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Typescript of the Foreword to The Complete Works of Kate Chopin
[c. 1969]. Wilson's four-page typescript, with his holograph corrections. Signed by Wilson and with his note at the top: "Please send me a proof of this. Edmund Wilson/ Wellfleet, Mass." We have no way of knowing whether Wilson got his proof: the manuscript differs from the final text by several words. The Complete Works of Kate Chopin, edited by Per Seyersted, was first published by the Louisiana State University Press in 1969; it was reprinted in paperback in 2006 and a first printing of the 2006 edition is included here. This was the volume that completed the resurrection of Kate Chopin's literary reputation, from that of being an obscure and largely forgotten regional writer to being one of the important American authors of the 1890s, a proto-feminist and a tragic figure. The inclusion of an introductory assessment of her work by Seyersted and of a foreword by no less a figure than Wilson -- probably the preeminent American man of letters at the time -- seemed designed to put the critical weight of the literary establishment behind this re-evaluation of her writings. Wilson reports in these pages that prior to this work, he had difficulty finding Chopin's stories to read, and in order to read her first novel, At Fault, he had to go to the microfilm at the Library of Congress. The typescript is folded once and has staple removal holes at the upper left corner; the top page is evenly sunned; near fine. A laudatory manuscript about one major American author by another. [#027512] SOLD

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