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The Molly Malone Cook Collection of Norman Mailer’s consists of Mailer’s correspondence,
manuscripts, notes, legal, business,
and financial records, photographs, newspaper clippings, and audio and video recordings
dating from 1926 to 1999. The
materials are arranged into five series: I. Literary and Other Activities, 1948-1991;
II. Legal and Financial, 1969-1983; III.
Correspondence, 1968-1993; IV. Family and Personal, 1960-1999; and V. Works and
Correspondence by Others, 1926-1985. |
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The materials arrived at the Ransom Center in no apparent order and the current arrangement
was imposed by Center staff.
The contents of the original folder were kept together as filed and the original
titles are used in the container list,
when available. Photocopies of original folders with writing or other information
were added to the corresponding folder’s contents. |
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Series I. Literary and Other Activities, 1948-1991 (1972-1977) contains records from
Mailer’s literary and daily activities dating from
1948 to 1991. The bulk of the series consists of phone logs, notes, and research
materials from the 1970s. Other materials include
manuscripts, a baseball card game created by Mailer, serials, calendars, and address
books. Also present are handwritten and typed
manuscripts for an unrealized novel dating from the 1970s--parts of which appear
in Ancient Evening,
and for chapter 16 of Ancient Evenings, as well as for Mailer’s New York Times Magazine article
“The Search for Carter” (1976). Also present are research materials and notes
for St. George and the Godfather
(1972), “The Search for Carter,”, and The Executioner’s Song (1977). |
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St. George and the Godfather materials include research and correspondence related to Mailer’s coverage of the
democratic and
republican conventions in 1972. Research materials for The Executioner’s Song are comprised of transcriptions of conversations
between Molly Cook and Bessie Gilmore (Gary Gilmore’s mother), notes and questions
from an interview with Bessie, notes from an
interview with Gilmore family friend Grace McGinnis, and correspondence and permissions
to interview Chris Anderson and Tolly Williams.
Along with these materials are manuscripts written by Abby Hoffman (The Making of Abby Hoffman, 1974) and Gregory
Hemmingway (Papa, 1976), for which Mailer wrote introductions, as well as correspondence between Abby Hoffman
and Mailer related to Hoffman’s Chicago Seven trial.
“The Search for Carter” (1976) is documented with a transcription of Mailer’s
interview of presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, and a
handwritten manuscript for the article. Ancient Evenings materials include handwritten and typed drafts. Additionally, the series includes
Mailer’s Baseball Card Game, reviews of his works, correspondence from Mailer
to Cook, and a handwritten draft of a letter to Edward Kennedy. |
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Series II. Legal and Financial, 1963-1983 (1974-1977) included a copy of Mailer’s
will (1972), a Little Brown and Company Contract (1973),
real estate documents, tax documentation, monthly bills, payments and financial
records for Mailer’s wives, receipts from business and
personal transactions, divorce correspondence and deposition from Beverly Mailer,
and financial related correspondence. Included in the
real estate documents are leases for properties rented, title certificate for
a property owned in Maine, and correspondence about repairs
need for Mailer’s boat Merlin. Among the divorce correspondence is Beverly Mailer’s
complaint for divorce and motion for custody of their
children. The deposition is an account by Mailer of his finances and properties
owned. The financial correspondence consists of statements
for services from Mailer’s CPA, Mason and Company, and his cousin Cy Rembar’s
lawfirm, Rembar, Wolf, and Curtis. The series also includes
correspondence from the Scott Meredith Literary Agency communicating information
about royalty statements, income, agreements, and
promissory notes. |
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Series III. Correspondence, 1968-1993, (1977-1980) includes incoming and outgoing
letters between Mailer and his friends, fans, politicians,
and organizations. The bulk of the series consists of general correspondence arranged
by incoming date. Additionally, there are copies of
letters from Mailer, correspondence from publishers requesting Mailer to read
and review works by others, and a substantial amount of mail
from a Mailer fan and devotee, Mirkla Marks. Also present is a transcript of a
conversation between Molly Cook and Milton Esterow pertaining
to an article that was promised to his magazine that was then published in another. |
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Series IV. Family and Personal, 1960-1999, (1970-1980) consists primarily of professional
photographs taken for newspaper articles as well
as photos of events Mailer attended and of his family. Other materials present
include drawings by Mailer, invitations, and newspaper
clippings documenting Mailer’s life and works. |
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Series V. Works and Correspondence by Others, 1926-1985 (1970-1980) includes works
by others that were sent to Mailer to review or that
were about his works. The series also includes a small volume of personal and
business correspondence of Molly Malone Cook and financial
records from the Molly Malone Cook Literary Agency. |
