Rare King Story Manuscript

Autograph Manuscript Draft of The Raft [published in Gallery, 1982]

King, Stephen

Publication: 1981.

Notes: A rare example of a Stephen King manuscript in private hands. This last came on the market nearly 35 years ago, before the Internet, and was one of the highlights of James Strand's Stephen King collection:

Sixteen handwritten pages from Stephen King's early draft of the short story, "The Raft", which was published as an insert in Gallery magazine in 1982 and collected in Skeleton Crew. According to the notes at the end of Skeleton Crew, this story began as "The Float," which King sold to Adam, an adult magazine, in 1969. They paid him, but the story never ran. "Somewhere along the way," King writes in Skeleton Crew, "I lost the original manuscript, too." King continues:

"I got to thinking about the story again in 1981, some thirteen years later. I was in Pittsburgh, where the final Creepshow editing was going on, and I was bored. So I decided to have a go at re-creating that story, and the result was "The Raft." It is the same as the original in terms of event, but I believe it is far more gruesome in its specifics."

This manuscript is part of King's working draft, written while sitting around during the Creepshow editing. That helps explain why it is handwritten on a stenographer's pad. He couldn't very well type during the editing process.

This manuscript consists of two fragments:

1) Five pages (on five sheets of 6-by-9-inch green lined notebook paper), labeled A to E, from an early draft of the story, which was heavily revised later. All pages signed by King in the upper right corner.

2) 11 pages on ten sheets (one written on both sides) of green lined notebook paper. This partial manuscript section follows the published text pretty closely. All pages signed by King in the upper right corner.

it appears this manuscript was donated to the American Repertory Theatre (ART) for a fundraiser; a short description on ART letterhead is enclosed. It was resold in 1993 at the auction of the collection of the bookseller John McLaughlin (Book Sail).

Other than this manuscript of The Raft, I have traced only three other King manuscripts. The McLaughlin sale had one other manuscript, The Napkins, a three-page section of The Eyes of the Dragon. Barry Levin offered a notebook with eleven pages of literary material and twenty pages of math homework (January 1989). Other than that, the only other King manuscript sold at auction appears to be a Composition Notebook from the mid-1980s with a story draft and parts of The Drawing of the Three. It was originally donated to an auction to benefit the family of Weird Tales writer Manly Wade Wellman in 1986; it was resold by RR Auctions in 2025.

Edition + Condition: Fine. All sheets (15) signed by Stephen King. Housed in a custom box by Gray Parrot. Offered with a very good copy of the Gallery pamphlet edition of The Raft.

Provenance: Stephen King; American Repertory Theatre; John McLaughlin of the Book Sail; Pacific Book Auction Galleries to James Strand (1993, $4,675); stolen in August 2023; recovered by the FBI from a storage unit in Oregon City. With the original FBI evidence tag laid in.

Item No: #365465

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