[Manuscript, working notes for:] 'Shrimpton-in-Space' [Lucky Star.]

Bookseller Notes

A working notebook for his novel 'Lucky Star', published by Hutchinson in 1929, and subsequently the basis for the 1935 film 'Once in a New Moon'. His note to the manuscript title-page states that it was begun on 3rd September 1928. The notebook begins with a synopsis, summarising the novel thus: a 'strange convulsion of nature' has caused 'Shrimpton-on-Sea', an 'Essex village', to become 'detached from the Earth through the attraction of a dead star'. A short list of alternative titles ('Drake's Luck', 'The Moon's Little Sister', 'Out of Bounds', 'Milky Ways', et al.) does not include that eventually used. A blurb is also provided by the author, calling the work a 'riotous extravaganza', before proceeding to a series of character outlines and then some notes on the historical and scientific bases for the work (his hero, Harold Drake is, we gather, so called to evoke Sir Francis Drake). The section of chapter outlines at the rear is rather sketchier in nature.An interesting insight into Rutter's working process.