Call Number:

C1318

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

7 boxes

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Selected Papers of J. Howard Woolmer, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1931-2009 (inclusive)

Creator:

Woolmer, J. Howard

Form:

Correspondence -- 20th century

Abstract:

Consists of files of American antiquarian book dealer J. Howard Woolmer's correspondence with various poets and writers and author photographs.

J. Howard Woolmer was born in Montreal in 1929. He began his professional antiquarian bookselling career in New York, developing a special interest in small presses and American writers of the post-World War II era and, later, in Irish poets and novelists. In the course of putting together a number of significant author collections, he has published several important bibliographies and catalogues, including Malcolm Lowry: A Bibliography (Revere, Pa.: Woolmer/Brotherson, 1983), A Checklist of the Hogarth Press, 1917-1946 ( Revere, Pa.: Woolmer/Brotherson, 1986), and The Poetry Bookshop, 1912-1935, A Bibliography (Revere, Pa.: Woolmer/Brotherson, 1988). He has been the guiding force in creating a number of modern literature collections at the Princeton University Library with Princeton alumnus Leonard L. Milberg, Class of 1953. For much of his life, Woolmer's home and place of business was in Revere, Pennsylvania.

The collection consists of files of Woolmer's correspondence with various poets and writers, such as Conrad Aiken, Edward Albee, Hortense Calisher, Alfred Corn, Guy Davenport, Athol Fugard, Seamus Heaney, Charles Simic, Reed Whittemore, and Richard Wilbur, and includes related author photographs, clippings, and several publications. Much of the material deals with Woolmer's solicitation and sale of the authors' personal papers. The collection includes a copy of the first catalogue (1931) of publications from the Ulysses Bookshop (London) and a lot of material dealing with the Warwick Press (Easthampton, Massachusetts).

Files are intellectually arranged by author or press name, followed by a group of author photographs.