The Library of Roger Wagner - PBA Galleries

MILLER’S HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND GEORGE WRIGHT
132. miller, henry. Max Winthrop (George Wright) - 6 page holograph manuscript. Includes: 6 page
holograph manuscript. * 20 page first draft carbon typescript with small holograph corrections, with
photocopy. * 19 page second draft carbon typescript with holograph corrections, with photocopy.
No place: [1976]
A memoir of Miller’s high school friend, with whom he helped form the Xerxes Society
(of which Wright was the president). Miller describes him at length in his book, Plexus. The
manuscript was originally titled “George Wright” but was later changed to “Max Winthrop” to
protect the name of his friend. Each of
the drafts is quite different, describing
variant events of the personalities
involved. The two remained friends after
high school, when George became a
school teacher: “As [a] school teacher he
was already screwing all the good looking
girls in his classes. He took terrible risks
but managed never to get caught redhanded.
Even later, as principal, he was
dating the most attractive students....”
Miller waxes nostalgic for the time in his
life when he was in his early twenties: “It
was the time of the trolley car, of Trixie
Fraganza and Elsie Janis, of George
N. Cohan and Charlie Chaplin, of the
great dance halls, the marathon and little
bunches of violets for your sweetheart.
There were great wrestlers, like Jim
London, for example, or Earl Caddock,
the man of a thousand holds, not phonies
like today. There were great fighters, like
Fitzsimmons, Corbett, Jim Jeffries, Jack
Johnson. There were singers, like Caruso
and Tetrazzini. There were six day bike
riders and world famous pugilists....” He
Lot 132
Page 66
writes of the spring he spent with George
on a New Jersey farm where George was
convalescing from pneumonia (a passage
that is included in Plexus) - the sex, love, the cold, the jokes and stories told. He even compares
the prostitutes of his youth to the ones today. An interesting essay in near fine condition.
(1000/1500)
133. miller, henry. Mother, I Love You! - 22 page holograph manuscript. 22 page holograph manuscript,
accompanied by photocopied typescript.
No place: [1976]
Eventually printed in Miller’s Mother, China and the World Beyond, printed in 1976 by the
Capra Press. A bizarre imagined meeting and conversation between Miller and his mother in the
afterworld, with many insights into Miller’s chilhood & lukewarm relationship with his mother.
Fine.
(300/500)
Each lot is illustrated in color in the online version of the catalogue.
Go to www.pbagalleries.com