Tea at Trianon: The Lost Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, May 1, 2026

The Lost Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe

From Mark Judge at Chronicles:

Marilyn Monroe read books. A lot of them. That’s the revelation of Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe, a fascinating new volume by Gail Crowther. It isn’t a grasping-at-straws attempt to make Monroe a literary figure based on her love of a few good novels. Crowther has done her research, itemizing the books Monroe owned when she died, finding receipts for books she bought at the Ivy Bookstore in Los Angeles, and going through old letters in which Monroe discussed her favorite books. Monroe was a reader, which may explain why she was drawn to one of her husbands, the playwright Arthur Miller—a man who made his living with words.
When Monroe died in 1962, her collection included more than 400 books. “These books,” Crowther notes, “some dating from her childhood, had followed Marilyn around from one address to another.” Crowther describes the collection:

The scope of Marilyn’s personal library and the number of genres it contained was impressive. She read literature from all around the world, America, England, France, Germany, but certainly favored Russian novels. She enjoyed poetry, politics, psychology, plays, biographies, science, short stories, cookbooks, horticulture, contemporary novels, children’s books, religion, crime, adventure, art, pets, music, reference, and self-help. She was probably one of the few readers in the world whose personal library contained a biography of herself (Marilyn Monroe “Her Own Story,” 1961, by George Carpozi).

Monroe loved D. H. Lawrence and owned a poetry collection, the novel Sons and Lovers, a collection of his travel writings, Etruscan Places, and a critical study of Lawrence and his works by Mary Freeman. She also owned copies of The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. She owned a first edition of Ian Fleming’s From Russia, With Love, a book that included a chapter titled “The Mouth of Marilyn Monroe.” Monroe loved Russian literature, bonding with actress, columnist, and writer Sheilah Graham over Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekov, Turgenev, and Pushkin.

Monroe also had “an edgy liking for banned books.” This included The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis. Monroe’s copy of the novel sold for $3,220 in a 1999 auction. She also owned a 1934 first edition of Ulysses, published after the ruling that the James Joyce novel was not obscene and could not be banned. (Read more.)