Autograph manuscript for Gora - photo 1

Autograph manuscript for Gora

Lot 305
19.10.2023 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 40 320
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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ID 1032963
Lot 305 | Autograph manuscript for Gora
Estimate value
$ 25 000 – 40 000
TAGORE, Rabindranath (1861-1941). Autograph manuscript in Bangla, being an excerpt from a draft of his novel “Gora;” with an autograph note signed (in Bangla), [Bolpur, c.1907].

Extensive working manuscript from one of Tagore’s most widely-read and influential novels: Gora. Rabindranath Tagore, the renowned poet and philosopher, was also the first Asian person to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1913. Gora was his fifth novel and a masterpiece. It was written in 1909, but set in Kolkata under the Raj. The title character, whose nickname “Gora” can be translated as “white,” is a staunch and idealistic young Hindu man, struggling with friendships and love across caste, religious, and gender boundaries. He learns as an adult that he was adopted and that his birth father was an Irish Christian. Serialized beginning in September 1907 and published in book form in 1910, Gora is one of the most significant works in Bengali literature—highly influential for its complex treatment of identity and its ideals of a tolerant, universal culture. The text matches the edition published by Visva Bharati in Santiniketan, 1316 [Bengali Year].

26 pages recto and verso, octavo, on lined paper folded vertically with the right half left mostly blank for corrections, sewn at top edge between two blank sheets (some soiling, corner dampstain, first leaf reinforced at right edge, top sheet is half-size). With manuscript note on top sheet mostly in English, “Some pages from the manuscript copy of Rabindra Nath’s ‘Gora’ in his own handwriting,” dated 18 October 1925 and signed by Jogendra Nath Gupta. Accompanied by an autograph note signed by Tagore, saying that he will read the text or book he has been sent soon, dated 25 Sravan 1313, i.e. 11 December 1906 (worn). Provenance: Jogendranath Gupta, 1883-1964, Bengali historian and literary editor who wrote about both Rabindranath and his father Debendranath (manuscript note) – by descent in the Gupta family.
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