Archive Of Original Manuscripts, Typescripts, And Handwritten Notes For 'Wild Bill And His Era'.

WILLIAM ELSEY CONNELLEY

Publication: Private Archive, Circa 1924-1930, Topeka, Kansas

Includes: 1). 44 pages of Handwritten Notes for this book, (in ink, and most on paper 5.5" x 8.5"); 2.) 7 Original Letters to Connelley concerning Wild Bill (4 typed, 3 handwritten, together 13 pages) plus 2 carbons of typed responses by Connelly, and boldly signed by Connelley---two of the letters are from A. D. McCandless, the son of Dave McCandless, famous for the Rock Creek incident; 3.) Approximately 181 pages of typed chapter drafts and notes for the book, many with handwritten corrections and additions, some quite extensive. As he has stated in the book, William E. Connelley spent 42 years gathering material for the book, WILD BILL AND HIS ERA. As Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, he had access to a rich store of information about Hickok, and he personally interviewed many who knew Wild Bill. In publishing his book, he hoped "to give an authoritative history of 'Wild Bill' Hickok." Connelley died in July, 1930, leaving an extensive, unpublished manuscript. His daughter, Mrs. Edith Connelley Clift, had assisted him with the manuscript, and was compelled to finish it and have it published. She wrote the last few chapters, and ultimately left much of her father's notes and manuscript unpublished. As she said in the Editor's Note for the book, "Much that is valuable has been removed, and much that was left has been condensed." As his daughter stated, much that her father had prepared in his manuscript went unpublished, including much interesting and important information. Of this archive, some of this manuscript is exactly as was printed in the book, and much shows an evolution of changes reflected in multiple copies of the same, yet each showing a succession of changes. Of the typescript portion, much went unpublished, and are noted with handwritten notation of it being "Discarded", showing chapter from which it was discarded. A search of bookseller's catalog and auction records shows that one other typed copy of this manuscript has been offered before---by the Eberstadts in catalogue 134:54 in the 1950's, and purchased by Coe for Yale University, describing the work; "The original, complete author's typed manuscript of the only definitive life of Wild Bill. The work is largely unpublished, although some of the material was used in the noted historian's much-abridged book WILD BILL AND HIS ERA, 1933." This manuscript, now in Yale, was a typed carbon copy without any manuscript notations or corrections. Our archive is in very good condition, and protected in a two-inch 3-ring binder. Connelley's extensive handwritten notes and notations lend great value and a special uniqueness to this archive!