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Barry Wallenstein - James T. Farrell collection
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Held at: University of Delaware Library Special Collections [Contact Us]181 South College Avenue, Newark, DE 19717-5267
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Delaware Library Special Collections. 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
American literary scholar and poet Barry Wallenstein met American author James T. Farrell in the early 1960s when he co-edited, with author and editor Jack Salzman, an anthology of 1930s writings entitled
Years of Protest (1967). Farrell was the initiator and advisor for this project. Wallenstein's other critical work includes volumes on Syliva Plath and poetic theory and criticism. Wallenstein has published several volumes of poetry, including Beast Is a Wolf With Brown Fire (1977); Roller Coaster Kid and Other Poems (1982); Love and Crush (1991); The Short Life of the Five Minute Dancer (1993); and A Measure of Conduct (1999) . He serves as an associate editor of The American Book Review and was a founding member of the Poetry Outreach Center at the City College of New YorkMuch of American novelist James T. Farrell's (1904-1979) fiction is set in his hometown of Chicago and addresses issues of the city's working class. Farrell published more than twenty-five novels during his lifetime, as well as numerous collections of stories and works of criticism. He is best known for his
Studs Lonigan Trilogy (1935) and for a series of five novels centered around the character Danny O'Neill. Farrell was also active in contemporary politics and is generally associated with writers of the American left who emerged during the 1930s and 1940s. In his later years, Farrell devoted much of his writing to a cycle of novels titled A Universe of Time , which he began writing in the early 1960s and which he projected to include approximately thirty titles.Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 2006.
The Barry Wallenstein - James T. Farrell collection comprises 0.6 linear feet of articles, manuscripts, photographs, correspondence, and notes pertaining to Wallenstein's research on American novelist James T. Farrell and spans the dates between 1929 and 1975. The collection includes manuscripts by Farrell, copies of selected published writings by Farrell, four black-and-white photographs, copies of published articles about Farrell, and material contributing toward Wallenstein's writings about Farrell.
- Boxes 1-2: Shelved in SPEC MSS manuscript boxes
Gift of Barry Wallenstein, 2006.
Processed by Karalee Kopreski, April 2006. Encoded by Maureen Cech, January 2011.
People
Subject
Place
Occupation
- Publisher
- University of Delaware Library Special Collections
- Finding Aid Author
- University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
- Finding Aid Date
- 2011 January 6
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce isrequired from the copyright holder. Please contact Special Collections Department, University of Delaware Library, https://library.udel.edu/static/purl.php?askspec
Collection Inventory
Five typescript manuscripts and one autograph manuscript. The manuscripts are written on various topics including Nikita Kruschev, the
Oriflamme magazine at St. Cyril's High School which Farrell attended, a carbon typescript copy of a short story entitled "The Fifth Amendment" by Jonathan Titulescu Fogarty (James T. Farrell), and a collection of short paragraphs on Farrell's stories and characters.Selection of published articles and short stories by Farrell spanning the dates 1929-1975. Included is "The Filling Station Racket in Chicago" (1929), Farrell's foreword to
Labor on the March , "The Writer and His Conscience" (1958), "The Day They Cancelled Christmas" (1965), "A Benefactor of Humanity" (1965), "The World I Grew Up In" (1966), a special number of the American Book Collector dedicated to Farrell (May 1967), "Reflections on John Dewey" (1967), "The Vast Present" (1969), "Picnic in the Steppes" (1971), "Literature of Clichés and Good-will" (1972), typescript of article with title "Messages in Art," "To Throw a High Hard Fast One" (1973), "Remembering the Chelsea" (1974), "The King is Dead" (1974), "The World is Today" (1975).Four 8 x 10 black and white photographs taken by Barry Wallenstein. Three photographs of who may be Helen Farrell and husband Earle in Florida, circa 1970.
Physical Description4 items
Folders includes copies and originals of published articles on James T. Farrell spanning the dates 1954-1974. Publications include
Harper's , The New York Times Book Review , The Boston Globe , The New Yorker , and local newspapers. Also included is a copy of a typescript manuscript by Edgar M. Branch entitled "On the Criticism of Farrell and of Farrell Scholarship," and autograph notes on Horace Gregory's A History of American Poetry .Folder includes carbon copies of typescript letters from Wallenstein to various recipients spanning the dates 1963-1974. The letters are concerned with Farrell's book proposals and more generally, publications related to Farrell. The letters from the early sixties focus on the production of an anthology of 1930s writing directed by Farrell and co-edited by Wallenstein. Also included is an undated, unsigned photocopy of a publishing agreement between Farrell and Collins Associates. Typescript copies of manuscripts by Wallenstein on Farrell's work. Included is a "Proposal for three books comprising a ‘James T. Farrell Package'" and three copies of an essay entitled ‘James T. Farrell: Artist of the Middle."
Typescript notes on Farrell books, including
Judith , New Year's Eve , Invisible Swords , The Silence of History , What Time Collects , Lonely for the Future , and A Brand New Life . Also included are notes on William Shannon's The American Irish (1963) and Murray Kempton's Part of Our Time: Some Monuments and Ruins of the Thirties (1955).Autograph notes in various hands on James Farrell's writings, interviews of Farrell and related literary criticism. The notes are on specific publications and the title and dated is noted on each page. Notes are on various works, including
A World I Never Made (1936), "The Social Obligations of the Novelist" (1947), "Testimony on Censorship: Transcript from Trial" (1948), and "A Farrell Miscellany" (1965). Includes notes on works by Theodore Dreiser, James Joyce, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howells. Also Includes printed undated invitation to James Farrell's birthday celebration.