Steinbeck papers found

A handwritten draft of John Steinbeck’s novel “Sweet Thursday,” along with an unpublished story and other works, will be auctioned by a writer who says they were sitting in a closet for 50 years.

In sorting through the belongings of a deceased friend, Joel Eisenberg found a 188-page manuscript of “Sweet Thursday,” the sequel to Steinbeck’s famous “Cannery Row”; a manuscript from another book, “The Log from the Sea of Cortez”; an unpublished story, “If This Be Treason,” set during the McCarthy era; the unfinished draft of a musical comedy called “The Bear Flag Cafe”; and carbon copies of 13 Steinbeck letters from 1953.

The collection will be auctioned May 24 in San Francisco.