![[Americana.]](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg2.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2006-09%252F22%252F7332891-4-1.JPG%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
Darren Sutherland
Specialist
This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
Lot 39
DRAFT OF THE INTRODUCTION TO SEA OF CORTEZ. STEINBECK, JOHN. 1902-1968. Autograph Manuscript titled "Introduction (about the Gulf of [Lower] California)," 4 pp, 4to, n.p., c.1941, on white foolscap,
25 October 2023, 14:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$21,760 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
Katie Allen
Associate Specialist
DRAFT OF THE INTRODUCTION TO SEA OF CORTEZ.
STEINBECK, JOHN. 1902-1968. Autograph Manuscript titled "Introduction (about the Gulf of [Lower] California)," 4 pp, 4to, n.p., c.1941, on white foolscap, very mild toning to leaves, upper right corner of p 4 bumped.
STEINBECK EXPLAINS THE WRITING PROCESS FOR SEA OF CORTEZ.
This draft is very close to the final published version of the original 1941 introduction, with only minor editorial differences. Steinbeck begins: "The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of the writer. This is completely understood about poetry, or fiction, but it is too seldom realized about books of fact ... We have a book to write about the Gulf of Lower California. We could do one of several things about its design. But we have decided to let it form itself, its boundaries a boat and a sea, its duration a six-week charter time, its subject, everything we could see and think and even imagine, its limits—our own without reservation." Steinbeck's introduction lays out the parameters of his "expedition" and compares the vibrancy of work done "on site" to that done in repose in a laboratory. It is easier to count the spines on a pickled specimen pulled from a jar, but not nearly as exciting or, ultimately, as informative. Steinbeck and Ricketts are aware, however, that their very presence changes the dynamics of the thing they are observing: "We could not observe a completely objective Sea of Cortez anyway, for in that lonely and uninhabited Gulf our boat and ourselves would change it the moment we entered. By going there we would bring a new factor to the gulf ... 'Let us go,' we said, 'into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it, that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel gras, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool makes us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too.'"
This draft may have been among the odds and ends that Steinbeck sent to David Heyler in the 1950s (Steinbeck to Heyler, November 19, 1956).
STEINBECK EXPLAINS THE WRITING PROCESS FOR SEA OF CORTEZ.
This draft is very close to the final published version of the original 1941 introduction, with only minor editorial differences. Steinbeck begins: "The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of the writer. This is completely understood about poetry, or fiction, but it is too seldom realized about books of fact ... We have a book to write about the Gulf of Lower California. We could do one of several things about its design. But we have decided to let it form itself, its boundaries a boat and a sea, its duration a six-week charter time, its subject, everything we could see and think and even imagine, its limits—our own without reservation." Steinbeck's introduction lays out the parameters of his "expedition" and compares the vibrancy of work done "on site" to that done in repose in a laboratory. It is easier to count the spines on a pickled specimen pulled from a jar, but not nearly as exciting or, ultimately, as informative. Steinbeck and Ricketts are aware, however, that their very presence changes the dynamics of the thing they are observing: "We could not observe a completely objective Sea of Cortez anyway, for in that lonely and uninhabited Gulf our boat and ourselves would change it the moment we entered. By going there we would bring a new factor to the gulf ... 'Let us go,' we said, 'into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it, that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel gras, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool makes us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too.'"
This draft may have been among the odds and ends that Steinbeck sent to David Heyler in the 1950s (Steinbeck to Heyler, November 19, 1956).