THORNTON WILDER. [“Chefoo, China”. Autograph manuscript, 1967.

Wilder describes life at the China Inland Mission School in Chefoo, where he was a student in 1911. At the back of this unfinished manuscript is an introduction, crossed out by Wilder, which reads: “this book is not an autobiography. Autobiographies are better left to those of a precise and tenacious memory. Mine is a random thing; it retains or expunges in a manner beyond my control.”

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library