦Red Arrow - Unknown

_{⟢The receipt for the purchase of this book can be seen at Julien's Auction}

• The Blonde
• The Bookshelf
• The Brunettes

✦Cosmopolitan

December 1960

✦Evergreen Review, Volume 2, Number 6

Voulume 2, Number 6

✦Flair Magazine

May 1950
_{⟢"I remember sometime in 1949 or 1950, browsing at Martindale's and seeing a copy of a new magazine called 'Flair.' I leafed through it, and I remember thinking that it was out of this world. I felt it was a little like Aladdin's Lamp. Opening the magazine was to have a genie show me a world that existed only in a fantasy land. On mornings, the new issue was to be delivered, I would pick up a copy, carry it back to the rental library section, and go through it page by page, always in wonderment. Such beautiful people, such beautiful clothes, such sophistication. I still remember some of those faces, as though it were yesterday.""One issue was all about roses. I never seen a rose today but subconsciously the magazine is in the back of my mind somewhere. The editor was a woman called Fleur Cowles. I met her at a big party in London during 'Prince and the Showgirl' and told her how much the magazine had meant to me. One night in New York, a group of us were sitting around a table at some benefit-Arthur, Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, and the like. I snickered to myself, 'I'm part of a page in Flair.''^{(Source:: "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & The Making of "The Misfits" - Ralph L. Roberts with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts)}}

✦Horizon, A Magazine of the Arts

November 1959
January 1960
March 1960

✦Horticulture Magazine

October 1960
January 1961
June 1962
_{⟢An unknown edition was seen on Marilyn's coffee table at her Brentwood home.^{(Source: "Property From The Estate of Lee Strasberg", Julien's Auction, Lot #584)}}

✦L'Europeo

August 1962

✦Life

August 1962

✦Look

January 1961

✦Modern Screen

October 1955

✦Paris-Match

February 1960

✦Playboy

December 1960

✦Screen Stories

November 1954