New Directions Publishing Corp. records, ca. 1933-1997.

ArchivalResource

New Directions Publishing Corp. records, ca. 1933-1997.

The records described here are from James Laughlin's home office in Norfolk, Connecticut. Here Laughlin kept his own papers as well as materials sent to him from the New York City office. Series I: Correspondence, contains correspondence and related materials created and recieved by Laughlin and members of the New Directions staff. Correspondence is with authors, literary agents, publishers, small presses, university libraries, book dealers, employees of ND, and Laughlin's personal friends. Includes correspondence with: Lawrence Ferlighetti, John Hawkes, Denise Levertov, Thomas Merton, Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, Ezra Pound, Kenneth Rexroth, Delmore Schwartz, Dylan Thomas, Tennessee Williams, William Carlos Williams, and many others. The International writing subseries is a small section of correspondence with writers, translators, literary agents, printers, publishing companies, and bookstores that Laughlin grouped together by nationality. Series II: Title and subject files, concern authors in general and specific titles published by ND as well as other topics of interest to Laughlin. They contain correspondence, interoffice communication such as memoranda and notes, and ephemera and clippings about the person or topic. Title files contain materials relating to the production and/or promotion of the book. Series III: Compositions, contains poems, essays, book reviews, fiction, drawings, and other works. Series IV: Business Records, contains records relating to the non-editorial aspects of New Directions. Most of these records concern Laughlin's corporate activities, but often his personal and corporate interests were interconnected; consequently, there are personal financial records here as well. Also contains materials relating to New Directions employees, including Gerturde Huston and Robert MacGregor. Series V: Contracts includes contracts between authors and New Directions for books (both published and proposed) as well as for other rights and permissions. Series VI: Literary Agencies, contains correspondence and related material exchanged between New Directions and scholars, publishers, libraries,lawyers, and rights holders concerning copyrights administered by New Directions. Includes agency materials for: Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Federico García Lorca.

860 boxes (286 linear ft.)

eng,

spa,

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7796023

Houghton Library

Related Entities

There are 17 Entities related to this resource.

Merton, Thomas, 1915-1968

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6v51n84 (person)

Thomas Merton was born on January 31, 1915 in Prades, France to Owen Merton (an artist from New Zealand) and Ruth Jenkins Merton (an artist from the United States), and grew up in New York, Bermuda, France, and England. Merton studied both in Europe and America, and he received a BA and an MA in journalism from Columbia University in 1938 and 1939. In 1938, Merton converted to Catholicism. He taught for two years at St. Bonaventure College in New York before entering the Abbey of Gethsemani i...

Laughlin, James, 1914-1997

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68x467r (person)

James Laughlin was an American publisher and poet, and founder of the New Directions press. The son of a steel manufacturer, Laughlin attended Choate School in Connecticut and Harvard University (B.A., 1939). In the mid-1930s Laughlin lived in Italy with Ezra Pound, a major influence on his life and work; returning to the United States, he founded New Directions in 1936. Initially he intended to publish writings by ignored yet influential avant-garde writers of the period; Pound’s The Cantos ...

García Lorca, Federico, 1898-1936

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6359c5p (person)

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca, was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a group consisting mostly of poets who introduced the tenets of European movements (such as symbolism, futurism, and surrealism) into Spanish literature. García Lorca was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spa...

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence, 1919-2021

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bm2556 (person)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was an American poet and publisher, most closely associated with the Beat movement. Born in New York, Ferlinghetti suffered several family-related tragedies in his youth, and was raised in unusual circumstances. Educated at the University of North Carolina, he served in World War II, and continued his education at Columbia and The Sorbonne. He moved to San Francisco, where he co-founded City Lights book store and publishing house, which became integral wi...

Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64v79hs (person)

Thomas Lanier Williams was born on March 26, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi. His father, Cornelius, a salesman who was largely absent had a bad relationship with Tennessee, the second of his three children. Consequently, Tennessee was raised predominantly by his mother, Edwina, and maternal grandparents. His often strained and disturbed family life became the fodder for many of his plays. After moving to New Orleans in his late 20s, and adopting the name Tenn...

Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6650f4k (person)

Ezra Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem, The Cantos (c. 1917–1962). Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early 20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language. Working in London as foreign editor of several American l...

New Directions Publishing Corp.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6g844wr (corporateBody)

James Laughlin (1914-1997) began his publishing career as the literary editor of New Democracy, a magazine devoted to the economic theory Social Credit. Here Laughlin published Modern writers such as Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and William Carlos Williams in a section of the magazine entitled "New Directions." In 1936, while in his Junior year at Harvard University, Laughlin gathered the best of these pieces and put them together in the first annual anthology, New Directions in Prose and Poetry....

Thomas, Dylan, 1914-1953

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69z94bt (person)

Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet who first achieved recognition with "Eighteen Poems" (1934). He wrote both prose and radio plays, including "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog" (1940), "Deaths and Entrances" (1946), "Under Milkwood" (1954), and "Adventures in the Skin Trade" (1955). From the description of Dylan Thomas collection. [1935-1953]. (University of Victoria Libraries). WorldCat record id: 660196437 Welsh author Dylan Thomas occupies a controversial place among 20t...

Hawkes, John, 1925-1998

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6959j9d (person)

American writer and editor, particularly known for experimental fiction. From the description of Correspondence, 1960-1982. (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC); University of Texas at Austin). WorldCat record id: 122632937 Hawkes (1925-1998) was an American novelist. From the description of John Hawkes compositions, 1974-1980. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 612368105 From the guide to the John Hawkes compositions, 1974-1980., (Hough...

Schwartz, Delmore, 1913-1966

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rj4nb1 (person)

Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966), writer, editor, and teacher. In 1937, shortly after graduating from New York University, Schwartz published an acclaimed short story, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" in the first issue of Partisan Review. In addition to his writing, he served as poetry editor of the Partisan Review and later the New Republic. Schwartz wrote poetry, short stories and essays, criticism, and plays throughout his life but he never established himself as the writer that early praise s...

Rexroth, Kenneth, 1905-1982

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6k35vbv (person)

Born Dec. 22, 1905 in South Bend, IN; campaigned for many radical groups, particularly the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World), and espoused eroticism and general anarchy; influenced by poet William Carlos Williams and the Second Chicago Renaissance; founded San Francisco Poetry Center with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg; although his Bohemian lifestyle was emulated by Beats, he did not like the movement for its artistic excess and lack of rigor; noted as an accomplished painter...

Miller, Henry, 1891-1980.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tb16w7 (person)

Novelist. From the description of Papers, 1952-1957. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 155457225 Henry Miller (1891-1980) was an American author. He was known for his experimental, surrealist novels, such as Tropic of Cancer, which mixed fiction and autobiography. His writing was controversial for its graphic depictions of sexuality, leading to a 1964 obscenity trial in the United States, Grove Press, Inc. v. Gerstein. From the guide to the Henry Miller Letter, unda...

Williams, William Carlos, 1883-1963

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gn8xd9 (person)

This collection covers the years of William Carlos Williams's medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, a year of service at a New York City hospital, a semester of medical study in Leipzig, and the period when he was setting up his medical practice and courting his future wife, Florence Herman, in his home town of Rutherford, N.J. During this time, his younger brother Edgar went from engineering and architectural studies at M.I.T. to further study of architecture at the American Academ...

MacGregor, Robert M.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62r3s88 (person)

Huston, Gertrude.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vd7c55 (person)

Levertov, Denise, 1923-1997

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65d8rrh (person)

The interview took place at Wells College, New York. From the description of Audio interviews with poet Denise Levertov by Clive Scott Chisholm : sound recordings, 1973 Jan. 27. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 754864806 Correspondence to Lewis and Sophia Mumford from Denise Levertov and her husband, Mitchell Goodman. From the description of Letters, 1965-1976, to Lewis and Sophia Mumford. (University of Pennsylvania Library). WorldCat record id: 155871475 ...

Patchen, Kenneth, 1911-1972

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ks6rjk (person)

Patchen and MacLeish, were both American poets. From the description of [Letter, 19]51 Mar. 12, Old Lyme, Conn. [to] Archibald MacLeish / Kenneth Patchen. (Smith College). WorldCat record id: 314411191 American poet, novelist, artist. From the description of Letter to Julien Cornell, 1951 January 5. (University of Virginia). WorldCat record id: 49380977 American poet. From the description of Prospectus for "The Dark Kingdom", 1942. (Universit...