Humboldt's Gift - photo 1

Humboldt's Gift

Lot 263
19.10.2023 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 1 260
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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Archive
ID 1032920
Lot 263 | Humboldt's Gift
Estimate value
$ 1 000 – 2 000
Saul BELLOW (1915-2005). Annotated partial draft of Humboldt’s Gift. [Chicago, before 1975.]

Bellow collection including a partial draft of Humboldt’s Gift given to close friends Herbert and Mitzi McClosky. Humboldt’s Gift was published in 1975 and earned Bellow the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, mirroring the protagonist Charlie Citrine’s success in the novel and contributing to Bellow’s Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded in 1976. Herbert McClosky had assisted Bellow in getting a position at the University of Minnesota after he relocated to Minneapolis with his family in the late 1940s (Greg Bellow, Saul Bellow’s Heart, p.57). The McClosky’s remained close family friends.

Comprising:
1. Copy of a typescript draft of Humboldt’s Gift, on onionskin paper, with emendations in black ink occasionally over white-out, comprising pp.1-122 (some edge wear and thumbing). With another substantial fragment of a draft in photocopy. With envelope signed ("S Bellow"), previous return address lined through and replaced with "Century Club / W 43rd & 5th." Saul Bellow was a member and would meet his agent there.

2. “Something to Remember Me By.” Photocopy of Bellow's article from Signet. Inscribed by him at the top: “For Herb + Mitzi from an | irrepressible friend | With love S”. 12 pages, quarto. With autograph mailing envelope with integral signature ("S. Bellow"). [Chicago, January 1989.]

3. Autograph postcard signed ("Saul"), [Jerusalem, c.1976.] Reading in part: "Dear Herb + Mitzi, Politics here defy description. With my feeling for friction[?], I missed my vocation. I should have joined up with M. Begin and M. Dayan. A Brilliant drama is unfolding."
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