Collections by Subject: American Literary Figures
A Selected List of Holdings in the Archives and Manuscripts Department, University of Maryland Libraries
For more information about how to access materials in this guide, please visit the Maryland Room web page or fill out an information request.
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Authors and Poets,
null.
7.25 linear feet.
Location: Literary Manuscripts
The Authors and Poets Collection also contains material by or relating to Conrad Aiken, Louis Auchincloss, Amiri Baraka, Saul Bellow, James M. Cain, Malcolm Cowley, Hart Crane, Robert Creeley, John Dos Passos, T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Robert Frost, William Goyen, Ernest Hemingway, H. L. Mencken, Marianne Moore, Ogden Nash, the North American Review, Karl Shapiro, Louis Simpson, John Updike, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, Richard Wilbur, William Carlos Williams, and Edmund Wilson.
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Papers of Albert Gross,
1924-1946.
0.75 linear feet.
Location: Literary Manuscripts
Albert H. (Pete) Gross (1895-1948) worked in publishing for more than two decades. His collection consists primarily of correspondence and manuscripts he accumulated during his tenure at Boni and Liveright, Inc.; Horace Liveright, Inc.; A. and S. Lyons, Inc.; and Coward-McCann, Inc. Manuscripts and correspondence relating to Thomas Mann's "Letter to the Civilized World: A Manifest" are particularly notable, as are other manuscripts and galley proofs, such as those for Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time. The collection also contains correspondence from such literary figures as Sholem Asch, Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Atherton, Theodore Dreiser, Robinson Jeffers, and Eugene O'Neill.
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Arthur J. Gutman Collection of Menckeniana,
1906-2000.
6.50 linear feet.
Location: Literary Manuscripts
Arthur J. Gutman was born in 1911. A native Baltimorean, he graduated from Baltimore City College High School in 1928 and then attended the University of Baltimore. From 1979-1999, Mr. Gutman held the position of president of the Mencken Society, an organization founded to encourage the reading of and to pursue research into the writings of Henry L. Mencken. The Arthur J. Gutman collection contains books, clippings, letters, manuscripts, newsletters, pamphlets, and photographs related to both H.L. Mencken and to the Mencken Society. A large portion of the collection consists of first editions of H.L. Mencken's works as well as a number of the most significant secondary works on the writer. The collection contains a considerable amount of correspondence between Gutman and noted Mencken scholars, manuscripts of works on Mencken, and a nearly complete series of Mencken Society newsletters. There are also a number of rare pieces of Mencken's writing that appeared in pamphlet form, as well as some original Mencken correspondence. The entire collection spans the period from 1906-2000 with the majority of the materials falling between 1979-1999.
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Papers of Laura Riding Jackson,
1938-1966.
0.75 linear feet.
Location: Literary Manuscripts
Laura Riding Jackson (1901-1991) was an American poet, critic, and editor. She was closely associated with the Fugitive group, a cluster of American Southern writers centered at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, which included John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. She had a long partnership with Robert Graves; together they co-founded the Seizin Press, published several volumes of poetry, and co-edited the literary journal Epilogue. Jackson is generally acknowledged to have influenced the work of Graves, the New Zealand filmmaker Len Lye, and the writers James Reeves, Norman Cameron, T. S. Matthews, Jacob Bronowski, and W. H. Auden. The collection consists of correspondence between Jackson and Robert Nye, a British author, editor, and playwright, as well as manuscripts, newspaper and magazine clippings, and photographs. Subjects discussed include writers and writings, Martin Seymour-Smith, Robert Graves, and Nye.
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Papers of Ferdinand Reyher,
1894-1972.
17.00 linear feet.
Location: Literary Manuscripts
Ferdinand Reyher (1889?-1967) was a novelist, newspaper correspondent, and playwright. He wrote two books of fiction: The Man, the Tiger and the Snake and I Heard Them Sing. The latter became a movie starring Edward G. Robinson. Reyher also wrote a biography, David Farragut, Sailor. Titles of his plays include "Mignonette," "Boxer," "Quiet Please," and "Castle Israel." He was influential in bringing Bertolt Brecht to the United States and in seeing that Brecht's works were performed here. He was an acquaintance of James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, Sinclair Lewis, Dorothy Pound, and Wallace Stevens. The collection consists of correspondence, typescripts, working notes, clippings, diaries, legal documents, and photographs documenting Reyher's life and literary works. Significant correspondents represented in the collection include Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, Sinclair Lewis, Dorothy Pound, Wallace Stevens, Bertolt Brecht, and his first wife, Rebecca Hourwich Reyher. An addition to the collection--consisting of correspondence, legal documents, work papers, biographical materials, financial records, and art work--is unprocessed, but a preliminary inventory has been prepared.
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Papers of Karl Shapiro,
ca. 1917-1968.
1.00 linear feet.
Location: Literary Manuscripts
Karl Shapiro (1913-2000) was an American poet and literary critic who was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was strongly influenced by the works of W. H. Auden, Walt Whitman, and William Carlos Williams. His work has been recognized with a number of major awards, including the Pulitzer prize for V-Letter and Other Poems in 1945; he later became consultant in poetry at the Library of Congress. He also published a novel, an autobiography, and poetry anthologies. Shapiro taught at many universities, including Johns Hopkins University, University of Nebraska, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, and University of California, Davis. His papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts of poems, and photographs and are mostly from 1941 to 1944.
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Papers of Gertrude Stein,
1927-1938.
0.50 linear feet.
Location: Literary Manuscripts
Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) was an American-born poet, novelist, and playwright who lived for a time in Baltimore, Maryland, but spent most of her life in France and England. The collection consists of correspondence, biographical materials, work papers, and photographs and is mostly in French. Significant figures represented include Georges Hugnet, Georges Maratier, Jacques Stettiner, John Boulton, Bernard Fry, and Pablo Picasso.