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The R. H. Winnick Collection of Archibald MacLeish consists of materials related to
the research and writing of a MacLeish biography, a project that Winnick handed
off
to another scholar before its completion, and Letters of
Archibald MacLeish, 1907-1982 (1983), published within a year of the
poet's death. The great majority of the collection, consisting primarily of
correspondence, is related to the former work. The collection is arranged in two
series: Series I. Correspondence, 1976-2008 and Series II. Research Materials.
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The correspondence series consists of 54 letters from MacLeish to Winnick, all but
two handwritten, along with Winnick's carbon and photocopied replies. Additional
handwritten MacLeish letters are interspersed with those sent in response to
inquiries from Winnick. Also present, and the bulk of Series I., is correspondence
between Winnick and friends, family, and colleagues of MacLeish, mostly related
to
requests for copies of letters and/or interviews. Some of the notable correspondents
include James Dickey, Elizabeth Dos Passos, Lillian Hellman, George Plimpton,
Arthur
Schlesinger, Barbara Tuchman, Robert Penn Warren, and Edward Weeks, as well as
short
replies from Robert Bly, John Kenneth Galbraith, John Updike, and Eudora Welty,
among others. |
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Series II. Research Materials contains a spiral-bound notebook with Winnick's
preliminary work regarding the MacLeish biography, including reading notes, a
list of
dates on which MacLeish was written about in the New York
Times, a fourteen page summary of Winnick's first meeting with MacLeish,
and a seventeen page summary of a second meeting a few months later. Five typed
transcriptions of interviews of MacLeish with Winnick, loose research notes, and
a
list on note cards of MacLeish books purchased by Winnick make up the rest of
the
series. |
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All of the correspondence and the research materials remain grouped as they arrived
at the Ransom Center, and original file names, when present, are denoted by
quotation marks. Within the files, the correspondence has been ordered
chronologically or alphabetically if it arrived at the Center unarranged. |
