Add MS 73246

G. K. CHESTERTON PAPERS. VOL. LXI (ff. 100). Papers relating to 'The Club of queer trades' and its origins; circa 1894-1905. Mostly autograph. 'The Club of queer trades' began as a series of short, self-contained, stories under the general title 'The human club', which with additions and deletions to the list of titles - for most stories were never written - became 'The man with two legs', and subsequently 'The Club of queer trades', sometimes referred to as 'The seven trades of a prophet'. The central character is Eric Peterson, later Petersen, and the process is discussed in the notes accompanying selected texts from the series published in C.W., vol. 14, pp. 437-438, 670-692, 769-802. Other drafts and fair copies in, or extracted from, notebooks, are to be found in Add. 73323 A, 73329 C, 73330 A, 73331 A, 73333 A, 73335 A, C, 73336 F, 73339 C, 73341 A, D, 73344 A, 73345 C, 73346 B, C, E, 73349. First published in Harper's Weekly, vol. 47, no. 2452, vol. 48, no. 2472, 2475-2480 (19 Dec. 1903 - 2 July 1904) and in The Idler, vol. 25, no. 3 - vol. 26., no. 3 (June 1904 - Dec. 1904), and in book form, London: Harper, 1905 (Sullivan, no. 8).

Contents:

1. ff. 1-2v. Untitled draft fragments of 'The human club'.

2. ff. 3-7. Draft synopsis of the prologue and parts 1-3 of 'The man with two legs'. Synopsis of prologue and parts 1-2 published in C.W., vol. 14, pp. 769-771.

3. f. 8. Fragmentary untitled draft of 'The seven epitaphs of Eric Petersen' from 'The man with two legs'.

4. f. 9. Fragmentary untitled draft of 'The burden of Balham' from 'The man with two legs'.

5. ff. 10-11. Fragmentary untitled drafts of 'The eye of the pistol' from 'The man with two legs'.

6. ff. 12-13v. Draft opening of 'The picture of Tuesday' from 'The man with two legs'. 'The picture of Tuesday' was published in revised form in The Quarto, no. 1 (1896), pp. 19-22.

7. ff. 14-15. Draft for cover illustration and contents page for 'The man with two legs'. The former published in The G. K. Chesterton Quarterly, no. 3 (Summer 1997), p. 11.

8. ff. 16-33. Draft untitled openings to, chapter headings for, and fragments from 'The Club of queer trades'. One of the lists of chapter headings is printed in C.W., vol. 14, pp. 793-794.

9. ff. 34-39. Draft opening of 'The terrific adventures of Major Brown' from 'The Club of queer trades'. First published as The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown in Harper's Weekly, vol. 47, no. 2452 (19 Dec. 1903), pp. 2072-2076.

10. ff. 40-43. Two variant draft openings of 'The mystery of three', a projected story for 'The Club of queer trades'. One version is published in C.W., vol. 14, p. 801. For the full story see Add. 73335 A.

11. ff. 44-100v. Extracts from The Idler, vol. 25, no. 3 - vol. 26, no. 3 (June-Dec. 1904) containing the text of 'The Club of queer trades', marked for printer's copy. Printed. For proofs of these stories see Add. 73302.