Original Written Fiction : Onto the Big Screen?

Henry W. Keyes Jr. to Horace Liveright Inc., March 3, 1930

A letter from Henry W, Keyes Jr. to Horace Liverlight Inc. concerning the movie adaptation of "Queen Anne's Lace".

Being an author, one of her biggest of achievements was publishing a bestseller in 1948 called “Dinner at Antoine’s”. But one of her goals for her writing was to have one of her books made into a movie. Frances Parkinson Keyes came close to achieving her goal of one of her books being adapted into a movie in the 1930s. Her son, Henry W. Keyes Jr., took the initiative to write to the company, Horace Liveright Inc., which took the interest into making her book, “Queen Anne’s Lace”, a movie on the big screen. He wrote to the company multiple times to see the progress made by the company with the manuscript to adapt into a movie.[1] But Horace Liveright Inc. never responded to his letters and it concerned Henry W. Keyes because he knew that this would be a milestone in his mother’s career. Unfortunately, the movie company dropped the adaption and her book never got to be on the big screen. But this never stopped Keyes from doing what she loved; writing.


[1] From Henry W. Keyes to Horace Liveright Inc., typed one page letter (3 March 1930)