Thomas Jefferson VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM (1882-1944)

VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM (1882-1944). Thomas Jefferson. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1943. FIRST EDITION, small 4to, bound in red cloth, 106 pp., illustrated in color and b&w by van Loon, nice copy in dust jacket (chipped along the extremities and small stain on front panel). INSCRIBED on half-title, "Th. Jefferson presents his compliments to Mrs. Morgan and he is obliged to her for not having been forced to be written in a cold room. He is no longer as young as he once was. Nor as well and he appreciates that comfort without which it is difficult to do the - right thinking - (unreadable) in a Democracy / Nieuw Veere, Old Greenwich Conn. / 9 April xxxxiii" ALSO, inserted is an ALS, from Van Loon to Mrs. Lois Morgan, dated "Thursday." Written on his stationery, with a printed image of the skyline of the town of Veere (van Loon's native town) in the southern Netherlands, it indicates his new home - "Nieuw Veere" in Old Greenwich, Conn. The letter reads, "Thanks for the extra heat which came just in time. / Hendrik Willem van Loon." Above his note is a charming drawing in ink showing him wrapped in a robe or blanket, seated with his feet in a tub of water, and a small pot of water heating on top of a wood stove. The circumstances surrounding Van Loon's lack of heat and his relationship to Mrs. Morgan are uncertain, but she may have worked part time for him as his secretary. Morgan was a graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and in 1940 was working part-time as a secretary for the Girl Scouts. The following year she married Charles W. Morgan and moved to the Cos Cob section of Greenwich - about 3 miles from Van Loon's home in the Old Greenwich neighborhood. In January1944 her husband shipped out to Europe with the 728th bomber squadron. Within three months her friend Hendrick van Loon died, and three weeks later her husband was killed in action.