1889 [bulk 1918 - 1953] - 1965
38 Boxes
| Scope &
Content
Letters by Rawlings To Norton Baskin: 1938-1943 1944 1945-1948 1949-1953 To Others: A-L M-Y Letters to Rawlings and Other Letters From Norton Baskin: 1938-1944 1945-1953 vs.Baskin Back to: |
Scope and Content: The Marjorie
Kinnan Rawlings correspondence contains approximately 4100 letters, almost
1400 of which were written by her and almost 2300 to her. Other letters
relate to her in some way. The earliest concentration of letters
(1918-1923) occurs during her courtship and early years of marriage with
Charles A. Rawlings, Jr. After a hiatus of several years, extensive correspondence
resumes in the nineteen thirties, after she had moved to Cross Creek, Florida,
and continues to her death in 1953. There is a particularly heavy concentration
of letters during the war years 1943-1944, especially with her second husband
Norton Baskin, who was overseas.
Approximately 900 letters are to Baskin. Two hundred and thirty are from her editor at Scribner's, Maxwell Perkins. Other major recipients of letters are her aunt Ida Tarrant (95), Norman Berg (60 photostats), Clifford and Gladys Lyons (59), Berniece and Walter Gilkyson (49), first husband Charles A. Rawlings (40), college friend Bee McNeill (24), and author/photographer Carl Van Vechten (16). Principal writers of letters to Rawlings are Perkins, Baskin, Charles Rawlings, her Phoenix aunts, Grace, Marjorie, and Wilmer Kinnan, brother Arthur Kinnan, and friends Julia Scribner Bigham, James Branch Cabell, and Gene Baro. Major names in the correspondence, although in lesser numbers, include A. J. Cronnin, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ellen Glasgow, Ernest Hemingway and two of his wives, Martha Gellhorn and Mary Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Margaret Mitchell, Sigrid Undset, and Owen D. Young. The letters represent a wide range of personal and literary topics that illumine many aspects of Rawlings' life and career. The Perkins letters are especially relevant to her writing as the letters to her husbands are to many aspects of her personal life. There are many letters relating to the Cross Creek Trial (Cason vs. Baskin) that are separately identified in the guide. Most of the correspondence is autograph or typed originals. A few are typed copies and there are some (notably letters to Norman Berg and letters from the University of Florida Archives) photocopies.
Arrangement: The Rawlings letters are filed chronologically in thirty-two boxes, with the following exceptions: Box 31: "Miscellaneous Correspondence" contains letters copied from the University of Florida and from the Rollins College archives and a folder of correspondence from the files of Dwye Evans, an agent, relating to the British edition of The Sojourner. Box 32: Letters of condolence sent to Norton Baskin upon the death of Marjorie. The condolence letters and cards are not included in the count of Rawlings letters, nor are they listed in the accompanying description. Boxes 33-38: The "May accession," a group of letters, primarily with Norton Baskin, that was acquired in 2001. It may be interfiled with other letters at a later date. The letters are listed and described in two main parts: Letters by Marjorie Rawlings, and Letters to Her and Other Letters. The order of listing is author, recipient, and date. Each letter is usually described as to author, whether typed or autograph, recipient, date, place of writing, pagination, and a short abstract. Letters with a month, but no day are usually placed before dated letters. Letters with a year, but no month are placed at the end of the year. Letters with no dates are placed last. Dates, indicated by square brackets, i.e. [1940] have been supplied for many letters which lack them. Many of these dates are quite accurate, often coming from an accompanying envelope, or can easily be inferred from the contents of the letter. Others are estimates, or even guesses, usually indicated by ca. or ?. A chronological listing as well as listings by accession is available
in the Department of Special Collections.
Provenance: The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings correspondence is a collection gathered over a period of time from various sources. The nucleus was donated by Rawlings during her lifetime, along with some of her principal manuscripts, to found the Libraries Creative Writing collection. Other correspondence from her estate was donated later by her husband, Norton Baskin. In addition Rawlings's literary executor, Julia Scribner Bigham, her biographer, Gordon Bigelow, and members of the library staff attempted to collect letters from her correspondents and made other efforts to procure additional Rawlings correspondence. In 1998, the libraries acquired almost 500 letters from Marjorie to Norton from his grandniece Judith Oliver. Additional Baskin-Rawlings correspondence was acquired in 2001 from Phil May, Jr., a close friend of Norton Baskin.
Other Letters: In addition to the General Correspondence there are Rawlings letters in several other manuscripts series, both in and out of the Rawlings Papers, i.e. Brandt and Brandt Papers, Ellen Glasgow Papers Collected by Rawlings, Cason vs. Baskin Papers (aka Phil May Papers), and the Edith Pope Papers. The originals of Rawlings' letters to Norman Berg are in his papers at the University of Georgia Library.
Publications: Some Rawlings correspondence has been published in the Selected Letters of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, edited by Gordon E. Bigelow and Laura V. Monti (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1983). Letters to James Branch Cabell, held by Virginia Commonwealth University, are printed in "Selected Letters of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to James Branch and Margaret Freeman Cabell," ed. Jacqueline J. Wilken (thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1993). Max and Marjorie, collected correspondence between Perkins and Rawlings, edited by Rodger L. Tarr, was published by the University Press of Florida in 1999. A volume of her letters to Norton Baskin, The Private Marjorie: The Love Letters of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to Norton S. Baskin, edited by Rodger L. Tarr, was published by the University Press of Florida in 2004.
Microfilm: Some of this correspondence
has been microfilmed. The Smathers Libraries also has microfilm copies
of the Perkins correspondence from the Scribner company archives
at Princeton University and the Norman Berg correspondence from the Berg
Papers at the University of Georgia.
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