Fowles, "The Magus", corrected typescript of the revised version of the text, 1976

FOWLES, JOHN 

The Magus, revised typescript

comprising text freshly written written for The Magus: a revised version, almost every page with autograph cancels, revisions, or corrections in black ink, c.30 leaves with additional typescript material on pasted slips, each leaf numbered in the upper right corner in a sequence referring to the pagination of the existing print edition (running from 59A to 613G), and with a new foreword (pages i-ix); altogether 331 pages, 4to, 1976, loose in a manila folder with an autograph note on the upper cover ("The Magus Separately typed new inserts and new passages to go into old text as indicated"), occasional nicks and creases, especially to initial leaves; with: 'Behind the Magus', photocopy of corrected typescript, 13 pages, 1994, stapled

"...Though this is not, in any major thematic or narrative sense, a fresh version of The Magus, it is rather more than a stylistic revision. A number of scenes have been largely rewritten, and one or two new ones invented. I have taken this somewhat unusual course not least because - if letters are any test - the book has aroused more interest than anything else I have written..."

The final draft of the revised Magus. The book was first written in the mid-50s and published in 1965, but eleven years later Fowles took the exceptionally unusual step of undertaking a wholesale revision of his very successful published novel. Fowles was dissatisfied with both the novel itself and by how it had been interpreted by readers. He found himself caught up once again by the story when he was checking the French translation of the novel so he decided to undertake a wholesale revision of the text: "It is humbling - to see how badly one wrote, how messy the plot in places. And enjoyable: fixed situations melt, the characters live again, present new choices" (The Journals: Volume 2, p.190). As well as improving the writing, Fowles revised the plot, strengthened the erotic element in the central section of the novel, and recalibrated the presentation of personal freedom, moving away from the individualistic existentialism that - much to Fowles's dislike - many readers had taken from the novel. Minor changes were made into a copy of the first edition (see next lot) but many of his revisions were so copious that they expanded into these 331 leaves of additional typescript.

PROVENANCE:

Property of Tom Maschler; sold in these rooms, 12 July 2016, lot 163

Please see shipping calculator link: click here.