manuscripts

Unknown Enid Blyton Story Found In Archives

Filed under: Books

Before there was J.K. Rowling there was Enid Blyton, a prolific English writer of children's stories that delighted generations of young readers. Writing across fantasy, mystery and adventure genres, she penned nearly 800 books which have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 500 million copies worldwide.

Back in September, the Seven Stories children's book center in Newcastle, England paid around £40,000 for a collection of manuscripts. The books included Malory Towers and Secret Seven books which have already been published as well as a manuscript for Mr Tumpy's Caravan, an 180-page fantasy story. There is in existence an Enid Blyton book called Mr. Tumpy and His Caravan but that is a picture book. This manuscript is a different story, telling the adventures of a magical caravan with feet and mind of its own.

Imogen Smallwood, Blyton's youngest daughter confirmed to BBC News that it is a whole book about a different Mr Tumpy and a different caravan.

Seven Stories has a mission to save and celebrate great British children's works and plans to hold an Enid Blyton exhibition in 2014. The charity cannot publish the newly-discovered work, because Blyton's publisher Chorion retains the rights to all of her works.

Tags: books, childrens books, chorion, enid blyton, manuscripts, seven stories childrens center

Famous Dickens Collection To Be Auctioned Off

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

Christie's New York will auction off The Kenyon Starling Library of Charles Dickens on April 2. The collection, which could bring in as much as $2 million includes remarkable manuscripts, presentation copies, playbills, and original drawings. The collection is part of the William E. Self Family Collection. Bill Self moved to Hollywood in 1944, and appeared in numerous films, including The Thing, I Was a Male War Bride, Story of G.I. Joe, Red River and Sands of Iwo Jima and later became a highly successful producer for both television and motion pictures and the President of Twentieth Century-Fox 's Television Division. He was an avid book collector and met Kenyon Starling while bidding on rare books. Both had a taste for Dickens and traveled the world visiting major bookshops. Dtarling left his Dickens collection to Bill's family because of their mutual background, shared collecting interest and friendship. The Kenyon Starling Library of Charles Dickens is among the finest in private hands. Among the most significant lots is a presentation copy of Oliver Twist (1838) in a special presentation binding to his friend and fellow-author, William Harrison Ainsworth, and a presentation copy of The Uncommercial Traveller (1861) to the novelist George Eliot. The collection includes important autograph and manuscript material including an extremely rare manuscript page from the original manuscript of the Pickwick Papers shown at right which is estimated to sell for $150,000 - 250,000.

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Tags: charles dickens, christies, manuscripts, rare books

Steinbeck For Sale For Big Bucks

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

Sometimes the most humble packages can conceal the most amazing finds. A cardboard box that was among the effects of the late Guys and Dolls producer Ernest H. Martin has yielded Steinbeck treasure trove. The box contained a missing draft of Sweet Thursday by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. The box also held the unfinished draft of The Bear Flag Cafe, a musical comedy with Martin and partner Cy Feuer based on Steinbeck's Cannery Row from which the sequel novel emerged as well as carbon copies of 13 Steinbeck letters dated from 1953, the manuscript of The Log From The Sea of Cortez, and a never-published short story.

PBA Galleries in San Francisco is auctioning off the find on May 24. The collected material totals over 300 pages. The lot has an estimate of $300,000/500,000.

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Tags: auction, books, manuscripts, steinbeck