Dreiser Mss. Dawn First
Rough Draft Chapters 1-33 Typescript
I attempted to transcribe the bottom part of page 263 where
he starts writing by hand and all of page 264 in the first rough draft of
Dreiser’s Dawn (Chapters 1-33). I had
a lot of difficulty reading his handwriting, so there are a lot of guesses. If
anyone knows what the words are, please let me know and I’ll fix it.
Page 263---
But occasionally the fall [?healer] [?feal] by a rain of
stones.
Then there were cats and dogs in [illegible]. I never saw
more a [illegible]---- probably due to the rats. And words in white [?afirm]
and [?cops] [?Lavquip] and clothes, ↑or worship th saw in basement [?laundries]↓, for this was a
residence neighborhood of a better sort, three houses facing those side streets
and was
Verso of Page 263---
actually what [?baffened] at the opening of our third fall [?bero]
Page 264---
a most charming small park ↑Waverly↓, I think it was called Waverly
where Geoffe walked or sat of an evening and viewed a small and pretty [?lalo],
in which were bright colored boots for rain. Chicago seemed all for ↑eight [?seeing]
at [illegible] Geoffe loved to walk the [?b…] streets strangers all, I pressure↓ By day there
were endless grocery and meat market wagons clattering here and there and ↑to say walking
of↓
a constant and
varying panorama of ↑visible from our↓ rear windows scenes which [?concerned] a
↑[?heart-…ing] ↓ world of the new city types—ladies who made
endless toilets ↑[illegible]
[illegible] [illegible] ↓ during the afternoon or evening, ↑or walked about in their rooms
[illegible] [illegible] and with their hands up clerks who came bustling in at
five-thirty or six to dress, lounge in ↑[illegible] [illegible] ↓
small back yard
hammocks ↑in
[?one] of their [?boot] yards [illegible] others↓ or rush forth to evening engagements again
elsewhere.
There were those as I could see, who attempted small gardens
or window boxes or who sat & read or walked too and fro enjoying their 25 x
40 evening worlds. [?Beli…] by day or evening [?goal]-fleecy or black
thunderheads which [?fo] [?cealed] thunder showers showed over the [?loft] of
these [?leaves] in the sky above. Pidgeons and sparrow flew here and there- the
only visible birds allies than canaries in cages. Window curtains
Page 265 (for the sake of completing the sentence)---
Excellent attempt--we'll go over these two pages in class tomorrow!
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