[Rarebooks] FS: Autograph Manuscript of 75 pages of Saul Bellow's only play

[Charles Agvent]

 From our latest Internet Catalogue which contains a truly amazing array 
of TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS, LETTERS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS, a 
total of 90 items, many quite scarce and remarkable as well as revealing 
of the creative process and personal lives of the subjects.  It includes 
a number of archives, some rather substantial, including Sherwood 
Anderson, W. H. Auden, Robert Lowell, Norman Mailer, John Masefield, 
John O'Hara, Clifford Odets, Maxwell Perkins, E. H. Shepard, and Philip 
Whalen, among others.

BELLOW,  Saul.   THE LAST ANALYSIS.    HOLOGRAPH  MANUSCRIPT  OF  SAUL
BELLOW'S ONLY PLAY.                 An undated early holograph version
of  Saul  Bellow's  only full-length play contained in  a  ledger-type
notebook  (8-1/4"  x  11-3/8") with marbled paper boards and  a  black
cloth  spine. Bellow has subtitled this as "A Work in Progress."  Acts
I  and  II  of this version are complete in 71 pages with 4  pages  of
preliminary  material  for  an Act III. The 1964  staged  version  was
reduced  to  two acts. Bellow appears to have written out Acts I &  II
as  a  fair copy from previous versions and notes in  preparation  for
completing  the  play  with a new Act III. There  are  relatively  few
insertions  and  corrections in his text of the first two  acts  which
take  up  about 75% of the notebook. The third act consists mostly  of
blank  pages  with 3 pages of rough notes and key  speeches  including
what  seem  to  be  the climactic lines of  his  main  character,  the
comedian  Bummidge, who has been undergoing an obsessive self-analysis
in  the previous acts: "The world was never real for me. But now I see
it's  more  real  than  I was. I never admitted that  it  existed.  It
always  knew  I was here (he goes around picking up objects &  kissing
them  because  they're real).... Now what is the theory.  Not  Momma's
womb  but  my  own empty heart?" Laid in to the notebook is  a  SIGNED
typed  12-page  fragment  of  an earlier version  of  the  play,  with
Bellow's  original  title, THE CRASH PROGRAM, crossed out in  ink  and
his  new title, THE LAST ANALYSIS, written over it. Bellow manuscripts
of  this  size  and importance are seldom offered  with  most  already
housed  in institutional collections. Near Fine and quite exceptional.
                                                             $25,000.00

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CHARLES AGVENT
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