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Clarence Brown Papers
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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
A scholar of modern Russian literature and translation, Clarence Brown (1929-2015) was a professor of comparative literature at Princeton University. He started at Princeton as an instructor in 1959 and became a professor in 1969, retiring in 1999. Brown first taught courses on Russian language and literature in the Department of Romance Languages and then in the Program in Slavic Languages and Literatures, which became a formal department in 1967. In 1971, he joined the Department of Comparative Literature.
Brown was most known for his scholarship on the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam (Mandelʹshtam) (1891-1938), which was facilitated by the relationship he formed with Mandelstam's widow and fellow writer, Nadezhda Mandelstam (Mandelʹshtam) (1899-1980), who was invested in preserving her husband's work. The Prose of Osip Mandelstam (1965) was nominated for a National Book Award. Brown's 1973 book Mandelstam earned him the Christian Gauss Award in Literary Criticism. Mandelstam's papers, entrusted by Nadezhda to Brown in 1976, were donated to the Princeton University Library.
Brown earned his bachelor's degree in classics at Duke University in 1950. After graduation, he was drafted and served four years in the Army Security Agency, including a year of intensive training in Russian at the Army Language School in Monterey, California, after which he was sent to Berlin as a German translator. He earned a master's degree in linguistics in 1955 from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and his Ph.D. in Russian Literature from Harvard University in 1962.
A lifelong cartoonist, Brown's work appeared in several publications, including Saturday Review, where he was cartoon editor from 1977 to 1984.
This collection consists primarily of correspondence along with some travel diaries, photographs, and teaching materials of comparative literature professor Clarence Brown (1929-2015). Much of the content, with the exception of correspondence with Guy Davenport, relates to the principal subject of Brown's scholarship, Russian poet Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (1891-1938), as well as Mandelstam's wife, Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980). This includes documentation about Brown's collaborative publication, Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems (1974); Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoir Hope Against Hope (1970); and Osip Mandelstam's personal papers, which Nadezhda donated to Princeton University Library in 1976; among other topics. Correspondents who are well represented include writer and illustrator, Guy Davenport (1927-2005); poet W. S. Merwin (1927-), Princeton Class of 1948, with whom Brown collaborated on Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems; and Nadezhda Mandelstam.
Gift of Jacqueline Brown, 2017. (AM 2018-3)
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
This collection was processed by Faith Charlton in September 2017 with assistance from Julia English '19. Finding aid written by Faith Charlton in September 2017.
Some photographic negatives were treated during 2017 processing.
No materials were separated during 2017 processing.
People
- Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna, 1889-1966
- Davenport, Guy
- Mandelʹshtam, Nadezhda, 1899-1980.
- Mandelʹshtam, Osip, 1891-1938
- Merwin, W.S. (William Stanley), 1927-2019
Organization
Subject
- Literature and state -- Soviet Union -- 20th century -- Sources
- Princeton University -- Faculty -- 20th century -- Sources
- Russian poetry -- 20th century -- Sources
- Russian prose literature -- 20th century -- Sources
- Translators in literature -- Sources
- Russian literature -- Translations into English -- Sources
Place
Occupation
- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Author
- Faith Charlton
- Finding Aid Date
- 2017
- Access Restrictions
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Open for research. Student coursework is restricted until 2044 or 75 years from the date of creation (1969) (housed in box B-001080).
- Use Restrictions
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Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
Collection Inventory
Most of the correspondence is with Brown's close friend, Guy Davenport. Correspondence with W. S. Merwin is primarily about their collaborative translation work: Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems (1974) and includes translations of Osip Mandelstam's poetry. Letters with Nadezhda Mandelstam relate to her memoir, Hope Against Hope.
Other correspondents include former Princeton professor of Slavic languages and literatures, Charles Townsend, Boris Filippov, and Vladimir Nabokov, among others.
The organization of the correspondence that existed at the time of acquisition was maintained.
Physical Description3 boxes
Includes mostly incoming letters, though some are from Brown, of a largely personal nature. Many letters are addressed to Clarence and Jacqueline Brown or to the entire family, particularly those dating from the 1960s. Letters include discussion of each others' literary interests, publications, projects, the work of other academics, and their respective teaching positions, among other topics.
Also included is a folder of poems by Davenport dedicated to Brown.
Physical Description2 boxes
Includes some discussion of Davenport's studies at Duke and Oxford.
Physical Description1 folder
Includes Davenport's letter of recommendation for Brown for the Rhodes Scholarship (1949) as well as correspondence from when Davenport was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Some letters discuss of Davenport's studies at Harvard and work at Washington University.
Physical Description1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
Photocopies
Physical Description1 folder
Photocopies
Physical Description1 folder
Letters date from 2000 to 2004; Davenport's obituary from 2005 is also included.
Physical Description1 folder
1 folder
Correspondence concerns their collaborative translation work: Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems (1974) as well as Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoir Hope Against Hope. Many letters post-1974 are personal in nature.
Also included are some translated Mandelstam poems as well as a photograph of Brown and Merwin at Princeton University's 1993 Commencement.
Physical Description1 box
1 folder
Includes thank you letters confirming payment from magazine and journal editors who published Brown and Merwin's translations of Mandelstam. Includes several translated Mandelstam poems.
Physical Description1 folder
Includes originals and some duplicates of Merwin's translations.
Physical Description1 folder
1 folder
Primarily includes correspondence with Nadezhda Mandelstam and others regarding her memoir, Hope Against Hope, published by Atheneum in 1970, for which Brown wrote the introduction. The publication and payment were facilitated by Brown and Nikita Struve, a professor at Universite de Paris. Due to US-Soviet relations, Brown and Struve could only communicate with Mandelstam via go-betweens in Moscow.
Another correspondent is Alan Schwartz, a lawyer at the New York City-based firm Greenbaum, Wolff and Ernst, who represented the interests of Brown (who was himself representing Mandelstam), to Atheneum publishers. Schwartz also represented Brown's interests in matters of Mandelstam's intellectual property rights. The correspondence includes much discussion regarding the complexity of paying Mandeshtam for her work.
Physical Description2 boxes
1 folder
1 folder
Correspondence relates to Princeton University's Slavic Department.
Physical Description1 folder
Two letters from Filippov.
Physical Description1 folder
One letter from Nabakov.
Physical Description1 folder
One letter from Malmstad, some of which is about Nadezhda Mandelstam.
Physical Description1 folder
Includes correspondence from friends and colleagues, including Caryl Emerson, about an article by Brown.
Physical Description1 folder
Includes letters from former students, Jennie Dunham and Cecilia De la Rosa.
Physical Description1 folder
Includes Brown's travel diaries from 1962 and 1966 of visits to Russia and surrounding areas as well as an accompanying sketchbook depicting his travels in 1962. Of note is documentation of two meetings with poet Anna Akhmatova in Komarovo, St. Petersburg, July 11 and August 1, 1962.
Physical Description1 box
Documents Brown's travels to Warsaw and St. Petersburg (Leningrad). Of note is a record of a meeting with Anna Akhmatova on July 11.
Physical Description1 folder
Documents Brown's travels to Kiev, Odessa, Yalta, Tbilisi, St. Petersburg (Leningrad), and Moscow. Of note is a record of a meeting with Anna Akhmatova on August 1.
Physical Description1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
Documents Brown's visit to Moscow.
Physical Description1 folder
Primarily includes photographs of Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam, both portrait and group photographs. Family members, including Osip's father, mother, and brother, Alexasndr Mandelstam, as well as friends and fellow poets, such as Marina Tsvetaeva, Anna Axmatova, and Maria Sergeyevna Petrovykh, are also represented. Some appear to be photographs that Brown took during his visits to Russia during the 1960s.
Most are photographic prints, many of which appear to have been part of a scrapbook; a few are acetate negatives. Some of the photographs were published in Brown's 1973 work, Mandelstam.
Physical Description1 box
All are portrait photographs with the exception of one group portrait of Mandelstam and fellow male writers and a photograph of Mandelstam's mother, Flora Verblovskaja Mandelstam (1910). Also included is a copy of Lev Bruni's portrait of Mandelstam (circa 1917).
Physical Description1 folder
Includes portrait and group photographs
Physical Description1 folder
One photograph was taken at a wedding in Koktebel, Crimea (circa 1935), and includes the Mandelstam's as well as Andrei Bely. The other was taken in an apartment on Nashchokinsky Pereulok, or Furmanov Street, in Moscow, in the winter of 1934, and shows Alexandr Emilevich Mandelstam, Osip Mandelstam's brother, Maria Sergeyevna Petrovykh, Emil Venyaminovich Mandelstam, Osip Mandelstam's father, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Osip Mandelstam, and Anna Akhmatova.
Physical Description1 folder
Includes a few photographs, including a family portrait of Nikolay Gumilyov, Anna, and their son, Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov, and a couple of photographs of Anna presumably taken at her funeral.
Physical Description1 folder
Includes a few portrait and casual photographs, some of which depict family and friends.
Brown notes that Vika Schweitzer gave him the photos during his trip to Moscow in 1966.
Physical Description1 folder
A few miscellaneous structures and sites as well as one candid photograph of a group of people gathered outside.
Physical Description1 folder
1 folder
Includes a few pieces of correspondence with institutions concerning the publication of Brown's photographs.
Physical Description1 folder
Files concerning the acquisition, description, and gifting of Osip Mandelstam's papers to Princeton University Library.
Physical Description1 box
Includes correspondence with Princeton Library staff and the Mandelstam Commission, among others.
Physical Description1 box
1 folder
1 folder
Brown's notes about the contents of the archive.
Physical Description1 folder
These student translations of Nadezhda Mandelstam's first memoir Hope Against Hope served as coursework for a "secret" graduate seminar that Brown taught in spring 1969 for the Slavic Department. Brown had his students engage in this project before another copy of the memoir was published by Atheneum in 1970.
Physical Description1 box
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder