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The very few documents in the archives relating to Charlie Chaplin’s early life and career survive thanks to his brother Sydney, who kept everything. Not only his own contracts with Karno, but Charlie’s too. An exercise book containing Charlie’s notes, with “Charles Chaplin Handwritings as a boy” written on the front by his brother for posterity. The part of Archibald in the Wow Wows, its cover carefully inscribed by Syd as “played by Sydney and Charles Chaplin”. Particularly interesting are the two letters to Sydney in 1913 and 1914 from which we learn so much about what Charlie was thinking and his plans for their future. Sydney kept all these documents in a trunk which his widow Gypsy gave to Oona Chaplin when he died. The only document kept by Charlie himself is the small Karno press clipping album.
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