Dec 6, 2024 10:00 EST
Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
693
The original typed manuscript for Chandler's only opera
Estate / Collection: The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection of Raymond Chandler
CHANDLER, RAYMOND and PASCAL, JULIAN
The Princess and the Pedlar: An Entirely Original Comic Opera. The original typed manuscript of the libretto, circa 1917, with manuscript title leaf, a typed title leaf, a character list, and the libretto in two acts. The sheets 11 x 8 1/2 inches (28 x 21.5 cm). [6], 1-[32], [1], 1-[29] pp. Creases, chips and short tears to page edges, minor staining, a few corrections or spots within but generally clean. Offered with a photocopy of the manuscript of the score.
A scarce, early Chandler effort and collaboration, unknown to biographers until a decade ago. It was previously erroneously believed that Raymond Chandler did not attempt to write between his arrival in America in 1912 and 1933 following his career in business at the Dabny Oil Syndicate. Landing in Los Angeles in 1913, Ray's mother Florence came to live with him, and the mother and son were welcomed into the home of the wealthy arts patrons Warren and Caroline Lloyd. On Friday nights, the Lloyds would host a salon for their artistically minded friends (a group known as "The Optimists"), and one Friday the pianist Julian Pascal, his wife Pearl Eugenie who went by 'Cissy,' and Julian's son from a previous marriage, Gordon, who was a few years younger than Ray, were invited. Throughout 1915 and 1916, Ray and Florence moved house several times around Los Angeles, but the Pascals, Lloyds, and Chandlers continued to spend much time together. In the first half of 1917, Ray, and Julian Pascal collaborated on the writing of a comic opera - Ray provided the libretto and Julian the score. It is a substantial two-act work of fantasy set in a royal palace and regards a princess who must be married by midnight to avoid being turned into an apple, her suitor, the peddler, and the various fairyland obstacles that block the path to their union. The work was never produced. In August of 1917, Julian Pascal had the foresight to deposit a copy in the Library of Congress in order to secure American copyright.
Slowly, World War I crept toward Southern California, and Ray, then 29, and young Gordon Pascal ventured to Victoria and enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Raymond Chandler would fight in France until the Armistice when he returned to Los Angeles. The relationship between Raymond Chandler and Cissy Pascal likely had its roots in the heady period before the war when the 'Optimists' were meeting and Ray and Julian collaborated on The Princess and the Pedlar but this appears undocumented; we do know that Cissy filed for divorce from Julian in 1920 and upon the death of Florence Chandler in 1924, Ray and Cissy were married.
Until the discovery in 2014 of the file copy of The Princess and the Pedlar in the Library of Congress, this early Chandler collaboration was unknown to everyone in the world except one person - Sybil Davis, daughter of Jean Vounder-Davis, who had been given the present copy of the libretto from Ray as a child in the late 1950s. A copy of the Library of Congress' score is offered with the lot. Efforts have been made over the past decade to stage the opera which to this point has not been performed.
For an article discussing the 2014 discovery of the copyright copy of the libretto in the Library of Congress, see: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/02/raymond-chandler-libretto-library-congress
$8,000 - $12,000
Estate / Collection: The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection of Raymond Chandler
CHANDLER, RAYMOND and PASCAL, JULIAN
The Princess and the Pedlar: An Entirely Original Comic Opera. The original typed manuscript of the libretto, circa 1917, with manuscript title leaf, a typed title leaf, a character list, and the libretto in two acts. The sheets 11 x 8 1/2 inches (28 x 21.5 cm). [6], 1-[32], [1], 1-[29] pp. Creases, chips and short tears to page edges, minor staining, a few corrections or spots within but generally clean. Offered with a photocopy of the manuscript of the score.
A scarce, early Chandler effort and collaboration, unknown to biographers until a decade ago. It was previously erroneously believed that Raymond Chandler did not attempt to write between his arrival in America in 1912 and 1933 following his career in business at the Dabny Oil Syndicate. Landing in Los Angeles in 1913, Ray's mother Florence came to live with him, and the mother and son were welcomed into the home of the wealthy arts patrons Warren and Caroline Lloyd. On Friday nights, the Lloyds would host a salon for their artistically minded friends (a group known as "The Optimists"), and one Friday the pianist Julian Pascal, his wife Pearl Eugenie who went by 'Cissy,' and Julian's son from a previous marriage, Gordon, who was a few years younger than Ray, were invited. Throughout 1915 and 1916, Ray and Florence moved house several times around Los Angeles, but the Pascals, Lloyds, and Chandlers continued to spend much time together. In the first half of 1917, Ray, and Julian Pascal collaborated on the writing of a comic opera - Ray provided the libretto and Julian the score. It is a substantial two-act work of fantasy set in a royal palace and regards a princess who must be married by midnight to avoid being turned into an apple, her suitor, the peddler, and the various fairyland obstacles that block the path to their union. The work was never produced. In August of 1917, Julian Pascal had the foresight to deposit a copy in the Library of Congress in order to secure American copyright.
Slowly, World War I crept toward Southern California, and Ray, then 29, and young Gordon Pascal ventured to Victoria and enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Raymond Chandler would fight in France until the Armistice when he returned to Los Angeles. The relationship between Raymond Chandler and Cissy Pascal likely had its roots in the heady period before the war when the 'Optimists' were meeting and Ray and Julian collaborated on The Princess and the Pedlar but this appears undocumented; we do know that Cissy filed for divorce from Julian in 1920 and upon the death of Florence Chandler in 1924, Ray and Cissy were married.
Until the discovery in 2014 of the file copy of The Princess and the Pedlar in the Library of Congress, this early Chandler collaboration was unknown to everyone in the world except one person - Sybil Davis, daughter of Jean Vounder-Davis, who had been given the present copy of the libretto from Ray as a child in the late 1950s. A copy of the Library of Congress' score is offered with the lot. Efforts have been made over the past decade to stage the opera which to this point has not been performed.
For an article discussing the 2014 discovery of the copyright copy of the libretto in the Library of Congress, see: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/02/raymond-chandler-libretto-library-congress
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Auction: Rare Books, Autographs & Maps, Dec 6, 2024
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Auction of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Friday, December 6, 2024 at 10am
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Featuring The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection of Raymond Chandler
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Consignments Are Currently Being Accepted for Future Auctions
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We Invite You to Contact Us for a Complimentary Auction Evaluation of Your Books, Autographs & Maps
NEW YORK, NY -- Doyle will hold an auction of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Friday, December 6, 2024 at 10am. Showcased is a wonderful diversity of Americana, maps, autographs, early books and landmarks of literature and science.
The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection of Raymond Chandler
The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection offers the largest trove of unpublished Raymond Chandler stories, poetry, letters, books and personal artifacts to come to market. Best known for his Philip Marlowe detective novels including The Big Sleep (1939) and Farewell, My Lovely (1940) and as screenwriter of film noir classics such as Double Indemnity (1944) and The Blue Dahlia (1946), Raymond Chandler is considered one of the top writers in the hardboiled fiction genre alongside Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. Held for decades, the archive belonged to Jean Fracasse [later Vounder-Davis] who was first hired in January 1957 as Chandler's personal secretary but quickly became his close friend, confidant, fiancé and muse to whom he dedicated his last book (Est. $3000-5000). At the center of the archive is an extensive group of unpublished drafts of fantasy stories begun by Chandler in the 1920s, envisioned as a book in 1939, and retained by him until given to Sybil and Jean in 1957 (Est. $40,000-60,000). Nearly 800 typed and hand-annotated pages, the fantasy stories have compelling titles such as The Disappearing Duke, The Rubies of Marmelon, and The Carsbrook Mystery. Written during the period Chandler was honing his craft, the drafts offer much on the writer’s working method. Another excellent offering is Raymond Chandler’s Olivetti Studio 44 typewriter used to write his final novel Playback (Est. $10,000-20,000) and an inscribed copy of that novel to the dedicatee’s son. Unpublished poems, letters, inscribed books, and personal artifacts abound such as Chandler’s cocktail muddlers, jewelry gifted to Jean and her daughter Sybil, and Chandler’s 1945 Edgar Allan Poe Award. Now nearly seventy years since his death, this is the largest trove of Chandler papers to come to light, and the Jean Vounder-Davis Collection undoubtedly provides valuable insight to Raymond Chandler’s complicated last years. Institutions and collectors should take notice of the unparalleled opportunity to acquire unpublished material from this major 20th century author.
Literature
Beyond Raymond Chandler, literature is headed by a group of early Ernest Hemingway titles including his first two books Three Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time. An item of Hemingway interest is matador Antonio Ordóñez's Traje de Luces or Suit of Lights worn in the bullfighting rings of Spain while Hemingway wrote One Dangerous Summer. A manuscript page from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is offered in the auction as is a rare pack of promotional Random House Who is John Galt? cigarettes. 19th century literature offers an early printing of Frankenstein and the Polidori's The Vampyre.
Presidential Material & Americana
Presidential material includes a wooden beam from the 1949 White House reconstruction inscribed by Harry Truman and excellent letters from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Mamie during World War II. Early Americana features a rare document in defense of a Shay's Rebellion conspirator sentenced to death and a scarce periodical titled the Colonizationalist which encouraged settlement to Liberia and the Oregon Territory.
Maps & Travel
From an Upper East Side Map Collector comes H.S. Tanner's extremely rare monumental wall map of North America and Munster's circa 1568 map of North and South America. A collection of world maps offers a finely colored example of Visscher's 1652 double-hemispheric world map and other related examples. Travel includes a scarce copy of Sir Walter Raleigh's 1596 narrative of his discovery of Guiana.
Art & Illustrated Books
Art and illustrated books includes a set of Rockwell Kent's edition of Moby Dick and an original illustration from the book. The manuscript of a children's book by Nanno Freerk de Groot is present as are works by Milne, Sendak, Rackham and others.
SALE NOTICE
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- In Person
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We Invite You to Auction!
Consignments are currently being accepted for future auctions. We invite you to contact us for a complimentary auction evaluation. Our Specialists are always available to discuss the sale of a single item or an entire collection.
For information, please contact Peter Costanzo at 212-427-4141 ext 248, Edward Ripley-Duggan at ext 234, or Noah Goldrach at ext 226, or email Books@Doyle.com
See our Conditions of Sale.
