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The collection consists consists of typed and holograph correspondence
and postcards, including enclosures such as photographs, a clipping, an
exhibition catalog, a menu, a pamphlet, and drawings, 1924-1966 (bulk,
1938-1964). The material is arranged alphabetically by correspondent. The few
carbon copies of outgoing correspondence are interfiled chronologically with
the incoming correspondence of each recipient. |
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The correspondence is primarily from professional associates and
friends. There are several congratulatory notes upon Covici's move to the
Viking Press in 1938. Other topics touched on include the publishing industry;
the Covici-Friede publishing firm; writers, such as Richard Aldington, Saul
Bellow, M. F. K. Fisher, Radclyffe Hall, Victor Hugo, Arthur Miller, Iris
Murdoch, Frederic Prokosch, Elmer Rice, John Steinbeck, Lionel Trilling, Mark
Van Doren, Rebecca West, and their work; living in Italy; astrophysics; the
physiology of the brain; Florida; and bourbon with branch water. Among the
significant correspondents are Charles Beard, Marshall Best, Joseph Campbell,
Monroe Engel, Donald Friede, George Gamow, Horace Gregory, Ben and Rose Hecht,
B. W. Huebsch, Waldemar Kaempffert, Edwin Herbert Lewis, Marvin Lowenthal,
Arthur Miller, Edita Morris, Jack Spivak, Adlai Stevenson, Diana and Lionel
Trilling, and Roland Young. There is one folder of miscellaneous material,
including a discharge notice and a certification of jury service, a carbon copy
typescript of Eliezer Greenberg's poem,
"In Memoriam--Isaac Rosenfeld (1918-1956),"
translated from the Yiddish by Henry Gilfond, and a photograph of Stephen
Crane. |
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Of special interest are the individual folders of correspondence from
Ludwig Bemelmans, M. F. K. Fisher, and Gene Fowler. The Bemelmans material
includes photographs of Bemelmans and his family; plans for a children's book,
including sketches by Bemelmans; the catalog from the Bemelmans exhibition at
Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1957; a letter from Gabriele Henkel, Bemelmans's wife,
typed on the verso of a holograph Bemelmans letter; two letters written on the
versos of the galleys for the German translation of
Are You Hungry, Are You Cold; an undated
letter in which Bemelmans amusingly recounts the various difficulties he has
faced in his career; and, finally, frank discussion of the cancer, which was to
end his life. In addition, many of the letters include drawings by Bemelmans.
Topics touched on among the M. F. K. Fisher material include her husband Donald
Friede, his mental health problems, and their subsequent divorce; her children;
writing for magazines; her return to Aixen-Provence; rumors of a sexual liaison
with Marietta Voorhees; the death of her father, Rex Kennedy; the assassination
of John F. Kennedy; and her decision to teach English in Piney Woods,
Mississippi, in order to combat racism. Materials include photographs of Fisher
and her family and a printed menu with commentary by Fisher for a banquet of
the California Knights Templar. Among the Fowler materials are a typescript
review of
Finnegan's Wake;"The Cowboy's Lament," a typescript poem by
Fowler; photographs of Fowler; and a memorial pamphlet,
"Gene Fowler, 1890-1960: Recollections by His Friends
on the Occasion of His Last Book 'Skyline,'" published by the Viking
Press in 1960. Topics covered in the correspondence include the Hollywood
studio system;
"Alexander-the-Great Woolcott"; surgery's
effect on Fowler's sex life; Hitler and Mussolini; Fowler's testimony in the
National Labor Relations Board hearings concerning the Screen Writers' Guild;
the adaptation of literature for the screen; Ben Hecht; the reporter Harold
Denny; John Barrymore; the Soviet Union; Fowler's conversion to Catholicism;
Covici's daughter's polio; and, finally, Jimmy Durante. |
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Most of the materials from the Covici Collection were separated at an
earlier date and catalogued into individual author collections. Consult the
card catalog for Covici materials in the following collections: Richard
Aldington, W. H. Auden, Saul Bellow,
Contempo, Walter de la Mare, Albert
Einstein, William Goyen, Ludwig Lewisohn, Arthur Miller, Marianne Moore, Thomas
Sturge Moore, Ezra Pound, Frederic Prokosch, Carl Sandburg, John Steinbeck, and
Booth Tarkington. |
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