JAMES MERRILL | LASER-PRINTED TYPESCRIPT OF THE FIRST DRAFT OF A DIFFERENT PERSON. 1989–90

JAMES MERRILL

LASER-PRINTED TYPESCRIPT OF THE FIRST DRAFT OF A DIFFERENT PERSON. 1989–90

62 sheets (11 x 8 1/2 in.; 289 x 216 mm), with some autograph corrections in ink in Merrill's hand (about 44 words) and 10 lines of verse in pencil (some of it scored through) on the verso of one sheet. Black paper folder with label on upper cover inscribed by Merrill "1st draft of A Different Person, begun 12/89"

PROVENANCE

Peter Hooten

LITERATURE

Hammer pp. 25–26, 349; Hagstrom/Morgan A86

CATALOGUE NOTE

A corrected copy of the first draft of Merrill's fine memoir, inscribed to companion Peter Hooten in purple ink on the title-page, "PH: [printed title: A DIFFERENT PERSON] but your same old loving JM. NYC. EB Day 1990."

Included with the draft is a first edition of the published book (1993). The first draft was written in eleven sections and the present copy includes all sections except section IX. 

Merrill's memoir of his expatriate years in Europe, 1950–1952, "uses this part of his life to stand for the whole" — the period when he resolved to become a different person." "Composed in the face of illness and approaching death, A Different Person is a comic, prismatic autobiography in miniature and a neglected classic of recent life-writing" (Hammer).