Truman Capote Manuscript Found

Posted on December 1, 2004

The BBC reports that the long-lost manuscript of Truman Capote's unpublished first novel has been found and will be auctioned this week at Sotheby's. Capote claimed to have destroyed the novel, entitled Summer Crossing, which told the story of a 17-year-old girl who has been left in New York while her parents jet off to Europe for the summer. Sotheby's Vice president for books and manuscripts Justin Caldwell said that the book was written before Breakfast at Tiffany's and contained some of the same themes. Caldwell said that the find is "a remarkable literary discovery." "It will undoubtedly provide invaluable insights into this major writer's formative years as work on the novel occupied Capote both before and after his first published novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, which made him a cult figure in American letters," Caldwell said Monday. The missing manuscript was found in a box of old papers that had belonged to Capote's former housesitter. The manuscript is expected to sell at auction for at least $70,000, which should provide quite a nice Christmas for the relatives of said former housesitter.