Leonard, Elmore. THE ORIGINAL RIBBON TYPESCRIPT

heavily corrected in ink, of "La Brava," the author's 1984 Edgar Award-winning novel. 378 pages of sentence-by-sentence insertions, deletions, and emendations on just about every page. Accompanied by yet another typescript constituting 115 pages of further revisions that probe the steps taken to shape the narrative into the modifier-free prose and stripped-down dialogue characteristic of Leonard's critically-lauded books.

Inscribed to Otto Penzler, one of the author's publishers: "This is as original as my original Mss. get without saving several wastebasket loads of yellow balls. It's yours, Dutch. 9-13-83."

A collation of both typescripts with the published book reveals that the corrections were largely incorporated -- a telling documentation that illustrates how the creative instinct can be enhanced by a combination of concentrated thought and plain old elbow grease.

If a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine were to exist in human form, it just might be named Elmore Leonard. Housed in a custom-made clamshell box. Fine. Unbound