Call Number:

F0842

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

14 item (15 pages)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

MSS 0099, F0842, Paul Metcalf letters to Ted Wilentz, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

1984-1991 (inclusive) and 1984-1985 (bulk)

Creator:

Metcalf, Paul C.

Form:

Letters (correspondence), Postcards, and Reviews (document genre)

Abstract:

The collection comprises letters and postcards written from Paul Metcalf, experimental American writer, to Ted Wilentz, former owner of the Eighth Street Bookshop in New York City, between 1984 and 1991.

Paul Metcalf was a writer of poetry, plays and prose, who used an experimental style. Metcalf was born in East Milton, Massachusetts, to a New England family whose ancestors included Herman Melville and Roger Williams. One of Metcalf's best known works is

"Paul Metcalf, 81; Wrote Experimental Tales."The New York Times. 1999 January 31. http://www.nytimes.com (accessed April 21, 2009).

The collection comprises letters and postcards written by Paul Metcalf to Ted Wilentz between 1984 and 1991.

This small collection of ten typed letters and one postcard were written by writer Paul Metcalf to his longtime friend Ted Wilentz, who was the former owner of the Eighth Street Bookshop in New York City. Additionally the collection has a postcard announcing a Metcalf reading, a handwritten thank-you letter from Metcalf's wife Nancy, and a photocopy of a Metcalf's review of a Herman Melville documentary.

Many of the letters regard a poetry reading to be given by Metcalf which was sponsored by the Washington Project for the Arts in 1984. The Metcalfs were guests in the Wilentzes' home during this trip to Washington, D.C., for the reading. In other letters Metcalf commented on his longtime friend, poet Jonathan Williams, who also published several of Metcalf's books.

The letters and postcards are arranged in chronological order.