WODEHOUSE, P.G. Complete typescript draft of Do Butlers Burgle Banks?

Rethinking, Reorganising, and Revising

WODEHOUSE, P.G. Complete typescript draft of Do Butlers Burgle Banks? [Remsenburg? 1967–1968].

[offered with:]

WODEHOUSE, P.G. Early manuscript and corrected typescript draft of Chapters 9 and 10 of Do Butlers Burgle Banks? [Remsenburg? 1968.] £50,000

Complete typescript: 4to. Original typescript in four parts, each secured with a brass fastener to upper corner, ff. 240 (280 x 215 mm), primarily typed to rectos, 18 ff. with type to verso, housed in a card chemise inside a black cloth clamshell box, blue gilt morocco lettering-piece to spine, lettered directly in gilt at foot; A: ff. ‘[1], 1–40’ (but 67 ff.); B: ff. ‘41–81’ (82, 114–139 unfastened; 44 ff.); C: ff. ‘82–139’ (68 ff.), D: ff. ‘140–193’ (61 ff.); pagination inconsistent, with many manuscript amendments, additions, and errors throughout; some creasing and edgewear, but clean and well preserved.

Chapters 9 and 10: 4to. Ff. 123 (280 x 215 mm), grouped in six parts (see below) and housed in a card file folder; minor edgewear, toning and rust offset from paperclips, but generally clean and well-preserved.

A complete typescript of this late Wodehouse novel, with substantial manuscript revisions by the author throughout; accompanied by over one hundred and twenty leaves comprising early manuscript and typescript drafts, with extensive corrections and revisions, for Chapters 9 and 10.

Do Butlers Burgle Banks? was first published in the US on 5 August 1968 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, and in the UK on 19 September 1968 by Barrie & Jenkins, London. Francis Donaldson describes this late work, written when the author was eighty-seven, as possessing ‘the extreme sensibility and the sure humorous touch of [its] most inspired predecessors.’ The story, in which a young man inherits an insolvent bank, and his subsequent attempts to disguise the truth with the help of a crooked butler, is vintage Wodehouse. This complete typescript, replete with extensive authorial revisions and annotations in pencil, blue and red ink, includes on the title page, in blue pencil, the alternative title, Hats Off to Horace, beneath the chosen one (typed).

The drafts for Chapters 9 and 10 are in six parts, as follows:

A. Two leaves of loose manuscript in pencil and blue ink to rectos only. Upper portion of first leaf headed ‘Horace phoning scene’ in pencil (number ‘3’, in blue ink, circled in the margin), followed by a rough sketch of dialogue. Lower third of page, beneath horizontal pencilled line, marked ‘start’ with a circled ‘1’ in the margin, and continuing onto second sheet (‘2’ in the margin) may be the first manuscript draft, with corrections and revisions, of the opening of Chapter 9, part 3 (pp. 125–126 in the UK first edition).

B. Four manuscript leaves, text in pencil and blue ink to rectos and one verso, secured with copper paper clip; laid out in the author’s characteristic hand-ruled compartments, recording ideas and suggestions for Chapter 9, along with notes and gradings to left margins (the first sheet second compartment, for example, reads ‘v. Good | work in this’).

C. Five leaves of manuscript in blue ink and pencil to rectos and one verso, secured with tarnished, rusty paperclip; hand-ruled compartments with left marginal notes; first page headed in pencil ‘Notes for Mike–Miss Bond scene’; notes and suggestions for Chapter 10.

D. 25 leaves, 24 of which 280 x 215 mm, secured with brass fastener to left corner, with 1 smaller loose leaf (230 x 150 mm); first three leaves typescript, the remainder in manuscript (pencil) predominantly to rectos, one typescript leaf and three manuscript leaves also to versos. Typescript pages and first manuscript page are headed ‘Act Two’, possibly related to ‘a note of Guy’s [Guy Bolton], [stating the novel] was based on a play of his’ (Donaldson). Leaves variously dated May–July 1967 (fastened out of order).

E. 27 leaves (280 x 215 mm, four sheets 253 x 200 mm), to rectos only, 22 in manuscript (pencil), 6 of typescript with deletions and amendments in pencil; secured with a brass fastener to upper corner. Leaves variously dated between May and July 1967 (fastened roughly in order), again referring to ‘Acts’ (Two and Three) rather than chapters; many of the manuscript pages hand-ruled in compartments with, as usual, comments in left margin.

F. 62 leaves, 280 x 215 mm secured with brass fastener to upper left corner, 1 additional loose sheet 200 x 120 mm, 55 leaves, including loose sheet, of discursive plotting and sequencing suggestions in manuscript (the author’s characteristic ‘try this’ is a common exhortation), predominantly in blue ink, with occasional pencil and red ink emendations, many leaves divided into hand-ruled compartments with marginal annotations; 7 typescript leaves, 4 of an early typed draft of Chapter 9 – the first page headed CHAPTER EIGHT (corrected to CHAPTER NINE in manuscript) – with extensive manuscript corrections and revisions throughout.

Provenance: The complete draft comes from the collection of prolific Wodehouse collector Charles Gould, subsequently in the possession of William Toplis, sold in P.G. Wodehouse Collection (5 July 2020), lot 24.

SKU: 2126348