1979 MARY MORRIS - HAND CORRECTED PROOF SHEETS Her First Book VANISHING ANIMALS
AUTHOR'S PROOF SHEETS filled with MANUSCRIPT CORRECTIONS, CHANGES, DELETIONS, ADDITIONS, INSTRUCTIONS and COMMENTS by the AUTHOR, MARY MORRIS. This is AN ORIGINAL WORKING COPY of the AUTHOR'S TYPESCRIPT PROOF SHEETS with MANUSCRIPT CHANGES also COPIED. This set of machine-copied proof sheets with Hand Changes was likely made by Mary Morris to send to HER EDITOR / PUBLISHER, keeping the original set for herself (as normal in the publishing world).. The publisher was DAVID R. GODINE. I found at least one page with instructions from the Author directly to the Publisher: "David: please make sure copyeditor changes all "Joffee" to "Berger" and all "Davis" to "Jensen" I can't believe I used real people's names. That is, what happens..." Approximately 225 loose 8.5x11" sheets, printing and corrections on one side only. This is not every page in the book, it appears that some pages with no changes may have been left out. The pages are arranged by story (this is a book of stories). The sheets are in generally GOOD condition, creasing and toning to the first few sheets, signs of handling to all sheets, copy-machine type smudges and marks, overall the pages remain bright and clear. A wonderful set of author corrected proofs. VANISHING ANIMALS was MARY MORRIS'S FIRST BOOK. This set of AUTHOR'S PROOFS with her PERSONAL CHANGES is certainly one of the most interesting and hard-to-find Mary Morris items. About MARY MORRIS (from Wikipedia): ******Mary Morris (born May 14, 1947 in Chicago) is an American author. Morris published her first book, a collection of short stories, entitled Vanishing Animals & Other Stories, in 1979 at the age of thirty-two and was awarded the Rome Prize in Literature by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She has gone on to publish numerous collections of short stories, novels, and travel memoirs. She has also edited with her husband, the author Larry O'Connor, an anthology of women's travel literature, entitled Maiden Voyages, subsequently published as The Virago Book of Women Travellers. Many of her short stories and her early novels have been set in an imaginary town called Winona along the banks of Lake Michigan. While Morris is known for her numerous travel articles and memoirs set in far-off places, her roots remain in the Midwest. She feels drawn there and has an affinity for Midwestern writers such as Willa Cather who wrote her stories of the Middle West from afar. She now lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and daughter, and teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College. In her FIRST COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES, VANISHING ANIMALS & OTHER STORIES (published by David Godine, 1979), Morris writes about childhood and adolescent memories. The Chicago Tribune called Morris "a marvelous storyteller-a budding Isaac Bashevis Singer, a young Doris Lessing, a talent to be watched and read". In 1980 Morris received the George W. Perkins fellowship from the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. After her year as a fellow, she taught in the creative writing program until 1993 where she was colleagues with such writers as Joyce Carol Oates (who has remained a close friend), Russell Banks, Paul Auster, and Haruki Murakami (who mentions Morris in his memoir about running).******