Feynman, Richard P.

Lewine, Frances. Frances Lewine to Richard P. Feynman, Washington, DC, October 23, 1965.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, SIGNED WITH LENGTHY INSCRIPTION BY FEYNMAN TO HIS COUSIN, FRANCES LEWINE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS' FIRST FULL-TIME FEMALE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT AND CHAMPION OF WOMEN IN JOURNALISM

Feynman's inscription alludes to the process of writing his own book, in which the stories were recorded by his friend and drumming partner Ralph Leighton over seven years and then transcribed.

Lewine was known as a champion for the rights of women journalists throughout the 1950's, 60's, and 70s and worked to fight discrimination. Growing up near Feynman and his sister in Far Rockaway, Lewine was assigned to the White House in 1956 as a reporter covering the activities of first ladies and Washington society. In 1965, the same year Feynman won the Nobel Prize for Physics, Lewine became the first full-time female White House correspondent.

In an unpublished letter to Feynman dated October 23, 1965, Lewine wrote "I have spread the word all over washington (sic)-- including the White House that I am a close relative of the Nobel Prize winner-- and I am basking in glittering reflected glory. ...'three cheers for richard feynman (sic)----and his cousins and his sisters and his aunts.' ... Aside from clucking like [I'd] won the prize myself, I have been busy at the White House with LBJ's gall bladder." (Courtesy family of Joan Feynman).

Just over a decade later, she joined the administration of President Jimmy Carter and became the Department of Transportation's deputy director of public affairs in 1977. After Carter left office, Lewine joined the Cable News Network as an assignment producer and field producer at the age of 60. As her professional career, her letter, and Feynman's inscription suggest, she had many colorful stories to tell.

Signed copies of this book are NOTORIOUSLY RARE; inscribed copies are rarer still; and copies inscribed to interesting, identifiable individuals are rarest of all. Indeed Feynman’s signature has become something of a ‘Feynman story’ of its own: The famous physicist, it seems, who understood so much, could never understand why people collect autographs. He asked one collector, “Could you please write and explain it to me?” To another he wrote, “I’m sorry to have to inform you that I do not send autographs”; and then he signed the letter, thereby sending an autograph. He even made a bet, once, on how many times he would have to sign his name in connection with a certain speaking engagement. He lost. Requests for Feynman’s signature were referred routinely to his secretary, who returned instead a printed card saying firmly that “Professor Feynman has found it necessary to refuse all requests for autographs”. The result of all this is that Feynman’s signature is very rare indeed, and highly prized. More than half a million copies of this book have been sold in twenty languages or more.