Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
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Manuscripts
Collection is primarily made up of letters written to Stevens, his carbon copy replies, and autograph manuscripts and poems. Also included is an extensive collection of genealogical material, in form of letters, documents, typescripts, and photographs. Other individuals represented in the collection include: E. E. Cummings, Alfred A. Knopf, Robert McAlmon, Thomas MacGreevy, Archibald MacLeish, Marianne Moore, Jose Rodriguez Feo, and John Orley Allen Tate.
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Manuscripts
Photograph album containing 36 portraits of Stevens Family members including Catharine Stevens, Elizabeth Stevens, Garrett Barcalow Stevens, Sr., John Stevens, Orville Stevens, and Wallace Stevens, primarily as children.
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Manuscripts
This collection contains the papers of American poet Wallace Stevens and is comprised primarily of letters written to Stevens, his carbon copy replies, and autograph manuscripts and poems, as well as family photographs, an extensive collection of genealogical research material on the Stevens and allied families, and some ephemera. The crux of the collection is the correspondence between Stevens and his family, friends, scholars, poets, editors, and business associates (although there are no letters from the files of Stevens' employer, the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company). Much of the correspondence deals with Stevens' poetry, or provides biographical or ideological information about Stevens. In addition to the 58 boxes of correspondence, there is an additional series containing xeroxes of Stevens correspondence and manuscripts held by other institutions. The Stevens family, including Stevens' wife Elsie and their daughter, Holly Bright Stevens, are well represented in the collection, as are Stevens' friends Barbara Church and Henry Hall Church. In addition, there are two boxes of addenda chiefly consisting of documents and photographs related to Stevens' eldest sister Elizabeth (Stevens) McFarland, which were added to the collection in 1977. Other individuals represented in the collection include: E. E. Cummings, Alfred A. Knopf, Robert McAlmon, Thomas MacGreevy, Archibald MacLeish, Marianne Moore, Jose Rodriguez Feo, and John Orley Allen Tate. In addition to photographs and documents produced by Stevens family members, there are also over 2,000 pieces of genealogical material, in the form of letters, documents and typescripts, that reflect Wallace and Elsie Stevens' interest in tracing their family ancestry beginning in the early 1940s. Items in the manuscripts and correspondence series have been fully indexed alphabetically and chronologically on cards in the Manuscript Catalogue in the Library.
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Manuscripts
The manuscripts consist both of works by others about or to Wallace Stevens, and manuscripts of Stevens' poems, essays, and speeches. The manuscripts by others include dedicatory poems to Stevens, essays about Stevens (e.g. by Robert M. Pack and Mary Bernetta Quinn), and adaptations and translations of Stevens' poems (e.g. by Renato Poggioli). This series also includes an academic notebook kept by Stevens' grandfather Benjamin Stevens (born 1808) in 1822 (WAS 3965, loose volume). Notable pieces include: Hermann Hesse, Zwölf Gedichte (12 autograph poems in German, presented by Hesse to Stevens, each with a watercolor drawing). (WAS 223, loose volume) [Hywel David Lewis], On Poetic Truth (an essay first published in Philosophy (July 1946), in Stevens' hand). (WAS 4093, in Box 66) The manuscripts by Stevens are both autograph and typewritten. When Stevens' secretary/stenographer prepared his typescripts, she made 3 copies: an original and 2 carbons. When a carbon copy exists along with the original typescript, it has been catalogued with the original unless it contains annotations or corrections by Stevens. Most of the manuscripts have been published in one of three places: 1) a published work of Stevens, 2) Opus Posthumous, ed. Samuel French Morse, 1957 or 3) Robert Buttel, Wallace Stevens: The Making of Harmonium, 1967. When assigning dates to manuscripts, evidence given by Morse, Buttel, J.M. Edelstein, Wallace Stevens: A Descriptive Bibliography, 1973, and the correspondence have all been weighed. Notable pieces include: Adagia: 2 notebooks of aphorisms. 33p. [1930?-1955]. (WAS 70, in Box 1) A Book of Verses: notebook of 20 early poems. 21p. June 1908. (WAS 24, in Box 2) Esthétique du Mal: early draft. 16p. [1944]. (WAS 4140, in Box 2) The Figure of the Youth as Virile Poet: early draft. 33p. [1943]. (WAS 4143, in Box 66: Oversize) Gloire du Long Disir, Idies: early draft. 23p. [1955]. (WAS 4151, in Box 3) Journals 1898-1899. 1 vol. (WAS 7, in Box 4) 1899-1900. 1 vol. (WAS 8, in Box 4) 1902-1904. 1 vol. (WAS 9, in Box 4) 1905-1912. 1 vol. (WAS 10, in Box 4) The Little June Book: notebook of 20 early poems. 21p. June 5, 1909. (WAS 25, in Box 6) Poetic Exercises of 1948: 2 commonplace notebooks. 4p. [1948]. (WAS 72, in Box 6) The typescript for Selected Poems, a book submitted to Alfred A. Knopf Inc. but never published. 200p. [1950]. (WAS 2997, in Box 7) Sur Plusieurs Beaux Sujects: 2 commonplace notebooks. 44p. 1932-1953. (WAS 73, in Box 8)
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Manuscripts
This box contains a photostat copy of an 1806 letter, a clipping, a brief note by Wallace Stevens, a 1901 Bible, and 27 photographs.
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Manuscripts
Materials chiefly related to Wallace Stevens' eldest sister, Elizabeth (Stevens) McFarland, and the Stevens family, including photographs, vital records, and some printed items that were donated by McFarland's daughter, Jane M. Wilson, in 1977.
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