193

Dr. Seuss Manuscript

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:1,000.00 USD
Dr. Seuss Manuscript
"WINNERS WILL BE NOTIFIED AFTER THE AUCTION ENDS BY THE AUCTIONEER ONCE ALL BIDS HAVE BEEN PROCESSED TO DETERMINE THE WINNER FOR EACH LOT."
Nineteen handwritten pages, the first seven of which are completely in the hand of Dr. Seuss. The remaining pages are mostly written by an assistant with corrections and doodles by Dr. Seuss, some taped on. This Dr. Seuss children's book lost for over 40 years reads in part including the scratched out parts, ''All Sorts of Sports. Shall I play checkers? golf? croquet? There are so many games there are to play. I could. / maybe.. / shall I.. There are so many many sorts. So many sorts of games + sports. What am I going to do today? There are so many games to play! I guess I won't. I'm all tired out. 100 GAMES & sports you can play. You can play checkers. You can play chess. Baseball. Football. Volleyball. Basketball. You can ski on snow. You can ski on water. And tiddle-de-winks. What am I going to do today. Well, that's a simple matter. Oh, that's easy. We could play. There are so many sports games to play. We could swim. I could play baseball...golf..or catch. Or I could play a tennis match. There are so many sports, let's see... I could bowl, jump hurdles, or water ski. I could blumf. Or blumf blumf blumf blumf blumf. Or blumf. Or blumf blumf blumf blumf blumf.'' This last page, marked page ''6-7'' by Dr. Seuss seems to be where the assistant takes over, though Seuss adds corrections and doodles, as mentioned before, some taped on. Accompanied by a Dr. Seuss typed letter signed ''Ted'' regarding this unfinished book on Cat in the Hat Beginner Books stationery dated July 11, 1983. In part, ''Re your enclosed manuscript, I do indeed remember it. And my critique now is as same as then. What, in my opinion, is wrong with this story is that...despite the greatness of Pete as a stellar athlete hero...the negative image of him flubbing and unable to catch any ball at all will make him schnook. This is not entirely apparent in the text, but when you picture these negative scenes in illustrations, you will find that negatives are always more memorable than positives. And I think the reader's reaction will be, 'What's the matter with this dope?' I may be wrong of course...so why not send it to Harper and Row who do very good brat books and several times have made best sellers out of properties that I've rejected. '' A miraculous find in excellent condition. Never before seen on the market.