GARCIA LORCA FEDERICO: (1898-1936) Spanish Poet & Dramatist. An iconic figure of the Spanish literature. An extremely rare and excellent A.L.S., `Federico´, two pages, 4to, Madrid, 28th November 1920, to Emilia Llanos, in Granada, in Spanish. A dreamer Lorca writes a letter full of poetical references to his beloved city of Granada which he misses, stating `Yo la veo en medio de ese maravilloso paisaje granadino como la única mujer granadina capaz de sentirlo, y me alegro extraordinariamente de tener una amiga que mire los chopos encendidos y las lejanías desmayadas como si yo las mirase. Que hermosa y que triste estará la carrera del Darro y que nubes habrá por Valparaiso! ¿Verdad? Yo recuerdo a Granada como se deben recordar a las novias muertas y como se recuerda un día de sol cuando niño. ¿Se han caido del todo las hojas?´ (Translation: ''I can imagine you in the middle of that wonderful Granada landscape as the only woman of Granada capable of feeling it, and I am extraordinarily happy to have a friend who looks at the light over the poplars and the fading distant landscape as if I were looking at them. How beautiful and how sad the Darro promenade must be and what clouds there will be over Valparaiso! True? I remember Granada as dead brides should be remembered and as one remembers a sunny day as a child. Have the leaves completely fallen?'') Lorca further refers to Madrid where he is, saying `…aquí en Madrid ya están los arboles esqueléticos y fríos, solo en algunos queda una hojilla que se mueve con el triste viento como una mariposa de oro´ (Translation: ''…here in Madrid the trees are already skeletal and cold, only in some of them there is a leaf that moves with the sad wind like a golden butterfly'') Further again Lorca makes an intimate sentiment about his loving feelings `Yo… siendole franco estoy un poco triste, un poco melancólico, siento en el alma la amargura de estar roto de amor. Se que estas melancolías pasarán… pero el rastro ¡queda siempre!´ (Translation: ''And me… to be honest with you, I am a little sad, a little melancholic, I feel in my soul the bitterness of being broken with love. I know that these melancholies will pass... but the trace always remains!'') Lorca goes on to mention seeing a woman who reminded him of Emilia, and how the woman stopped into an antique shop Emilia would have loved; he finishes by asking Emilia to send him a signed portrait, in payment for which he will send her a poem. An letter of very good content. Accompanied by a cabinet portrait of Emilia seated under a Moorish archway in the Alhambra. Also accompanied by the original envelope addressed in Lorca´s hand, postmarked and stamped. A bold black ink written letter. Edges slightly trimmed, otherwise G to VG The letter was written one year after Lorca arrived in Madrid, at a time when he was just becoming part of an artistic and literary movement which included his friends the pioneer film director Luis Buñuel and the painter Salvador Dali. His first book of poems was to be published in 1921. Lorca met Emilia Llanos, who was ten years older than him, in 1919. They became very close friends at the centre of cultural life in Granada. It has been suggested that they might have married if Lorca´s sexual ambivalence had not stood in the way. Their friendship long lasted and Emilia was of the first to hear the news of Lorca´s death in 1936 after hearing from his mother the news of his arrest two days earlier. Emilia had set off to meet their mutual friend the composer Manuel de Falla with the intention of asking him to intervene on Lorca´s behalf. On her way she met Antonio Gallego Burin, another mutual friend and publisher of Lorca´s first poem in the journal Renovación in 1919, who told Emilia that she should not go as Lorca had already been shot. The present letter is published in Federico Garcia Lorca - Epistolario completo edited by Andrew Anderson and Christopher Maurer, 1997 Provenance: Emilia Llanos, Antonio Gallegos Burin, and descents to the present owner.