Earl Jay Perel Archive--Banker Box Full of Mostly Unpublished Manuscripts

Item Details

Earl Jay Perel Archive--Banker Box Full of Mostly Unpublished Manuscripts

Overall, collection in very good condition.  Likely to have been in storage subsequent to the passing of Perel. Some binding covers are detached. The pages of some of the older material is toned. 

Archive of the late Earl Jay Perel. Perel was a teacher who retired and came to California in 1990. He served in the Marines, who spent his later years writing, mostly poetry and drama. His biographical entry appears on page 555 of Volume II in The Cervantes Encyclopedia by Howard Mancing. Several of his works were published in book form as noted below. His writing also received recognition in contests such as World Order of narrative and Formalist Poets and the Northern Michigan University Albert Panowski Playwriting Contest. He attracted the interest of the BBC, although production timing never seemed right. Earl Jay Perel has been published in The Lyric, The Formalist, Parnassus Literary Journal, The Pegasus Review, The Iconoclast and other journals including "Police Manipulations" in The Villager, September 16, 1976.

Perel's Published Books:

Sequestered soliloquies: Sonnets celebrating the fourth centennial of Shakespeare's sonnets, 1993

Kings in Crisis, 1997

Romantic Odyssey: A Quixotic Poet's Random Memoirs, 1998

The Case Against Socrates, 1998

Human Oh So Human: Shades of Pope and Horace, 2000

Some of the archive has not been previously published separately and includes some early drafts. The archives include:

1. Primavera, 508 page typed manuscript novel.

2. The Flip Side, 100 pages of poetry, September 1999; with The Flip Side-an unbound preliminary draft, 82 pages. Also, miscellaneous poems with numerous holograph corrections being pages 7-42 of The Flip Side. Includes "Anne Hathaway Shakespeare".

3. Alfred-Rex Anglorum, 109-page manuscript play about Alfred, King of England, which, although well received by the BBC, was not produced by them.

4. Oedipus Informed, 55-page manuscript play that also came close to production

5. Echoing Shakespeare, 132-page spiral bound manuscript, copyright 1993 (2 copies). One copy has red and green marks in ink at the beginning of each entry. The half title reads "A bedside book-calendar of sonnets to commemorate and celebrate the 400th anniversary and the 40th decaversary of the writing of Shakespeare's sonnets in the 1590's."

This may be a very early draft of Romantic Odyssey. It has the same format one sonnet for each day of the year, the dedication to his godson is very similar and some of the sonnets are the same.

This may also be an early draft of Sequestered soliloquies which consisted of sonnets celebrating the fourth centennial of Shakespeare's sonnets and was published in 1993.

6. King Crean, 60-page spiral bound play which was a semi-finalist in the Albert Panowski Playwriting Contest, 1994 (3 copies); with an early draft of 52 pages titled Crean.

7. The Boat People, unbound copy of a 78-page play, 1980.

8. The Ebonics Lesson, 28-page spiral bound short story (2 copies).

9. Intermission, unpaginated spiral bound short story with holograph corrections and a 32-page draft of same.

10. A Marriage of Muses: Mating Verbal and Visual Arts, 91-page manuscript of poetry, with some color illustrations.

11. The Welcome Regicide, manuscript play, spiral bound, 1996. (2 copies)

12. Classic Forms: East and Wes t, "acco" bound manuscript containing: "Responding Rubaiyit", "Sonnets Haiku" and "Heroic Couplets" together with "The Legend of Saint Lucy, Patroness of Syracuse-a 9-page poem.

13. Vox Populi-Vox Dei, 52-page draft play, "acco"bound, whose characters are Angtus, Lycon, Meletus & Socrates, together with "Fideli Ad Urnam", a 62-page draft play featuring Plato & Socrates, "In Aqua Scribus in Arena Aedifucus, a 42-page draft play and "Consummation Est" also featuring Plato & Socrates

14. A 63-page early draft of "Fideli Ad Urnam", a 41-page draft of "In Aqua Scribus-In Arena Aedificus" and "Consummation Est" a 35-page early draft.

15. Drafts of several essays, including: "On Rethinking Supreme Court Appointments" (11/17/91) 22 pages; "Family Likenesses" 11 pages; "Dual Methods for Creating a Human Environment" 22 pages + 6 pages of notes; Name Rank and Serial Number, 24 pages with some corrections; Individuals of One Dimension, 11 pages.

16. Galley proofs for Romantic Odyssey, 415 pages in box sent by Xlibris to Perel postmarked February 27, 1998. [Xlibris is a self-publisher.]

17. Crisis in Contemporary Poetry: Getting Published--essay submitted to "The Atlantic", August 7, 1999

Scattered institutions hold Perel's published books. We find no record of his papers being held.  

Perel apparently was a student of Shakespeare with several works honoring the bard.

This has been a bittersweet experience examining a writer's life-long catalog of work, mostly unpublished. Thousands of pages of dreams and toil only to never be recognized. I cannot vouch for the quality of work but only hope someone recognizes that the work should be preserved. 

Extra shipping required due to weight.