Letters of two of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, William Faulker and F. Scott Fitzgerald, have been auctioned and sold for impressive sums of money.

William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. Faulkner is the author of "A Fable" and "Soldiers' Pay", and also of screenplays to such classic films as "The Big Sleep" and "To Have and Have Not."
A two-page typed letter by William Faulkner to his Hollywood literary agent HN Swanson in which he complains about a screenwriting contract with a Hollywood studio sold today for nearly $18,000, according to auction house Bonhams & Butterfields.






In it, he says his former agent tricked him into signing a seven-year contract with Warner Bros, and that the old agent was now threatening to sue him. The letter is signed "Bill", was written in August 1943 and sold for $17,925.
Several letters by F. Scott Fitzgerald were up for auction also, including a hand-written letter of apology to his agent for behavior while being drunk. The letter, also to Swanson, sold for just over $4,400, which is less than the expected selling price of between $5,000 and $7,000.

"The typist here the other day told me that I did a lot of swearing and shouting over the phone when I talked to you the other day. In any case my binge is over and I'm going ahead figuring how I can write a novel (over) and let it pay for itself as it's written," wrote Fitzgerald, near the time in 1939 that he was let go by MGM and struggled as a freelance writer.

Fitzgerald is best known for his novel "The Great Gatsby." During his life he struggled with the screenplay structure and with his increasing dependence of alcohol.

The buyers of the letters could not be disclosed because of the company privacy policies. Nevertheless, Catherine Williamson of Bonhams & Butterfields says : "letters are becoming a trend for those interested in rare books wishing to expand their collections into other materials." "The Faulkner and the Fitzgerald material was incredibly hot. Even typewritten you get a sense of who Faulkner is, it's (the letter) long and complicated." she declared for (CBS) HOLLYWOOD.