I remember one day in London, when I was calling upon my dear friend, H. W. Massingham, the beloved editor of the Nation. His editorial offices in Adelphi Terrace were directly beneath George Bernard Shaw’s apartments in the same old Georgian building. Knowing he was a good friend of Shaw, I asked if he had any of his manuscripts. Massingham looked at me oddly for a moment, as though my request had brought to his mind an entirely new train of thought, then replied, “Oh, yes!” He ran his hand to the bottom of an enormous waste-paper basket under his desk; it was filled to overflowing, as though it had not been emptied for days. He drew out a manuscript which he had thrown away, written in a familiar hand—Shaw’s article on the censorship of the press! He offered it to me as a present, and you will well understand that I accepted it eagerly. This little story should delight Bernard Shaw himself.

To-day it is unfortunate that almost all manuscripts are typed. There are, however, rare exceptions. The late Joseph Conrad was one of the very few authors who worked almost entirely in longhand. When I bought the manuscript of his book, Victory, at the Quinn sale in New York in 1924, I paid the highest price—$8100—ever given at auction for the manuscript of a living author. It was closely written on sheets that fill two bulky cases.

The average writer nowadays, after he has corrected the final draft of his work, has it copied by a competent stenographer and then makes any further correction on it he wishes. Many writers find it easier to create their stories directly upon the typewriter, while others dictate. The typewriter—what a curse it has become to the collector! A century from now it will be almost impossible to find the original autograph manuscripts of writers of to-day who stand the test of time. Who knows but that the styles will have changed, and the machine upon which a masterpiece was brought to life will be considered even more precious!

PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF CONRAD’S
“VICTORY”

PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF CONRAD’S
“LORD JIM”

No one knows exactly why there is hardly a scrap left of the original manuscripts of most of the writers of the Elizabethan period. Perhaps publishers in those days had one fault that is prevalent to-day. They may have been too close to their writers to be able to appreciate the value of the original draft, or perhaps they had scrap baskets like Massingham’s. Of Shakespeare’s writing only six or seven signatures are known, and these are attached to his will and other legal documents. They are priceless, and have been kept with great care at Somerset House and at the Record Office in London. How unfortunate it is that not a single line of his original work remains. What would collectors not give now for just one page of Hamlet, or even a short note in Shakespeare’s own handwriting! Surely, $500,000 would not be too much. Nor is there any manuscript left of either of his noted contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe and Robert Greene. Of these two, who opened the way for the greatest dramatist of all time, not even a signature remains. I was successful this year, however, in obtaining a letter of John Fletcher, who very probably collaborated with Shakespeare in the writing of Henry VIII. Fletcher addressed this rhymed epistle to the Countess of Huntingdon. For years it had been in an old English muniment room neglected and unsung; and it is really the nearest approach to Shakespeare I have been fortunate enough to find. When you think that hitherto not a signature of Fletcher’s had been known, it makes this find the more remarkable. There are, however, many relics of his great contemporary, Ben Jonson, early drafts of his celebrated plays, and many books are known in which he inscribed comments and notes.

ONLY UNCUT SHAKESPEARE QUARTO KNOWN, PUBLISHED IN
SHAKESPEARE’S LIFETIME