Call Number:

C0805

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

24 boxes

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

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

Date:

1949-1976 (inclusive) and 1951-1971 (bulk)

Creator:

Holmes, Theodore, 1928-1971

Form:

Correspondence -- 20th century, Fiction -- 20th century., and Poems -- 20th century.

Abstract:

Consists primarily of published and unpublished poetry manuscripts, as well as correspondence with various publishers, of American poet Theodore Holmes (Princeton Class of 1951).

Poet Theodore Holmes (Princeton Class of 1951) was an undergraduate biology major who later switched to literature and poetry as his avocation and occupation. He published his first book of poetry, The Harvest and the Scythe, in 1957, subsequently becoming the Kenyon Review fellow in poetry for 1958. He spent several summers at Yaddo, an artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., during the early 1960s. Holmes lectured at Harvard, 1960-1963, received a Fulbright Fellowship to Oxford, 1963-1964, where he met and married Barbara Whitehead, then returned to the States in 1964, teaching in Maine and New York before finally settling in Falcarragh, County Donegal, Ireland, where he died in 1971.

The collection consists of the papers of Holmes. Included are autograph and typed manuscripts of poems published in Holmes' books of poetry, The Harvest and the Scythe (1957), Ship on the Beach (1964), An Upland Pasture (1966), and Poems from Donegal (published posthumously, 1973). Also present are manuscripts for three unpublished novels, The Prostitute, The Other World, and The Lost Treasure; a volume of poetry, Once Over Lightly; and many manuscripts for published and unpublished poetry, short stories, critical essays, reviews, and translations of the works of Rilke, Homer, Montale, and Ungaretti. There is a selected group of correspondence of Holmes with various publishers, letters to the Irish Times, Carlos Baker, John Addison (also of the Class of 1951), Vanderbilt University, and Holmes' wife and family. There is also family correspondence after Holmes' death concerning the publication of his works.