In 2004, I was fortunate to experience first-hand what one book afficionado called “the literary adventure of a lifetime.” See an early newspaper report on said “adventure” here:

https://www.dailynews.com/2007/05/04/lost-steinbeck-manuscript-short-story-found/.

My personal accounting of the matter, including a description of provenance, can be found here:

The images below are not of the original pages. They are photocopies of the originals, which were yellowed and brittle to the touch. I’ve been holding on to these copies for nearly 15 years. “If This Be Treason” sold at auction in 2007, and concerns the firing of a star actor from a television show by two studio executives because of “that Washington stuff.” The story, never published, was an angry reaction to both Senator McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, both of which professed to investigate subversive activities. The arts was particularly stricken, and many writers and actors were blacklisted for allegedly being communists.

“Old Man Stalin’s Dead” is the more problematic piece of the two, as there is scant information about its existence. Read it cold, as I did, and draw your own conclusions.

I had attempted to interest Viking, Steinbeck’s exclusive domestic publisher over the years (an imprint of Penguin Books since 2013), to reprint the material. To date, those efforts have proven fruitless.

I do not own this material, yet it remains unclaimed. Copies were forwarded to the Steinbeck Museum years ago, and to at least one family member.

I am displaying these pages, a selection of which was publicly exhibited only once before on auction sites, for the first time. My reason is simple: These works, though minor Steinbeck in the big scheme, are historically important. They should neither remain “lost” nor neglected by history.

Note: Though there is no legal ownership claim on this work, I will respectfully remove this post at the family’s wishes, or Viking’s wishes, if so desired.

Happy Holidays. Enjoy this while you can.

If This Be Treason