The Black Dahlia

• Handwritten manuscript, 1985
• Uncorrected page proofs, 1987
• Published first edition, 1987

This crime fiction novel is based on a true crime case, the 1947 Los Angeles murder of a woman named Elizabeth Short. This shockingly brutal murder of a mysterious and glamorous woman received wide media attention and the criminal investigation ultimately led to a broad police corruption scandal. While rooted in the facts of the Short case and featuring many real-life people, places, and events, Ellroy’s novel blends fact with fiction. The most notable deviation from the historical case is the identification of the murderer; in reality, this case remains unsolved. Many critics consider The Black Dahlia to be the book that gained Ellroy critical attention as a writer of serious literature.

The author’s holograph manuscript is seen here, along with a proof copy for the book and the first printing of the first edition of the published novel. The term holograph simply means that the manuscript was entirely handwritten by a single person, in this case, the author, James Ellroy. It allows us to see his  process at a final stage with corrections and instructions written in red ink before it was sent to the typist or typesetter. While many writers in the mid-1980s were using the various early word processing programs that were becoming more widely available at the time, Ellroy appears to have preferred to stick with handwriting for this novel.