LA writer finds Steinbeck manuscripts

1 hour, 29 minutes ago



LOS ANGELES - A handwritten draft of John Steinbeck's novel "Sweet Thursday," along with an unpublished story and other works, will be auctioned by a writer who says they were sitting in a closet for 50 years.

"This stuff was unbelievable — just laying in a box," said Joel Eisenberg. "I had this `Aha!' moment when I realized not only what I had here, but what I had the responsibility to do."

He said the material belonged to a friend, the late theater producer Ernest H. Martin. Martin's widow asked Eisenberg in 2004 to sort through a box that had been sitting in her Hollywood Hills closet.

Eisenberg found a 188-page manuscript of "Sweet Thursday," the sequel to Steinbeck's famous "Cannery Row"; a manuscript from another book, "The Log from the Sea of Cortez"; an unpublished story, "If This Be Treason," set during the McCarthy era; the unfinished draft of a musical comedy called "The Bear Flag Cafe" and carbon copies of 13 Steinbeck letters from 1953.

The collection will be auctioned May 24 in San Francisco in two lots. The auction could generate more than $500,000.

"How many times in your life can you touch history, help preserve history? I truly feel ... I made a difference in saving important literature," Eisenberg told the Daily News of Los Angeles.