"The Bear," autograph manuscript fragment - photo 1

"The Bear," autograph manuscript fragment

Lot 99
27.06.2024 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 15 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
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The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
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ID 1236330
Lot 99 | "The Bear," autograph manuscript fragment
Estimate value
$ 18 000 – 25 000
FAULKNER, William (1897-1962). Autograph manuscript fragment draft for "The Bear," ca 1940-42.

One leaf (212 x 276mm); ink on paper; approximately 150 words, including deletions (a couple small losses at margins, some creasing). Custom quarter morocco slipcase.

A rare Faulkner manuscript, giving a glimpse of his creative process. Widely acclaimed as a masterpiece of modern American literature, Faulkner's "The Bear" is considered among the best stories written in the twentieth century. Set in Faulkner's mythic Yoknapatawpha County, the coming-of-age novelette follows Ike McCaslin, whose annual hunting expeditions in the Mississippi wilderness lead him to confront the complexities of nature, ancestry, and morality. Following revisions of earlier versions published as "Lion" in Harper's Magazine in December 1935 and as "The Bear" in The Saturday Evening Post in May 1942, "The Bear" appeared in its fullest form as a chapter in Go Down, Moses (1942). The text in this manuscript fragment does not correspond directly to the death of Old Ben sequence found in the published versions and may have been from an another version of the story or an unused draft passage. Faulkner manuscripts rarely come on the market. Provenance: Christie's New York, 22 June 2010, lot 78.

Reading in full:

"I shouldn't know anything about what happened before at the... [line deleted]

"Old Ben was dead. Yes sir, old Ben was dead. There he was a massive mound of dead flesh laying as he had fallen, the partially hiddened body of a hound lying underneath his body, his great heavy head stretched...

"Old Ben was dead, yes sir, old Ben was dead. The biggest bear that ever was in Tallahatchie bottoms. There he was, that once wild ...

"We finished our supper of fresh venison [line deleted]

"After supper was Finished we all trooped back from the kitchen and dining room still smelling and tasting of the supper that was traditional to the open meal of the deer camp the night before deer season was [deleted] would open, cold coon--I don't think I ever saw anyone that ever liked the things--but we all ate it--there was no getting out of it"

Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
13.06.2024 – 27.06.2024
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
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