Unpublished Manuscripts

Even with his incredible output of published materials, most of Saroyan’s writings have never been published. Stanford University and the Forever Saroyan archives together hold the bulk of these manuscripts and drafts that span his entire career. Many of his stories were written in the process of daily journaling, while others were made with the intent of publishing either in short story collections or magazines. Below is a small sampling of some of his manuscripts, with corrections in his own handwriting. Not one for extensive rewriting, many of these stories began and ended with one draft. In Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961), he writes, “There are at least ten million words of unpublished stuff already on hand here and there, and someday perhaps, a specialist of some kind will run through the stuff, or a little of it, and pick out a few words on the subject of gambling, for instance…in any case, whoever undertakes to mess with my papers has got his work cut out for him.”