These days, almost all works of literature are written on computers — from their first inklings, saved in a document called “notes,” to their final, emailed-out drafts — and even, increasingly, read on them. In such a climate, we are even more fascinated by the handwritten drafts and original manuscripts of classic literature, from which much can be inferred via handwriting, paper choice, and strength of pen marks. But mostly, they’re nice to look at, so with more than a little help from awesome Tumblr Fuck Yeah, Manuscripts!, we’ve collected a few of our favorite specimens. After the jump, sneak a peek at the handwritten manuscripts and drafts of some of the world’s greatest novels, and peer at the elegant script or frantic cross-outs of your favorite authors to your heart’s content.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s manuscript of The Great Gatsby. [via]
Handwritten page of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. [via]
Mark Twain’s handwritten manuscript pages from the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. [via]
A page from the manuscript of Sartre’s Nausea. [via]
From John Steinbeck’s handwritten manuscript of The Grapes of Wrath. [via]
From William Faulkner’s manuscript for A Light in August. [via]
A draft of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. [via]
From Charles Dickens’s manuscript for A Christmas Carol. [via]
Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript for Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. [via]
A manuscript page from the 14th chapter of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. [via]
The manuscript for Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. [via]
Edith Wharton’s manuscript for The House of Mirth. [via]
A manuscript page from Franz Kafka’s The Trial. [via]
From W. Somerset Maugham’s manuscript for Of Human Bondage. [via]
The original manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights. [via]
First page of Vladimir Nabokov’s first draft of Invitation to a Beheading (Приглашение на Казнь). [via]
George Eliot’s manuscript of Middlemarch. [via]
Victor Hugo’s manuscript for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre Dame de Paris). [via]
The first page of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise. [via]
Charlotte Brontë’s fair copy of Jane Eyre, written out by hand to be sent for publication. [via]
A manuscript page from Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. [via]
The original manuscript of Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince (Il Principe). [via]
The last page from Marcel Proust’s manuscript of A la recherche du temps perdu. [via]
From Jane Austen’s original manuscript of Persuasion. [via]
Manuscript fragment of James Joyce’s Ulysses. [via]