Printer-Friendly

RESEARCH HELP > HUMANITIES AND AREA STUDIES > AMERICAN LITERARY STUDIES

American Literary Studies

Special Collections: Twentieth-Century Fiction and Drama Since 1945

• William Abrahams (1919-1998)
  Educated at Harvard, William Abrahams was a poet and novelist before becoming one of the most distinguished literary editors on the American publishing scene during the last decades of the twentieth century. Among the many renowned writers whose work he guided into print were Lillian Hellman, Joyce Carol Oates, Diane Johnson, Brian Moore, and Pauline Kael. Abrahams was also an influential force in fostering the short story in America, editing the annual O.Henry award volumes for more than thirty years. The William Abrahams Papers include extensive materials on the scores of books that he edited under his own imprint, for such publishing houses as the Atlantic Monthly Press, Holt Rhinehart and Winston, and Dutton. In addition to the working drafts, typescripts, research notes, and correspondence of the writers Abrahams edited, his papers also contain the research notes and correspondence related to the books Abrahams co-authored with his collaborator, Stanford history professor Peter Stansky.
• Dorothy Dodds Baker (1907-1968) and Howard Baker (1905-1990)
  Published and unpublished manuscripts of poetry, plays, fiction and essays by both authors as well as extensive correspondence with other writers, friends, and family. Howard Baker, a Stanford graduate and co-editor with Yvor Winters of the magazine Gyroscope, was a novelist, poet, and literary scholar; Dorothy Baker published several highly regarded novels and also wrote plays. Their friends included Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, and Robert Penn Warren as well as Yvor Winters and Janet Lewis.
• Noel Behn (1928-1998)
  Personal papers, including manuscripts, correspondence, personal notebooks and research materials. Noel Behn, a Stanford graduate, was a novelist, screenwriter, theatrical producer, and actor. Active in the New York theater community for more than 50 years, he was the producing director of the Cherry Lane Theater, a pioneer of the off Broadway theater movement.
• Harriet Doerr (1910- )
  Personal papers, manuscripts, and reviews, 1978-1993. Doerr is the author of the novels Stones for Ibarra (1984) and Consider This, Senora (1993) as well as the short story collection Under and Aztec Sun (1990).
• Edward Dahlberg Papers
  The collection contains correspondence, typescripts, photographs, periodicals, clippings, and ephemera. Included in the collection are typescripts for The Olive of Minerva; or, The Comedy of a Cuckold, (1976) and typescripts for the Crowell anthology, Bottom Dogs; From Flushing to Calvary; Those who Perish: and Hitherto Unpublished and Uncollected Works (1976). Other materials in the collection include unpublished typescript portions of The Carnal Myth (1968), The Confessions of Edward Dahlberg (1971), and extensive notes for miscellaneous works.
• Barry Gifford ( 1946 - )
  Personal papers into 1997, including manuscripts, correspondence, personal notebooks and research materials. Gifford is a poet, author of Coyote Tantras (1973), novelist, author of Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula (1984), biographer, author of Jack's Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac (1978), essayist, author of The Devil Thumbs a Ride and Other Unforgettable Films (1988), and screenwriter, author of Lost Highway (1997).
• Hannah Green (1927-1996)
  Personal papers through 1996, including manuscripts, notes, correspondence, photographs, notebooks, Green was the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Dead of the House (1973), a close friend of the writer, Tillie Olsen, and a fellow in Stanford's Creative Writing Program.
• Lewis H. Heniford Collection (1928- )
  A collection of 1,172 small-cast one-act plays dating from 1892 to 1992 that was assembled by Heniford while he was writing 1/2/3/4 For the Show.
• Fanny Howe (1940- )
  Personal papers through 1996, including manuscripts and notebooks, correspondence, and family papers. Howe is the author of the short story collection Forty Whacks (1969), the novel In the Middle of Nowhere (1984), and the collection of poetry Alsace-Lorraine (1982).
• David Hwang (1957- )
  Manuscripts from 1985-1992. Hwang is the author of numerous plays, including FOB (1980) and M. Butterfly (1988).
• Janet Lewis (1899-1998)
  Personal papers through 1989, including manuscripts and correspondence. A poet, novelist, short story writer, librettist, and teacher. Lewis is the author of the widely praised historical novels The Wife of Martin Guerre (1941), The Trial of Søren Qvist (1947), and The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron (1959).
• Tillie Olsen (1912-2007)
  Personal papers through 1985, including manuscripts, correspondence, and family papers. Olsen is author of the short story collection Tell Me a Riddle (1961), the novel Yonnondio, From the Thirties (1974), and Silences (1978), a classic of feminist criticism.
• Toby Olson (1937- )
  This collection contains original manuscripts of all his published and some of his unpublished works in poetry, fiction, opera, and criticism; correspondence to Olson from fellow writers; and all his published books.
• Charlotte Painter (1926- )
  Personal papers from 1955-1992, including manuscripts and research notes for her books Who Made the Lamb (1965), Confessions from the Malaga Madhouse (1971) and Seeing Things (1976).
• Irving Rosenthal Papers
  The papers document Irving Rosenthal's life from his childhood onwards, containing outgoing correspondence, doctoral dissertation materials, manuscript materials, and detailed documentation of his own novel, Sheeper. There are materials relating to his editorship of The Chicago Review and Big Table, his trip to Cuba in 1961, and his life in Tangier from 1962-1964. Also included are manuscripts by, and correspondence with, William Burroughs, Edward Dahlberg, Herbert Huncke, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Smith. Other significant figures featured in the collection include Paul Bowles, Paul Carroll, Gregory Corso, Elsa Dorfman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, George Harris III, Jack Kerouac, Eila Kokkinen, Robert LaVigne, Phillip Lamantia, Edward Marshall, Michael McClure, Peter Orlovsky, Ed Sanders, Philip Whalen, and John Wieners.
• Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006 )
  Personal papers, including manuscripts and research notes for his books and poetry, as well as teaching materials and correspondence. Novelist, poet, and critic, Gilbert Sorrentino is also a former Stanford University professor. He is one of the leading American novelists of the second half of the century, best known for his radical experiments in post-narrative form.
• Wallace Stegner (1909-1993)
  Manuscripts, research notes, and correspondence related to several of Stegner's books, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Angle of Repose (1971) and his nonfiction books Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (1954), about John Wesley Powell's exploration of the West, and The Gathering of Zion (1964), a study of the Mormon migration to Utah. Novelist, short-story writer, historian, and environmentalist, Stegner founded Stanford's Creative Writing Program in 1947 and led it until his retirement in 1971. Correspondence and manuscripts related to Stegner's administration of the Creative Writing Program are also present.

Last modified: March 30, 2009