ALS, four pages, 5.5 x 7, November 22, 1952. Letter written from his residence at the “Boat House, Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.” In part: “Many apologies for not returning, & commenting on, the rough design & blurb for ‘The Doctor & The Devils’ long before this…I think the rough design is adequate, if not exciting. But the sub-title doesn’t seem what we want at all. I’ve been trying to think of others—such as, A Film Without Pictures—but none was successful. But I don’t think, anyway, the suggested subtitle should stand. What is a film scenario anyway but a story written for films, as the script of a play is a story for the stage. One might as well say, ‘A Story in a Stage Play.’ I may be wrong indeed, & scenario may mean something else. But the subtitle on this jacket does seem to me, at least, awkward & repetitive. Wouldn’t it be possible to have the jacket without any subtitle at all?…I know you want to sell this to readers of fiction, & perhaps readers of thrillers, & that some suggestion, on the jacket, that it is fiction would be a help. But I think myself that if you’re going to try to combine ‘story’ & ‘scenario’ on the jacket you’re going to find it very difficult…Yes, for me, no subtitle on the jacket. The blurb straightaway does say, ‘D & D’ is written in such & such a form, & is ‘a gripping’ story about murder. So much for readers of general fiction & thrillers. I notice that in neither the blurb nor the brief note for the half-title is there any mention of Donald Taylor…shouldn’t it be referred to, even in passing, in the blurb?...What a pity, by the way, the second name for Robert Knox, the name thought of after the ms. was in Dent’s hands, hadn’t been used throughout. Thomas Rock is so much rockier, & nearer the original, than the very lame William Salter. It would make a useful difference, I think, to the whole story if its principal figure had a dynamic kind of name you would believe in & credit him with.” In fine condition, with staple holes to the upper corner of each page.
Thomas wrote a scenario for a feature-length film entitled The Doctor and the Devils, based on the 19th century Scottish murderers Burke and Hare who sold their victims to Dr. Robert Knox as dissection material for his anatomy lectures. It was published in book form by J. M. Dent & Sons in 1953, which did use the revised character name of “Thomas Rock” that he suggests at the end of this letter. The screenplay was never produced until being taken up by Mel Brooks’s company in the 1980s, casting Timothy Dalton in the leading role. An interesting letter revealing Thomas’s involvement in the publication of his works and his creative process as a whole. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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