NAG - ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPH EUGENE MARAIS MANUSCRIPT

Original autograph manuscript of this most famous Afrikaans author’s last play “Nag. ‘n Drama in Vier Bedrywe”. Written in Marais’ hand on 162 unlined small 4to. pages on a thick, cloth bound “exercise book”, mainly on one side of each page. There are in addition a further 13 handwritten pages of notes at the end of the book, with a large number of blank pages in the middle. The manuscript has editorial corrections throughout in green ink and many corrections and deletions by Marais himself. The title of the play has been rubber stamped on a preliminary page and beneath this is Marais’ autograph signature. A few of the pages at the end of the volume have some burns of the lower edges, probably caused by a cigarette. These may be indicative of Marais’ state of mind at this late stage of his life, not long before his death by suicide. (See image).

A loose note in the book probably written by the publisher indicates that this book was found after Marais’s death amongst his unpublished writings. It was published by Van Schaik in 1937 (the year after Marais’ death) as a “spiritual bequest” by the author. The play takes place during the Boer War. It is thus not only an important item of literary Africana, but also a Boer War item. Marais, probably best known for "The Soul of The White Ant", is arguably South Africa's best known writer in Afrikaans and his manuscripts are exceedingly scarce and are almost certainly (apart from this one), all in institutional libraries. This work is discussed at length (7pp) in the scarce book "Eugene N. Marais - Sy Bydrae Tot die Afrikaanse Letterkunde" by Francois G. Marais Du Toit (1940).