Lost Robert Hunter Manuscript Detailing ‘The Birth Of The Grateful Dead’ Set For Publication

Fans of the Grateful Dead and late lyricist Robert Hunter are in for a treat with a new publication, The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead—The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter (preorder). The manuscript is set to arrive on October 8 via Hachette Books.

The Silver Snarling Trumpet will follow the deluxe edition release of Hunter’s 1974 debut solo album, Tales Of The Great Rum Runners. Penned by Hunter in the early 1960s, the manuscript was left unpublished in his attic until now.

“For decades, passionate fans of the Grateful Dead have discussed the existence of a ‘lost manuscript’ — a sort of holy grail — the novelistic origin story of the band,” as per a press release, which continued:

Fans will experience the early days of Hunter, Jerry Garcia, and their cohorts, following them into the stacks at Kepler’s Books, to rent instruments at Swain’s House of Music, and through the countryside on road trips. Readers will witness impromptu jams, inspired intellectual pranks, and dialogue that is, by turns, amusing and brilliant and outrageous. The Silver Snarling Trumpet illustrates how Hunter’s psychedelic expression and wordplay became the soul of the Dead.

The Silver Snarling Trumpet boasts a foreword by John Mayer, an introduction by former Grateful Dead publicist Dennis McNally and an afterword by Hunter’s close friend Brigid Meier. Preorder The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead — The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter.