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Manuscripts and correspondence make up the bulk of the Elizabeth Bowen
Collection, 1923-1975, and reflect Bowen's literary career. The material is
organized into four series: I. Works, 1926-1975 (9.5 boxes), II.
Correspondence, 1923-1969 (2 boxes), III. Financial and Legal Papers, 1927-1947
(1 box), and IV. Miscellaneous, 1951-1967 (.5 box). Within each series the
material is arranged alphabetically by title or author. This collection was
previously accessible only through a card catalog, but has been re-cataloged as
part of a retrospective conversion project. |
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The Works Series consists of holograph drafts, typescripts, galley
proofs, notes, and fragments of novels, stories, articles, essays, radio
broadcasts, lectures, reviews, and translations. The Center has manuscript
holdings for the majority of Bowen's novels, including
Eva Trout (1968),
Friends and Relations (1931),
The Heat of the Day (1948),
The Hotel (1927),
The House in Paris (1935),
The Last September (1929),
The Little Girls (1963),
To the North (1932), and
A World of Love (1955). Collections of short
stories include
Ann Lee's and Other Stories (1926), and
Joining Charles and Other Stories (1929); in
addition, there are manuscripts for numerous short stories which were published
separately in various periodicals; and for unfinished and unpublished works.
Manuscripts for her nonfiction works include
English Novelists (1942),
The Shelbourne (1951), and
A Time in Rome (1960). Autobiographical
works include
Bowen's Court (1942),
Pictures and Conversations (1975), published
posthumously, and
Seven Winters (1962). The radio broadcasts
were mainly for the BBC on a variety of topics ranging from literary figures,
books, and places, to plays she adapted from her stories for radio. |
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The Correspondence Series consists principally of letters regarding
Bowen's literary work. Outgoing letters occupy two folders and were written
chiefly to her literary agents at Curtis Brown; to various publications such as
Blarney Magazine, Contact Publications, the
Cork Examiner, and
Everybody's; and to the Golden Cockerel
Press; also to literary friends Joe Ackerley, Daniel George, Glyn Jones, and
Grover Smith. Correspondence from Bowen can also be found with incoming
correspondence as she had the habit of responding on the verso of incoming
letters. |
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Incoming letters are more numerous and include an extensive
correspondence from her literary agents at Curtis Brown; letters from the above
mentioned publications, as well as others; and letters from publishers Eyre
& Spottiswoode; Longmans, Green, and Co.; and Sidgwick and Jackson Ltd.
Among the literary figures represented by correspondence are C. M. Bowra, Agatha
Christie, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Cyril Connolly, A. E. Coppard, Cecil Day-Lewis,
T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Rosamund Lehmann, Rose Macaulay, Ottoline Morrell,
John Middleton Murry, Sean O'Faolain, William Plomer, Edward Charles
Sackville-West, William Sansom, Eleanor Sarton, Stephen Spender, Elizabeth
Taylor, Hugh Walpole, Evelyn Waugh, Veronica Wedgwood, H. G. Wells, Eudora
Welty, Edmund Wilson, and Virginia Woolf. |
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Series III, Financial and Legal Papers, includes royalty statements, tax
records, and lists of memoranda of agreement with various publishing companies
for publishing rights to Bowen's works. The small Miscellaneous Series contains
two typescripts of works by Eudora Welty,
"The Bride of the Innisfallen" and
"The Wand." |
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Elsewhere in the Center are eight Vertical File folders which contain
newspaper and periodical clippings of articles written by and about Bowen,
reviews of her works, and a slim envelope containing items removed from her
books, and two scrapbooks of press clippings. There is one photograph of Bowen
in the Literary File of the Photography Department. Correspondence and
manuscripts relating to the publication of
Elizabeth Bowen: A Bibliography by J'Nan M.
Sellery and William O. Harris are found in the Ransom Center Archives. |