Purchases (R2669, R3858, R4187, R4498, R7949, R8141, R8178, R7949, R8575, R8575A, R12006) and gifts (G814, G953, G1055, G1069, G1259, G1573, G1835, G1925), 1965-1990
Open for research
Katherine Mosley and Bob Taylor, 2015
James Otis Purdy was born in Hicksville, Ohio, on 17 July 1914 as the second of three sons of William Purdy and his wife, Vera Cowhick Otis. The family moved to Findlay, Ohio before 1920 and within the next several years James’ parents divorced. Vera Purdy and her sons continued to live in Findlay, where she operated their large residence as a boarding house.
Purdy graduated from high school in the early 1930s, and afterwards attended Bowling Green State College, graduating in 1935 with a BA degree and a teaching certificate in French. After moving to Chicago to further his education he met the painter Gertrude Abercrombie and before long became a member of the group of creative people associated with her.
Building on an early interest in reading and creative writing, Purdy’s Chicago years had introduced him to new cultural experiences in literature and especially jazz music, with its mostly African-American creators and performers. Before World War II, he had begun attempts at creative writing, publishing a single story in 1939, but the war years were largely unproductive for him.
In 1941, Purdy enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he continued to develop his foreign language skills, eventually working as an interpreter and teaching school in Havana, Cuba for a time. Shortly after the end of the war, Purdy secured a position at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he taught Spanish from 1947 to 1956.
It was only in 1946 that Purdy was able to place a story,
In 1956, however,
The positive response to the Gollancz edition was sufficient to convince Purdy to leave teaching and become a full-time writer. He moved to New York City in 1958 and a year later began his long-term residence in the apartment at 236 Henry Street in Brooklyn.
The five years following Purdy’s emergence as a published writer found him productive and enjoying growing critical esteem and commercial success. 1959 saw the appearance of his first full-length novel
Paralleling Purdy’s generally well-received writing was his success in garnering grants to support his work. The National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Guggenheim Foundation awarded him grants in 1958, followed by a Ford Foundation grant in 1961 and another Guggenheim in 1962.
From the appearance of
With the failure in the marketplace of
Continuing general critical and popular indifference to his fiction made James Purdy
seem ever more a
In the early 1980s, Purdy completed the
Purdy continued to write throughout the 1980s and 1990s with little reaction from the critical community or potential readers, but as the twenty-first century began, the literary opinion of Purdy experienced a modest uptick. In 2005, author Jonathan Franzen presented him the Mercantile Library’s Clifton Fadiman Award for
In 1996,
Dahlin, Robert.
Evenson, Brian.
French, Warren, and Donald Pease.
Grimes, William.
Hawtree, Christopher.
Morrow, Bradford.
The James Purdy papers represent the years 1953 through 1984 and include manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, art works, proofs, journals, clippings, and printed material belonging to the American writer James Purdy (1914-2009). The professional and personal papers document Purdy’s evolution as a writer of novels, short stories, poetry, and plays. The papers are organized in four series: I. Works by Purdy, 1955-1984, undated; II. Correspondence, 1953-1984; III. Personal and Career-Related Material, 1958-1984; and IV. Works by Others, 1958-1984. A portion of this collection (boxes 1-25) was previously accessible through a card catalog, but is now described in this finding aid along with materials received in later accessions. During rehousing of the materials, Purdy’s labeled file folders were retained when they contain additional notes in his hand. His file titles are indicated in the finding aid’s container list by single quotation marks.
Series I. Works is comprised primarily of notebooks, drafts, proofs, and other materials related to Purdy’s novels, short stories, plays, and essays. These materials date from 1955 to 1984, and are arranged alphabetically by title. Also included are Purdy’s anonymous hoax letters, artwork, autobiographical statements, blurbs for works by other writers, poetry, satirical sketches of literary critics and figures, and statements or essays on various topics written for publications.
Of particular interest are notebooks containing drafts for Purdy’s plays
Purdy often sent what he called anonymous and anomalous letters to friends and other recipients. These creative pieces included hoax news stories or press releases, satirical advertisements, and letters sent anonymously or purporting to be from someone else. Most of these are located together in the papers as Anonymous/Anomalous Letters, but because Purdy sometimes sent drafts of the letters to confederates in other locations who would then type and mail the letters to the intended recipients, a few are located in his personal correspondence. Among the nicknames given to friends in these mock letters are Adonis Whiteacre (Douglas Turnbaugh), Anthony of London (Anthony Harvey), Babe Helps (Robert Helps), and Baby B (Richard Hundley).
Under the heading of Artwork are drawings by Purdy, including a sketchbook and loose sketches for
Purdy’s poetry is filed together and arranged by title of individual poem or group of poems. Some poems, such as
Among unidentified or untitled works are several statements or essays by Purdy regarding his own work, literary success, George Orwell’s
Series II. Correspondence represents the years 1953 to 1984 and runs to nearly 48 boxes. Most of this material is related directly to Purdy’s career as a writer and represents correspondence with publishers, editors, literary agents, scholars, writers, and fans. While there is little material here of a fundamentally biographical or personal nature, there are letters from friends dating from his years in Chicago and Appleton, Wisconsin, and even some with family or other Ohio ties.
Among the people Purdy knew from his time in Chicago or Appleton who are represented by a significant correspondence are Gertrude Abercrombie, Miriam Andreas, Hastings Brubaker, Jeannette Druce, Norman MacLeish, Jorma Sjoblom, and Samuel Steward. Critics, book people, and literary scholars like Len Berkman, Frank Daniel, Donald Gallup, Gordon Lish, Irving Malin, and Bettina Schwarzschild appear here, as do the writers Stephen D. Adams, Paul Bowles, Gerald Brenan, Paula Fox, and James L. White.
Purdy’s relationships with publishers were often strained and his correspondence presented here with Doubleday,
Copies and drafts of Purdy’s outgoing correspondence for the period 1953 to 1972 are filed as Subseries A. For the years 1972 to 1984 outgoing correspondence is interfiled with the recipient in Subseries B where possible; otherwise they are found in Subseries A. There is also a significant amount of third-party correspondence. Such letters for the years 1953 to 1972 are present as Subseries C. For the years 1972 to 1984 third-party is interfiled with either Subseries A or B if originally found with correspondence filed in those series, but otherwise it will be in Subseries C. Correspondence from throughout the collection is listed in the Index of Correspondents at the end of this finding aid.
Series III. Personal and Career-Related Material is a variegated group comprising autobiographical statements; catalogs and brochures; clippings; daybook and calendar pages; financial material; flyers; printed invitations, advertising cards, and pamphlets; menus; notes and jottings; periodicals; programs and ticket stubs; material related to readings and lectures by Purdy; review clippings and advertisements; small press keepsakes; snapshots; and unused postcards and greeting cards, all dating from 1958 to 1984. Similar items received with early accessions were separated from the papers at that time and transferred to the Center’s Vertical File Collection.
Catalogs and brochures include those relating to art exhibitions, bookseller and manuscript dealers, housewares, and publishers. Among artists represented by exhibition catalogs are Alice Pike Barney, Clarence H. Carter, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Clifford Wright.
Clippings dating from 1969 to 1983 and sent to Purdy by friends and correspondents cover a variety of subjects; of note are a large group regarding artist Clifford Wright.
Financial material consists of contracts, expense notebooks from 1972 to 1976, invoices and receipts, a 1972 lease, and royalty statements from 1958 to 1983. Invoices and receipts range from household bills to charges for purchases from Gotham Book Mart. New York City transit tickets are also present.
The numerous pages of Purdy’s notes and jottings present here include those with names and contact information for various individuals or organizations, as well as lists of plants, grocery lists, quotations, and other subjects. These date from 1969 to 1984 and are arranged by year. In addition, a notebook dating from 1972 to 1974 contains notes on plants, art, and sculpture.
Whole issues of periodicals include
Printed invitations, flyers, advertising cards, and pamphlets date from 1971 to 1984 and are arranged by year. Most of these relate to art exhibitions, readings, performances, and similar events. Those bearing handwritten notes to Purdy have been moved to the correspondence files and are included in the Index of Correspondents.
Programs and ticket stubs document attendance at film screenings; opera and other music performances; and theater and dance productions. Within those categories, arrangement is by year. Of note among film screening programs are those for
Music programs relate to performances Purdy attended as well as those connected to his work. Venues include Carnegie Recital Hall, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, the Kitchen Center, Lincoln Center, the Montauk Club, the 92nd Street Y, the Village Presbyterian Church, and others. Many of the Purdy-related music performances featured his poems set to music by Robert Helps and Richard Hundley; among these are Helps’s music for five poems from
Of note among theater and dance programs are those for the 1979 New York premiere of Tennessee Williams’
Also documented here are plays written by Purdy or adapted by others from his work. Edward Albee directed his adaptation of Purdy’s novel
Readings, lectures, and appearances by Purdy between the years 1971 and 1984 are represented by flyers, press releases, clippings, and programs. Also found here are itineraries from Purdy’s participation in the University of Notre Dame Literary Festival and his international lecture tour sponsored by the International Communication Agency in 1982.
Review clippings of Purdy’s books are arranged alphabetically by title and encompass the years 1964 to 1982. Reviews of stage adaptations of
Keepsakes and printed greeting cards were sent to Purdy by small presses such as Bellevue Press, Cadmus Press, New Directions, Phoenix Bookshop, Plain Wrapper Press, and Red Ozier Press. These printed items include poems by Federico García Lorca, Bradford Morrow, Kenneth Rexroth, and Gil Williams, as well as artwork by Fiske Boyd, Allen Lewis, and Lynd Ward. Copies of
A small number of snapshots of various individuals that were sent to Purdy by friends and correspondents but separated from the correspondence are grouped together by year.
Series IV. Works by Others contains materials created by writers and artists other than Purdy and is divided into two subseries: A. Works about Purdy and His Writing, 1952-1982, and Subseries B. Other Works, 1958-1984. Both subseries are arranged alphabetically by author. Among notable manuscripts on Purdy and his work are those by Stephen Adams, Warren French, Donald Pease, Bettina Schwarzschild, and Joseph Skerrett. A typescript blurb by Paul Bowles for Purdy’s novel
Articles about and interviews with Purdy, as well as bibliographies of his work, are also included in this subseries. Among the interviews are a copy of Jan Siebelink’s
Subseries B. Other Works comprises manuscripts, printed broadsides, tearsheets, offprints, proofs, artwork, and similar material by Purdy’s friends, colleagues, and others. Edward Albee’s stage adaptation of Purdy’s novel
For additional materials related to James Purdy at the Harry Ransom Center, see manuscript holdings for Jane Auer Bowles, Paul Bowles, Gerald Brenan, Ronald Christ, E. E. Cummings, Genesis West, Gotham Book Mart, Peter Owen Ltd., Derek Parker, Edith Sitwell, and Lee Smith.
Other institutions with James Purdy materials include the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Ohio State University, the University of Delaware Library, University of Georgia Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library (including the Frank Daniel Papers), and the University of Rochester.
Copies of Purdy’s published works and other bound volumes were transferred to the Ransom Center Library.
Portraits of Purdy and various people by Carl Van Vechten and other photographers, as well as stills from
Ink drawings by Purdy and paintings by Steven Osterlund dating from 1961 to 1970 were transferred to the Ransom Center’s Art Collection.
A record needle stylus, bird wing, and Star Explorer chart were transferred to the Ransom Center’s Personal Effects Collection.
Various publications, clippings, publicity material, invitations, programs, and other minor printed matter received with early accessions of Purdy manuscripts were transferred to the Ransom Center Vertical Files Collection. However, similar materials from later accessions are cataloged with his papers and described in the Container List of this finding aid.