Collected works of Frank Norris the Argonaut Manuscript Limited Edition,Page, 10 Volume Set by Norris, Frank; Carter Burden - 1928

New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co, 1928. Limited Edition. Octavo. In ten volumes limited to 245 sets. The present set is number 205 with an original manuscript page within publisher's envelope laid in which has 36 lines plus the forty lines he added which are central to what made the McTeague a classic (see image) cf. P. 342-343. One of the greatest novels on the lust for gold. Its richness which begins in San Francisco and leads to Death Valley has led scholars to place his ideas in the tradition beginning with Dante and continuing to Flaubert and Tolstoy. (Erich Von Stroheim made it into the classic film Greed). While he was in the middle of his studies at Harvard in 1895, he began the composition of the novel. Records there showed he checked out Fillebrown's work on Operative Dentistry as well as the Inferno. The Death Valley section which comes from the manuscript page where he made significant changes in the wide margins of the folio manuscript. As Charles S. Watson wrote: "McTeague's final torment completes fittingly the previous portion of the novel, which describes how passions like greed produce a hell on earth. " He notes that in the early 1930's the National Park Service recognized the name "Dante's View" as the best known view of Death Valley. His other works in this definitive set of his works in the set include: not only the Octopus, the Pit, The third Circle, a Deal in Wheat, the Responsibilities of the novelist, but all his collected writings. An absolutely fine set bound in vellum paper covered boards centrally stamped in gilt, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, top edge gilt, corners and a strip near spine red, all in fine dust jackets. A beautiful set.