Original typescript for an educational book of verse about US presidents through LBJ — accompanied by three letters from Murdoch discussing potential illustrators and suggested textual changes.
Near fine.
Price: $950.00
"If you should get a nibble at it from a children's publisher and they want changes, I shall of course be delighted to work it over."
A native Californian and graduate of Pomona College and Columbia University, Murdoch published his first book of poetry, SPRING NIGHT, in 1925; he became more widely known after the posthumous publication of his THE DISROBING: SEX AND SATIRE by Gay Sunshine Press in 1982. Throughout the 1940s and '50s, he also published several works for children, including at least one, FAMILY THAT LIVED IN A TREE, commissioned with the backing of the WPA New Reading Materials Program by the New York Board of Education. The recipient of these affectionate letters, James Hyde of Darien, Connecticut, appears to have been acting in the capacity of an agent for the poet, who wrote from Mexico City with directions for Hyde's "editorial handling" of this manuscript.
The presidential manuscript, envisioned as "a book on a paper of very light buff color with line drawings in a sharply contrasting red, blue, or green," failed to find a publisher despite its author's eagerness to accommodate any and all suggestions: for a title, Murdoch proposed CAN YOU NAME THE PRESIDENTS IN ORDER? or THE PRESIDENTS IN ORDER or "whatever seems best to the editor." Murdoch limits most presidents to a one-adjective maximum, with the exception of the "youthful and beloved" Kennedy, who gets two due to recent assassination. An illuminating early stage of an unpublished work of children's history from an intriguing figure.
Read more: Elledge, "Royal Murdoch," in Masquerade: Queer Poetry in America to the End of World War II; "Kenneth Royal Murdoch: A Preliminary Inventory of His Papers in the Manuscript Collection at the Harry Ransom Center," University of Texas at Austin.
n.p. n.p, [1964-1965]. 11'' x 8.5''. Original [14]-page typescript with pencil corrections, fastened with metal paperclip. With three letters by Murdoch (two handwritten in blue pen, one typed), all signed "Κεννεθ". Minor edgewear and toning, letters with faint fold lines.
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