The Key to the Cellar (A Play in Three Acts) [Two Typescripts with Correspondence]

[Denver], 1933. Two carbon copy typescripts, 86 and 90 leaves, recto only. Includes correspondence between Roelofs and Edwin T. Bowden in the form of a typed letter, signed from Roelofs and carbon copies of two letters from Bowden. Earlier typescript stitched together with black shoelace, and later script fastened with brads. Earlier draft with pencil corrections, deletions, and additions. Later draft with Roelofs' signature and address on front in ink and date of January, 1933 in another hand, and a single ink correction in the text. Both scripts toned with minor foxing, some scattered staining, chips and tears, mainly to the earlier copy, where the title page is also detached. Very good.

The Key to the Cellar, an unpublished play by Peter De Vries cowritten with his roommate at a tuberculosis sanatorium, represents some of the earliest known writing of the author.  These scripts, as explained in the letters, were sent by Roelofs to De Vries' bibliographer and literary scholar at the University of Texas, Edwin T. Bowden (1924-2006) in 1965.  Roelofs explains:"


"In this play it would be difficult to say what Peter DeVries wrote and what portions of it I wrote, with one exception.  There are some lengthy explanations of the psychological thinking of the criminal involved.  These were written almost verbatim by Peter DeVries.  The plot and the scenes were written by me.  Other than that, practically every sentence was written by the two of us." 

Roelofs also mentions an earlier play the two wrote, but which is lost at the time of the letter.  In Bowden's response, he encourages Roelofs to continue looking, and thanks him for the opportunity to work with the present manuscript.  He also adds, in relation to his forthcoming bibliography, De Vries was not published until the following year, 1934, when he first appeared in print in The Calithump, published in Austin.  

An important set of materials showcasing the early workings De Vries, who would go on to become quite an influential comic novelist, whom Kingsley Amis called "the funniest serious writer to be found either side of the Atlantic."
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