Dylan love letters and Livraria Lello bookshop, Portugal

[Christopher Rollason]

Posted on my blog today at:
https://rollason.wordpress.com/2023/01/29/the-young-bob-dylans-love-letters-and-the-livraria-lello-bookshop-in-porto-portugal/

[K. Hematite]

On Sunday, 29 January 2023 at 07:18:54 UTC-5, Christopher Rollason wrote:
> Posted on my blog today at:
> https://rollason.wordpress.com/2023/01/29/the-young-bob-dylans-love-letters-and-the-livraria-lello-bookshop-in-porto-portugal/

More details at:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/20/entertainment/bob-dylan-love-letters-auction-trnd/index.html

Don't recall ever hearing of Barbara Hewitt before. Would have expected these letters to have been to Echo Helstrom or.
to Judy Rubin. Very prescient of Ms. Hewitt to have kept these letters for so many years.

[Willie]

I don't find Barbara Ann Hewitt in the index of Heylin's "Double Life," though the letters were written between 1957 and 1959 (according to this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11414407/Love-Sick-Trove-Dylans-teenage-love-letters-sale.html) and Heylin doesn't cover that period in much detail, except to write about Camp Herzl, which might be where he wrote the letters from. Ah, no, she moved away in '57 and he must have written the letters from Hibbing. She's also not in the index of Shelton's "No Direction Home," though that Daily Mail article says "His infatuation with Hewitt was mentioned in the 1986 Dylan biography No Direction Home." I'll poke around in that and see what is said. Turns out there's only one mention (at least, that I could find), on p. 40:

"Another passion of Bob's, from his sophomore year on, was girls. He ran through a lot, reportedly plump and large breasted. One of the first was Barbara Hewitt, a voluptuous girl he met in 1957. Bob was quite infatuated. Ten times a day Bob turned to his shadow [John Bucklen] and said, 'I love Barb, John. I love Barb.' Or he would say: 'You know what, John?; and John replied: 'I know, you love Barb.' Barbara and her family drifted off to Minneapolis, and the first of several student flirtations cooled."

The Daily Mail piece says that Barbara Ann Hewitt died in 2020 and her daughter found and sold the letters. I liked the card for the Satintones concert at the Lyceum Theater in Minneapolis on Dec. 4, 1958 with Bob Zimmerman on vocal and Richie Valens on lead guitar.

[Just Walkin']

Hiya Willie! Nice find Chris. She's not mentioned in Dave Engel's or Toby Thompson's books either, nor does Michael Gray have an entry for her.