Early Wes Anderson Short Story Unearthed: The Ballad Of Reading Milton

One of the great things about the Criterion Collection is the pieces of writing that often come along with each respective disc.

Whether they be essays or the screenplay of the film in question, there are some pieces of writing that just beg to be tossed into a release.

Well, thanks to the University of Texas’ literary magazine, The Analecta’s official website, we may have a piece of writing to toss into any respective Criterion release of say, Fantastic Mr. Fox.

The website has posted a short story penned by director Wes Anderson, during his undergraduate time spent at UT. While the piece here, entitled The Ballad Of Reading Milton, didn’t win the award it was scribed for (a prose contest), it does more than closely resemble a lot of his stylistic cues, particularly those found in Rushmore. Right down to the character’s first name, Max, the story reads like a lost short film from Anderson’s canon, and who knows, maybe this will one day turn into a short film from the auteur.