Call Number:

C0042

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

9 boxes

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Hugh MacNair Kahler Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1900-1964 (inclusive) and 1900-1950 (bulk)

Creator:

Kahler, Hugh MacNair, 1883-1969

Form:

Correspondence -- 20th century and photographs -- 20th century.

Abstract:

Consists of writings, correspondence, documents, photographs, and other miscellanea of the American editor, novelist, and storywriter Hugh MacNair Kahler.

Hugh MacNair Kahler was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 25 February 1883. He was the son of Frederick A. and Margaret Torbert (MacNair) Kahler. In 1904 he graduated from Princeton University. Kahler married Louise Kingsley on 15 October 1907; together they had one daughter, Kingsley.

Kahler wrote The Collector's Whatnot: A Compendium, Manual, and Syllabus of Information and Advice on All Subjects Appertaining to the Collection of Antiques, Both Ancient and Not So Ancient (1923) both under a pseudonym (Murgatroyd Elphinstone) and in collaboration with Booth Tarkington and Kenneth Lewis Roberts, who also used assumed names (Cornelius Obenchain Van Loot and Milton Kilgallen, respectively). Other published works by Kahler include the novels MacIvor's Folly (1925), Father Means Well (1930), Big Pink (1932), and Bright Danger (1941), as well as the short story collections Babel (1921), The East Wind and Other Stories (1923), and Hills Were Higher Then (1931). Two of Kahler's short stories became motion pictures: The Six Best Cellars (1920) and Fools First (1922).

From 1943 to 1960 Kahler was the fiction editor at Ladies' Home Journal. He contributed over a hundred stories to periodicals such as American, Collier's, Country Gentleman, and Saturday Evening Post.

Kahler died on 10 July 1969; he was eighty-six years old.

The collection consists of manuscripts, correspondence, documents, and photographs of Kahler, with some papers of other persons. Included are an extensive range (1904-1931) of Kahler's letters to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. F. A. Kahler, detailing his personal and professional life; photographs of James Boyd, Kenneth Roberts, Booth Tarkington, and others, as well as photographs taken by Kahler of the 1924 Princeton-Harvard football game; and Joseph Hergesheimer's holograph manuscript "The Triumph of George Royer" (1916), which he inscribed to Kahler. Kahler's own writings include the outline, notes, and various incomplete drafts of an unpublished novel, Joy in Heaven, seven typed installments of Life is Like That, typescripts of two short stories and an article on Princeton University football.

An addition to the papers consists of 115 tearsheets of Kahler's short stories and serialized works (1914-1944) removed from such magazines as the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Collier's, and The Country Gentlemen. Many of the stories are accompanied by explanatory notes by Kahler. Also included are letters by George H. Lorimer of the Saturday Evening Post, William Chenery, Bruce Gould, Booth Tarkington, and others, fan mail, and lists of published stories.

A further addition to the papers consists of 57 letters of Kahler, written while he was an undergraduate at Princeton University to his parents, describing his life as a student at Princeton.

The following standard abbreviation is used to identify materials in this collection: TMsS = typed manuscript signed.