The Harry Ransom Center announced that literary scholars can now examine a trove of drafts and materials from David Foster Wallace‘s unfinished and final novel, The Pale King.
Follow this link to view digital copies of six drafts of one section from this new collection (image embedded above). The Center acquired the six boxes of materials, but Little, Brown and Co. kept the papers until after the paperback edition was published. Check it out:
The Pale King materials fill six boxes and include handwritten and typescript drafts, outlines, characters lists, research materials and a set of notebooks containing reading notes, names, snippets of dialog, definitions, quotations and clippings. The materials have been organized according to a spreadsheet developed by Wallace’s editor, Michael Pietsch. Pietsch, then-executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown and Co., spent months reading through and organizing the material and found what he called “an astonishingly full novel, created with the superabundant originality and humor that were uniquely David’s.” (Image via David Foster Wallace Literary Trust)