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The papers of novelist and biographer Diane Johnson include drafts and
production material for eleven of her twelve books, as well as drafts of
screenplays, television scripts, book reviews, articles, essays, unpublished
manuscripts, correspondence, personal papers, interviews, reviews of her works,
and screenplays adapted from her works. The collection ranges from early
childhood diaries through the publication of her most recent novel. The papers
are organized into five series: I. Works, II. Correspondence, III. Personal
Papers, IV. Information about DJ, and V. Works of Others. |
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The largest series, Works, is arranged in six subseries: A. Books; B.
Screenplays; C. Adaptations, Teleplays, and Musicals; D. Reviews; E. Other
Writings, and F. Unpublished Manuscripts. The alphabetical arrangement of books
in Subseries A includes Johnson's two biographies,
Lesser Lives, a biography of Mary Ellen
Peacock, wife of George Meredith, which received a National Book Award
nomination in 1973, and
Dashiell Hammett: A Life, nominated for the
Los Angeles Times book prize in 1984.
Extensive research material, as well as correspondence with Lillian Hellman and
production photographs, is included with the Hammett material. Johnson's eight
novels are well represented, spanning more than thirty years, from her earliest
Fair Game (1965) to
Le Divorce (1997). Included is
Persian Nights, nominated for the Pulitzer
Prize in 1987 and
Lying Low, which received a 1979 National
Book Award nomination. Also present is her non-fiction work,
Natural Opium, a collection of travel
essays. Included in the Works series are handwritten and typescript drafts,
proofs, galleys, publicity material, and editorial correspondence. Johnson's
collected essays,
Terrorists and Novelists, nominated for the
1983 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction, is represented solely by reviews in
Series III. |
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Of the screenplays in Subseries B,
"The Shining," produced in 1980 with Stanley
Kubrick, stands as Johnson's universally recognized work. Although some of her
other screenplays were optioned, none except
"The Shining" has been produced. Two of her
screenplays are drawn from her novels,
"The Shadow Knows" and
"Two Lives," based on the lives of Dashiell
Hammett and Lillian Hellman. The screenplay material includes drafts of
scripts, research material, and correspondence. |
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The adaptations, teleplays, and musicals in Subseries C include the PBS
production
"An Apple, an Orange" selected for Doubleday's
1973 edition of the
O. Henry Prize Stories, Johnson's brief
sojourn in script writing in 1968 for the television series
"My Three Sons," the musical play
"Colette's The
Vagabond," and an adaptation of John Fowles's novel
Daniel Martin. |
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Nearly all of Johnson's book reviews, from 1972 to 1996, are present in
draft and published form, arranged in order by the author of the book reviewed
in Subseries D. Johnson reviewed books on a wide range of topics from Patty
Hearst and Angela Davis to John Ruskin and Julia Margaret Cameron, from AIDS to
Victorian morality, and works by authors such as Margaret Atwood, Saul Bellow,
Anthony Burgess, Joan Didion, Erica Jong, John LeCarré, Doris Lessing, Mary
McCarthy, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, Isaac Bashevis Singer, John Updike,
Gore Vidal, and Eudora Welty. She has reviewed extensively for the
New York Times, New York Review of Books, San Francisco Chronicle, and
Washington Post. |
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Johnson's other writings in Subseries E include articles, essays,
lectures, conference papers, letters to the editor, and contributions to books
such as the preface to Margaret Gatty's
Parables of Nature and the introduction to
Josephine Herbst's
The Starched Blue Sky of Spain, and Other
Memoirs. |
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Subseries F contains drafts of Johnson's Ph.D. dissertation on the
poetry of George Meredith, as well as correspondence regarding its potential
for publication. It was during the research and writing of the dissertation
that Johnson became acquainted with the life of Mary Ellen Peacock which
subsequently led to the writing of
Lesser Lives. Also present are drafts of her
first novel
"Runes" and a story
"Rings." |
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Series II contains correspondence from 1951 to 1997 with friends,
family, authors, editors, publishers, agents, fans, colleagues at the
University of California, and students. Incoming and outgoing correspondence is
interfiled. Correspondents of note include editors from A. D. Peters & Co.,
Alfred A. Knopf Inc., The Bodley Head, Harcourt, Brace & World, and the
New York Review of Books, as well as
individuals such as Alice Adams, Jane Annesley. Eve Auchincloss, Helen Brann,
Fred Dupee, Barbara Epstein, John Espey, Jean Gandesbery, David Garnett,
Christopher Isherwood, Jascha Kessler, Stanley Kubrick, Alison Lurie, Mary
McCarthy, Jessica Mitford, Iris Murdock, Joyce Carol Oates, Susan Sontag,
Robert Sward, John Updike, and Dan Wickenden. |
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Series III includes information about Johnson found in articles,
interviews, and reviews of her work. The personal papers in Series IV contain
an childhood composition book as well as six diaries sampling three decades
from 1943 to 1964, from elementary school to university years. Likewise,
coursework from those years are present along with photographs and articles
from her 1953 guest editorship at
Mademoiselle, where she joined company with
Sylvia Plath. Articles and information are included for her 1979 Rosenthal
Foundation Award and Guggenheim fellowship for 1977-1978 as well as her
diplomas from Stephens College, University of Utah, and University of
California at Los Angeles. Also present are biographical data, financial
receipts from 1966- 1993, and publicity and family photographs. |
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The last series contains the work of other writers including adaptations
of
"An Apple, An Orange" and
Persian Nights, as well as articles by
others. |
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Johnson's original order was maintained where discernable, especially
for production material and drafts of works. Her correspondence was unordered
for the most part, so a single alphabetical arrangement was imposed. Material
for her reviews was pulled from several groups of drafts and printed versions,
which were then combined into a single alphabetical arrangement. |
