"With Your Wings" Steinbeck Story of a Black Pilot
Typescript, carbon copy, of "With Your Wings", a WARTIME STORY about a decorated black pilot returning home. Accompanied by a Typed Letter presenting the piece to BURGESS MEREDITH, for a possible reading and broadcast.
N.p. [New York?]: n.d. [1943-1944].
Price: $5,000.00
About the item
Typescript, 3pp. numbered [1]-3, on rectos of 3 leaves of duplicated radioplay typescript (struck through), approximately 600 words. Typed Letter, one page. 1 vols. 10-14/ x 7-1/2 inches. "With Your Wings" Steinbeck Story of a Black Pilot. Slightly age-darkened, but very good overall.
Item #29593
Evocative Steinbeck story (or "mood piece") imagining a decorated black pilot returning to his hometown, cheered by his neighbors, and welcomed by his father in the house he grew up in, with the remark: "Son - every black man in the world is going to fly with your wings."
In his cover letter to his friend Burgess Meredith, who served in the Air Force during the war, he writes:
"DEAR BUZZY:
A different version of the following was done for overseas broadcast to the troops by O.W.I.* This is a different version. I don't know whether you would like to use it or not. It has an odd length. I might be a good idea to use it in some one of your shows. If you want it, you are quite welcome to it. It was written against a background of music (imagined music, I mean). Should you desire to use it, I think the story itself will suggest the music. Let me suggest however, that the music be soft, sustained, and all of one piece, and that it do not attempt to be directly descriptive of the piece, but rather of the spirit of the piece. I would suggest that you yourself read it, using the beautiful technique you used in "The Forgotten Village" ... the soft reading that seems not to be reading at all. This is pure mood, and would have to be delivered like soft music. Anyway, there it is, and you're welcome to it - if you want it."
*Office of War Information, for which Steinbeck worked during the WW II.
UNPUBLISHED until 2014, when the revived Strand Magazine published a version based upon a different typescript from the Steinbeck papers at HRC); a unique draft or variant copy of this moving war-time sketch.
From the Estate of BURGESS MEREDITH.
