Estate / Collection: The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection of Raymond Chandler

CHANDLER, RAYMOND and PASCAL, JULIAN

The Princess and the Pedlar: An Entirely Original Comic Opera. The original typed manuscript of the libretto, circa 1917, with manuscript title leaf, a typed title leaf, a character list, and the libretto in two acts. The sheets 11 x 8 1/2 inches (28 x 21.5 cm). [6], 1-[32], [1], 1-[29] pp. Creases, chips and short tears to page edges, minor staining, a few corrections or spots within but generally clean. Offered with a photocopy of the manuscript of the score.

A scarce, early Chandler effort and collaboration, unknown to biographers until a decade ago. It was previously erroneously believed that Raymond Chandler did not attempt to write between his arrival in America in 1912 and 1933 following his career in business at the Dabny Oil Syndicate. Landing in Los Angeles in 1913, Ray's mother Florence came to live with him, and the mother and son were welcomed into the home of the wealthy arts patrons Warren and Caroline Lloyd. On Friday nights, the Lloyds would host a salon for their artistically minded friends (a group known as "The Optimists"), and one Friday the pianist Julian Pascal, his wife Pearl Eugenie who went by 'Cissy,' and Julian's son from a previous marriage, Gordon, who was a few years younger than Ray, were invited. Throughout 1915 and 1916, Ray and Florence moved house several times around Los Angeles, but the Pascals, Lloyds, and Chandlers continued to spend much time together. In the first half of 1917, Ray, and Julian Pascal collaborated on the writing of a comic opera - Ray provided the libretto and Julian the score. It is a substantial two-act work of fantasy set in a royal palace and regards a princess who must be married by midnight to avoid being turned into an apple, her suitor, the peddler, and the various fairyland obstacles that block the path to their union. The work was never produced. In August of 1917, Julian Pascal had the foresight to deposit a copy in the Library of Congress in order to secure American copyright.

Slowly, World War I crept toward Southern California, and Ray, then 29, and young Gordon Pascal ventured to Victoria and enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Raymond Chandler would fight in France until the Armistice when he returned to Los Angeles. The relationship between Raymond Chandler and Cissy Pascal likely had its roots in the heady period before the war when the 'Optimists' were meeting and Ray and Julian collaborated on The Princess and the Pedlar but this appears undocumented; we do know that Cissy filed for divorce from Julian in 1920 and upon the death of Florence Chandler in 1924, Ray and Cissy were married.

Until the discovery in 2014 of the file copy of The Princess and the Pedlar in the Library of Congress, this early Chandler collaboration was unknown to everyone in the world except one person - Sybil Davis, daughter of Jean Vounder-Davis, who had been given the present copy of the libretto from Ray as a child in the late 1950s. A copy of the Library of Congress' score is offered with the lot. Efforts have been made over the past decade to stage the opera which to this point has not been performed.

For an article discussing the 2014 discovery of the copyright copy of the libretto in the Library of Congress, see: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/02/raymond-chandler-libretto-library-congress