Item #013988 THE LAST ANALYSIS. HOLOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF SAUL BELLOW'S ONLY PLAY. Saul BELLOW.

THE LAST ANALYSIS. HOLOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF SAUL BELLOW'S ONLY PLAY

First Edition. hardcover. 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, all handwritten by Bellow. 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. Item #013988

Price: $20,000.00

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