Thirty Early Truman Capote Stories Discovered

A Swiss publisher was searching for chapters of Truman Capote’s unfinished final novel last summer when he stumbled upon a different find. While poring over Capote’s writings and papers at the New York Public Library, the publisher, Peter Haag, discovered a collection of previously unpublished short stories and poems from Capote’s youth.

Truman Capote
Portofino, Italy
Leonida Barezzi/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images        

Four of the stories, believed to have been written from 1935 to 1943, appear in German translations in the German publication ZEITmagazin. Those stories will be seen in German more than a year ahead of the scheduled release of the full collection, a dozen poems and roughly 20 stories, by Random House in English and by Kein & Aber in German.

Editor David Ebershoff says:

By the time Capote was writing these early stories, his voice was already formed. Reading the manuscripts — with his corrections and edits — is fascinating. You can literally see a young genius at work. I don’t use that word lightly, but these early stories show that Capote’s talent and way of experiencing the world was with him from a very young age


Even in translation, Capote’s style is immediately recognizable in the short stories, under the titles “Miss Belle Rankin,” “This Here Is From Jamie,” “Saturday Night” and “The Horror in the Swamp,” laced with his incisive attention to detail and themes of longing for love and acceptance, and the transience of life.

Capote, who died in 1984, at 59, is believed to have written these works between the time he was 11 and 19, although not all are dated.

100 Great Kids' Books from the Past 100 Years

Authors Judy Blume and Eric Carle were on hand to celebrate New York City Public Library's list of 100 great kids'books.  

The list includes picture books for preschoolers as well as books for older readers like "The Hobbit" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."  Others included in the list are:

"The Cat in the Hat," "Pippi Longstocking" and "Where the Wild Things Are."  The exhibit on children's literature at the library's main building in midtown Manhattan.  Blume and Carle joined librarians for a reading and panel discussion.

"Viewed over time, children's books are the collected memory of our hopes and dreams," said moderator Leonard Marcus, a book critic and the curator of the exhibit. "They are the message in a bottle that each generation tosses out to the next generation in the hope that it may wash ashore and be read and be taken to heart."

Blume, whose "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" is on the list, said that when she was in the fourth grade herself she always had stories in her head.  Of that, she said:

But I never told anybody about them because I thought if I did they would think I was weird.

Since Blume began publishing in the 1970s, many of her books dealing with subjects like racism, divorce and sexuality have been banned by authorities who considered the topics inappropriate for children.
  
Books that are loved by children are often the books that scare adults.

Carle made the library's list with "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," his 1969 picture book about a voracious bug that becomes a butterfly. He said he created the caterpillar by folding and manipulating paper; he first thought of the character as a bookworm, Willie the Worm.

And I had this wonderful editor and she didn't like the worm so much.

Carle read his brand-new book, "Friends," about a boy who swims across a river and climbs a mountain in search of his friend.