| Custodial History | The item was purchased in April 2016. |
| Content Description | Manuscript version of 'The Flying Fish' by D.H. Lawrence. Written in ink on 20 folios (39 pages) of lined paper torn from a notebook. The first 9 pages are in the hand of Frieda Lawrence with corrections in the hand of D H Lawrence. From the end of page 8 the remainder is written in Lawrence's hand. Pages 15, 20-21 and 24 are particularly heavily revised. In the introduction to 'St Mawr and Other Stories', Brian Finney speculates the reason for the change in writer was due to Lawrence's diagnosis of tuberculosis by a doctor in Mexico City. The doctor recommended that Lawrence should avoid writing and painting, so he dictated the first part of the story to Frieda (see Introduction page xxxiv).
This manuscript was purchased by The University of Nottingham from auction at Bonhams New York, 11 Apr. 2016.
The story remained unpublished in Lawrence's lifetime. It was first published in 1936 in 'Phoenix: Posthumous Papers' edited by Edward D. McDonald.
Note that the manuscript was not available in 1983 when the story was published in the Cambridge University Press edition of 'St Mawr and Other Stories' edited by Brian Finney. Introduction page xxxiv states "The autograph manuscript of 'The Flying-Fish' has been described by both Powell and Tedlock, although it has since disappeared".
It appears as E136a in Warren Roberts and Paul Poplawski, 'A Bibliography of D.H. Lawrence', Third Edition (CUP, 2001). This source gives the location as Karpeles Manuscript Museum. |