“Many scholars would argue that John Updike is one of, if not the, novelist of the late 20^th century,” Morris said. “No one can really write about the American novel without taking Updike into consideration.”

Although portions of the Archive were given to the library during Updike’s lifetime, and have been available for research at Houghton since 1970, they represented only a small fraction of the full collection. For decades, Updike had been depositing his papers, including manuscripts, correspondence, research files, and even golf score cards, in the library, but the material was available only with the author’s permission, and was not integrated with the material the library owned.

Cataloging the newly acquired material so it can be used by scholars is now one of the library’s “highest priorities,” since the Archive will not be available for research until that process is completed, Morris said. However, scholars will still be able to access materials given to the library by Updike before 1970, including early short story manuscripts written for the New Yorker; Telephone Poles, Updike’s early poetry collection; and nearly complete documentation on the creation of the novel that brought him his first taste of fame, Rabbit, Run (1960).

When the cataloging of the Archive is completed, the Updike Archive will offer students and scholars unparalleled insight into the working life of the man hailed as America’s last true man of letters.

Read the full press release here.

Above:  Updike at home.  Image  © Martha Updike, John Updike Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Right: Modern Books and Manuscripts student assistant Taylor Ferracane (left) and Assistant Curator Heather Cole unpack boxes of books from Updike’s collection.

This exhibition is free and open to the public.

Image, above, John Updike as a Harvard senior, 1954   Image, below, Updike (left) with his staff at the Harvard Lampoon, 1954.    Both images © Harvard Yearbook Publications. Images may not be reproduced without permission.

Poet, dramatist, Harvard graduate and Nobel Prize winner T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) began to study Latin while a student at Smith Academy from 1898-1905, and continued to study languages, both modern and ancient, through college.  Eliot probably acquired J.W. Mackail’s Latin Literature while studying at Harvard.  While he made few annotations to the text itself, Eliot also made extensive notes in pencil on several blank pages throughout the book.  Eliot’s bookplate is also pasted inside the front cover (Eliot’s bookplate includes his family’s motto Tace et fac, “be silent and act.”)  Examples of Eliot’s early handwriting are uncommon, and as Eliot made extensive use of his linguistic skills within his poetry, it is always interesting to catch a glimpse into his study of them. (Click on the images to magnify them.)

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was one of the most important figures in the Beat movement of the mid-twentieth century.  Two years after graduation from Columbia University, while working in New York as a market researcher, Ginsberg purchased this 1936 edition of Eliot’s Collected Poems 1909-1935, which he signed “Allen Ginsberg / October 1950″ on the front free endpaper.  Ginsberg’s extensive annotations to The Waste Land document his efforts to work through the poem.

Mackail, Latin Literature. New York: Scribners, 1895.  *2008-1002.

Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1935. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. [1936]  *AC95.G4351.Zz936e.

Houghton Library, Harvard University.  Images may not be reproduced without permission.

McCaffrey, a Radcliffe alum originally from Cambridge, has authored over 90 works.  This collection follows the creation of the novel, originally titled “The Harper of Pern,” to its publication, and includes multiple typescript drafts with McCaffrey’s handwritten corrections, the final draft of the novel, and correspondence with McCaffrey’s editor and agent relating to the publication of the novel.  The collection also includes a first edition of the book (*2008-47).

b *2008M-6.  Purchased with the Amy Lowell Fund. Images may not be reproduced without permission.

Cozzens, who attended Harvard from 1922-1924, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for Guard of Honor, inspired by his experiences during World War II. Cozzens wrote thirteen additional novels and numerous short stories.

The collection includes numerous editions of all of Cozzens’s works, including Guard of Honor and By Love Possessed. Pictured below are four different editions of Guard of Honor. Starting in the upper right corner, and going clockwise, these include: the 1998 Modern Library edition; an advance copy of the 1948 first American edition; a 1952 Permabooks paperback (priced at 35 cents!); and the 1949 first British edition of the novel. (Click on the image twice to enlarge it.)

Cozzens Papers, *2007M-69. Individual books will be in HOLLIS shortly. Purchased with funds from the Amy Lowell Trust. Image may not be reproduced without permission.

Two recent acquisitions give Mailer a continuing presence at Harvard, and testify to his concern with literary technique, and his efforts to continually improve his own writing and that of others: the papers of Richard G. Hannum, and those of Carole Mallory.

Richard Hannum collaborated with Mailer on the 1986 off-Broadway play Strawhead, about Marilyn Monroe, based on Mailer’s Of Women and Their Elegance (1980). Mailer had had a huge success with his 1973 biography of Monroe, Marilyn: A Novel Biography, in which he stated that she was murdered by agents of the FBI and CIA who resented her supposed affair with Robert F. Kennedy. Hannum’s papers include his correspondence with Mailer, and drafts and final script for Strawhead. Pictured below is a page from Hannum and Mailer’s script for Strawhead, with Mailer’s handwritten notes (click on the image to enlarge it):

(Image © Richard G. Hannum and The Norman Mailer Estate.)

Carole Mallory began her career as a model, then turned actress, playing a Stepford wife along with Paula Prentiss, Katherine Ross, and Tina Louise in 1975. She met Norman Mailer in 1982, and he helped her to begin a career as a writer and journalist. She published a novel, Flash (1987) described by Gloria Steinem as “fast, smart, irresistible to read.” Her interviews—of Gore Vidal and Mailer; Mikhail Baryshnikov; and Warren Beatty, among others, appeared in Esquire, Elle, G.Q., Cosmopolitan, and others. The collection consists primarily of material relating to Norman Mailer, including correspondence, Mallory’s unpublished novel, heavily edited by Mailer, along with his edits to her interviews of him; transcripts and printed interviews of other notables; publishing contracts; and printed material. Pictured below is a page from an interview of Mailer conducted by Mallory in mid-1980s, with Mailer’s handwritten corrections (click to enlarge):

Both collections add to the wealth of material available for research and teaching about the writer’s craft: how writers develop their style and substance, often, as in these cases, through layers of revision. Mailer, in particular, thought of his writing as “a job. . .you have to work at it every day” and both of these collections testify that it was a job he took seriously, as evidenced in this selection, also from the Carole Mallory papers:

*b 2007M-59 and *2007M-63. © Carole Mallory, Richard Hannum, and the Norman Mailer Estate. Images may not be reproduced or quoted from without permission.