Hi all, my cousin, Pandora, has an old play mss signed to her by Ray Bradbury, THE ANTHEM SPRINTERS. They met through her brother, Philip Bronson, in Santa Monica many, many years ago. The manuscript is hand-typed. The pages are yellowed but legible. The lines are hand-edited, in color. The play was produced in a series.
Is this valuable? I am making a copy of it, if Kinkos will allow me (the books are copyrighted, not sure what they'll say about an original manuscript).
It's kind of a funny coincidence that she should have known him, because my father-in-law was a futurist and worked with him, as well.

Hi TerryJ2, and welcome.

It probably does have some value, but it will depend very much on what sort of manuscript it is. Do you know if it was typed by Bradbury, and hand-edited by him? Or could it simply be a typed performance-copy of the play script, with hand-corrections by an actor or director?

Is there a date on it? An early version of THE ANTHEM SPRINTERS would be more valuable than a late one. (The play was published in the 1960s. If the manuscript predates the publication, it is likely to be more valuable than a typed copy that post-dates the published version.)

1967. I'll see if I can put an image here.
http://img.photobucket.com/alb...ANTHEMSPRINTERS.jpeg

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TerryJ2,

Thanks for posting the photos!

Based on what I see here, I'm going to say this is NOT from Ray's typewriter. I might be over-generalising, but on most of the Bradbury-typed scripts I have seen from the 1960s, Ray didn't CENTRE the title and author, but INDENTED them.

I don't think the acts and scenes noted in the second photo are in Ray's handwriting.

Therefore, I think this is just a typed version of the playscript, with hand annotations by a third party (actor or director), and that Ray just signed it in 1967. (The play was first published in 1962, I believe, so this isn't even an early version of the play.)

As a signed item, it probably has some value, but it won't be as valuable as an actual Bradbury draft manuscript.

(There is a running joke (which I think was started by William F. Nolan) which says that an UNsigned Bradbury item is worth more than a SIGNED one... this is based on Ray's tendency to sign anything and everything. In reality, though, you would probably get some bids for this on eBay.)

Thank you, Phil. You have quite an eye.
I am trying to figure out if my cousin, Pandora, acted in this one. The part that is highlighted is a minor female role. Her memory isn't the greatest.