The Dog Ate My Manuscript

 

In 1936, John Steinbeck was deep into a new novel.

 

He was already a successful author, but the book he was working on mattered. What would eventually become Of Mice and Men was taking shape slowly, line by line.

 

Then Steinbeck came home one night to what he later called a “minor tragedy.”

 

His Irish Setter puppy, Toby, had shredded the manuscript.

 

“Made confetti of about half of my manuscript,” Steinbeck wrote. Two months of work were gone. There was no carbon copy. No second draft. The pages were simply destroyed.

 

Steinbeck was furious. When he got over it, he rewrote the book from the beginning.

 

The loss didn’t end the novel. It delayed it—maybe made it better. When Of Mice and Men was published the following year, it became one of the most enduring works of American literature.

 

Toby’s edits didn’t survive. The story did.