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Ashley Brown collection of Caroline Gordon
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Caroline Ferguson Gordon was an American teacher, literary critic and novelist. Born on October 6, 1895, she grew up on a farm in Kentucky. Gordon graduated from Bethany College in West Virginia, in 1916 and began her career working as a writer for the Chattanooga Reporter until 1924. In 1925 she married Allen Tate, a poet and literary critic associated with the Southern Agrarian literary movement. Together they pursued their careers in writing, forging close bonds with other writers such as Robert Lowell, Hart Crane, Flannery O'Connor and Katherine Anne Porter. In 1931, Caroline published her first novel, Penhally, and in 1934 released her most popular work Aleck Maury, Sportsman. "Old Red," her best known story, published in Scribner's Magazine, was awarded a second-place O. Henry Award in 1934. She also received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1932. Her relationship with Tate grew volatile, and they divorced, remarried, and finally divorced permanently in 1959. Caroline continued to move around the country throughout her life, living at various times in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Washington state. In 1978 she moved to San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico, to be with her daughter and died there on April 11, 1981.
The collection contains six manuscripts (1959-1972) by Gordon in typescript form with autograph corrections: "The Dragon's Teeth" (incomplete), "Horarium" (a daily plan), a book review of Katherine Anne Porter and the Art of Rejection by William L. Nance, "A Narrow Heart, the Portrait of a Woman" (incomplete), a lecture given at the University of Michigan, and a poem about Robert Fitzgerald entitled "To a Survivor of a Southern Literary Festival, A Tribute in the Form of an Admonition." There are also 77 letters (1956-1980) by Gordon to Ashley Brown, one letter (1957) by Malcolm Cowley to Gordon, and one letter (1963) by Allen Tate to Gordon.
Purchased from Ashley Brown on July 5, 1984 (AM85-3).
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Folder Inventory added by Hilde Creager (2015) in 2012.
Folder Inventory added by Hilde Creager (2015) in 2012.
No materials were separated during 2012 processing.
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Subject
- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Date
- 2008
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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Collection Inventory
Typescript with corrections and Note of explanation regarding story, 21 pp.
Physical Description1 folder
Daily plan for the day by C. Gordon, 1 pp. with envelope.
Physical Description1 folder
Book review by C. Gordon, published in abridged form for Harper's Magazine, 7 pp.
Physical Description1 folder
Typescript w. corrections of first chapters of C. Gordon's unfinished novel, with a homage to Ford Madox Ford.
Physical Description1 folder
Typescript with corrections of a partial version of Caroline Gordon's Avery Hopgood lecture, at the University of Michigan, April 5, 1972, 17 pp.
Physical Description1 folder
10 T.Ls.S. to Ashley Brown from Caroline Gordon, Princeton N.J. 1 T.L.S. to Caroline Gordon FROM Malcolm [Cowley], July 25, 1957.
Physical Description1 folder
3 T.Ls.S. to Ashley Brown.
Physical Description1 folder
16 T.Ls.S. to Ashley Brown.
Physical Description1 folder
17 T.Ls.S. to Ashley Brown, 1 A.L.S. to Caroline Gordon from Allen Tate March 15 1963, attached Caroline Gordon to Tate March 18 1963.
Physical Description1 folder
8 T.Ls.S. to Ashley Brown.
Physical Description1 folder
14 T.Ls.S. to Ashley Brown, with xerox attached of typescript of poem by C.G. about Robert Fitzgerald: To a Survivor of a Southern Literary Festival: tribute in the form of an Admonition, 3 pp. (attached to letter dated May 4, 1966, 3pp.).
Physical Description1 folder
8 T.Ls.S. to Ashley Brown and 1 A.L.S., Dec. 6, 1979.
Physical Description1 folder