Mrs. Willows' Dinner Party : autograph manuscript draft and typescript (carbon)

circa 1958-circa 1973

Truman Capote (1924-1984) was a celebrated American author whose major works include Other Voices, Other Rooms; Breakfast at Tiffany's; and In Cold Blood. "Mrs. Willows' Dinner Party," a short story written by Truman Capote, is based on the 1955 accidental shooting death of New York banker William Woodward Jr. by his wife Ann Woodward, under questionable circumstances. As early as 1958 Capote listed persons whose stories would figure in his novel Answered Prayers, the first being Ann Woodward. In 1973 Ladies Home Journal commissioned a two-part series of popular "blind items," brief, thinly-veiled stories from real life. The first set was published in January 1974, but a second set, including the story of "Mrs. Willows' Dinner Party," was rejected. Capote reworked some of the rejected material into "La Côte Basque, 1965," the tale of a gossipy lunch at the well-known New York City restaurant. It incorporates important elements of the Willows story, using the surname Hopkins. "La Côte Basque, 1965" appeared in the November 1975 issue of Esquire magazine as an installment of Capote's novel Answered Prayers. It was republished as "La Côte Basque" in Answered Prayers: the Unfinished Novel (1987), joining two other Esquire installments from 1976. The collection (2 folders in one box), dated circa 1958-circa 1973, comprises an incomplete and untitled autograph manuscript draft (19 pages) of "Mrs. Willows' Dinner Party," a short story written by Truman Capote with his revisions, and a titled carbon copy typescript (9 pages) reflecting the revisions, with additional sentences completing the text. The draft is written in pen or pencil on two varieties of ruled legal-sized paper (19 pages on rectos only, numbered 2, 3, 5-21). The typescript (pages 1-9) contains text not found in the draft: the first three introductory sentences (page 1), and a paragraph (page 2), filling the narrative gap between manuscript pages 3 and 5. "Mrs. Willows' Dinner Party" recounts the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Mrs. Willows' son Peter B. Willows by his wife Mary Willows, depicted as a case of murder. Although the items are not dated, the fully-developed story can be traced to Capote's writings for the 1973 commission from Ladies' Home Journal, if not to an earlier time.