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When Sotheby's recently auctioned off fourteen love letters that reclusive author J.D. Salinger had written 27 years ago to Joyce Maynard, his then college-age companion, many observers derided Maynard's decision to sell the letters, deeming the entire matter a depressing spectacle even by today's minimal standards of civility. So it was like a breath of fresh air when, as the New York Times (June 23, 1999) reported, the winning bidder for the letters, Peter Norton (13th OPM), announced his intention "to do whatever Mr. Salinger indicates to me he wants done with them." Said Norton,"He may want them returned. He may want me to destroy them. He may not care at all." Norton, who paid $169,411.25 for the letters, has never met Salinger.
The founder of Peter Norton Computing, makers of Norton Utilities software programs, Norton sold his business in 1990 and now devotes his time to art collecting and philanthropy. His grand gesture toward Salinger was complemented by his charitable view of Maynard, the target of unfavorable comment from many quarters, not the least of which was the National Review, which dubbed her an "opportunistic one-time nymphet." Maynard, the divorced mother of three, "had a right, really a duty to herself and her children, to safeguard their economic security," said Norton, adding that the sale and its circumstances were filled with "moral ambiguity."
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