A new, fully illustrated picture book by Maurice Sendak has been discovered among the late author and illustrator’s files, according to Publishers Weekly, and will be published late next year. Sendak’s former assistant and current president of the Maurice Sendak Foundation, Lynn Caponera, reportedly found the manuscript, titled Presto and Zesto in Limboland, while sorting through papers in Sendak’s home in Connecticut. Sendak, who was best known for writing and illustrating books such as Where the Wild Things Are, died in 2012.
Presto and Zesto in Limboland is a collaboration between Sendak and longtime friend Arthur Yorinks, with whom he worked on Mommy? and The Miami Giant, as well as co-founded the Night Kitchen Theater. The text is based on a series of illustrations Sendak had drawn in 1990 for a London Symphony Orchestra performance of Rikadla, illustrations which then sat in a drawer for seven years before Yorinks and Sendak wrote their accompanying text, according to Yorinks. The manuscript was then forgotten about again for decades before its rediscovery. The title is an inside joke that references the two men’s nicknames for each other, Presto and Zesto.
Michael di Capua, Sendak’s editor and publisher, called the discovery of the manuscript “a small miracle.” He and HarperCollins will publish Presto and Zesto in Limboland in fall 2018.
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