http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8rx9jd2 No online items Conrad Aiken Papers Finding aid prepared by Huntington Staff, 1976 and revised by Sue Hodson, 1988, and Diann Benti in 2018. Manuscripts Department The Huntington Library 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org © 2018 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved. Conrad Aiken Papers mssAIK 1-4904 1 Descriptive Summary Title: Conrad Aiken Papers Dates: 1851-1983 Bulk dates: 1920-1970 Collection Number: mssAIK 1-4904 Creator: Aiken, Conrad, 1889-1973 Extent: Approximately 5,300 items in 103 boxes and additional oversize folders Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Manuscripts Department The Huntington Library 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org Abstract: This collection contains the personal and professional papers of American writer Conrad Aiken (1889-1973). The collection includes his correspondence (chiefly letters addressed to him), dealing with his business and literary affairs, manuscripts of his works, with some photographs and ephemera. Language of Material: The records are in English. Access Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services. Publication Rights The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Conrad Aiken Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Acquisition Information Purchased from Mary Augusta (Hoover) Aiken, September, 1975. Other Aiken manuscripts since the original purchase have been catalogued with the collection. Their provenance is noted on the individual folders. 1. Mimeographed materials have normally been fully catalogued as manuscripts, since most were prompt copies of plays or broadcasts and often have notes by the producer on them. All xerox copies have been placed in "Xerox" boxes at the end of the Collection. 2. Quite frequently only a portion of a poem was written by Aiken. It has normally not been described as a "fragment" or "incomplete" in as much as the majority of the manuscripts in the collection were Aiken's working copies. Sections of verse were added and corrected now and again, thus it would be misleading to classify these revisions as fragmentary only because they represent a portion of the final, printed text. 3. In about 1970, Aiken went through many of his manuscripts and noted in blue ink at the top of the page a notation, such as "early draft." In every instance these notes were made later than the composition of the piece and are Aiken's recollections. Many are helpful but some are misleading and should not be taken as definitive. 4. Throughout the letters and manuscripts, Mary Aiken has made identifying notes, many of which are both very helpful and reliable. Her notes have not normally been noted on the individual folders, although any notations by others have been identified whenever possible. Biographical Note Conrad Potter Aiken (1889-1973) was a writer of poetry, short stories, novels and criticism. He is best known perhaps for his innovative autobiography, Ushant (1952), and for the play, Mr. Arcularis, which was adapted from his short story "Mr. Arcularis." Among Aiken's notable works are Blue Voyage (1927), his first novel, which deeply impressed the young Malcolm Lowry while writing Ultramarine; Collected Poems (1953) which won for Aiken the National Book Award for 1953; and The Clerk's Journal, an undergraduate poem - written in 1911 but published late in Aiken's life (1971). The Reviewer's ABC, a selection of Aiken's criticism gathered together by Rufus Blanshard demonstrates Aiken's prophetic talent of judging Conrad Aiken Papers mssAIK 1-4904 2 who among his contemporaries would be proclaimed "good" or "bad." Aiken spent his first eleven years in his birthplace, Savannah, Georgia, until witnessing the murder-suicide of his father and mother in 1901. He then lived in New England with his great aunt, Jane Delano Kempton, and with his aunt and uncle, William Hopkins Tillinghast. Conrad's brothers and sister, Kempton, Robert, and Elizabeth, were separated from their older brother after their parents' deaths and went to a cousin's home to live, taking his surname, Taylor. Between 1903 and 1907 Aiken studied at Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he wrote for the school magazine, The Anvil. He studied at Harvard College between 1907 and 1911, writing for The Harvard Monthly and The Harvard Advocate. After withdrawing from Harvard in 1911, Aiken went abroad to England and Italy but returned to Harvard in 1912 to graduate. In 1912, Aiken married the first of his three wives, Jessie McDonald, a Canadian with whom he had three children, John, Jane and Joan. Conrad and Jessie lived in London or Massachusetts between 1912 and 1922 until moving to England permanently in 1922. They settled first in London, then at Winchelsea, Sussex, and finally in Rye, Sussex, where they bought Jeake's House, where Aiken was to live intermittently until 1947. In 1929, Aiken and Jessie divorced and in 1930 he married Clarice (also known as Clarissa or Jerry) Lorenz. Between the time of his marriage and his divorce from Jerry in 1937, Aiken lived in either Jeake's House or in Cambridge and Boston. Aiken got a Mexican divorce in Cuernavaca from Jerry and in 1937 married his third wife, Mary Augusta Hoover. Conrad and Mary lived in Jeake's House from 1937 to 1939, but returned to New England with the outbreak of war in 1939. In 1940 they bought "Forty-one Doors", a rambling house on Cape Cod in Brewster, Massachusetts, named after the forty-one doors inside the house. "Forty-one Doors" was to be Conrad and Mary's permanent home, though they rented in New York City in the 1950s, bought a flat in Washington D.C. in 1955 (only to have it condemned by the government for an office building shortly afterwards) and in the 1960s and early 1970s spent most of their winters in Savannah, in the house next door to the one in which Aiken had lived as a child. Aiken's life was, therefore, geographically concentrated in Savannah, New England, and the southern coast of England. Scope and Content This collection contains the personal and professional papers of American author Conrad Aiken. The collection includes his correspondence (chiefly letters addressed to him), dealing with his business and literary affairs, manuscripts of his works, with some photographs and ephemera. The manuscripts include poems published in "Skylight One" (1949), "The Divine Pilgrim" (1949), "A Letter from Li Po" (1955), "Sheepfold Hill" (1955), "The Morning Song of Lord Zero" (1963); "The Clerk's Journal: Being the Diary of a Queer Man" (1911)" a notebook (1911-1925) containing literary notes, addresses, etc. essays, notes, the first draft of Aiken's autobiography, etc. Correspondents include: Mary Augusta Hoover Aiken, William Ford Aiken, Rufus Blanshard, Brandt & Brandt (firm), D. G. Bridson, Edward John Burra, Horatio Colony, Malcolm Cowley, Richard Eberhart, T. S. Eliot, Jean Garrigue, Erich Heller, Dame Laura Knight, Seymour Lawrence, Malcolm Lowry, Grayson Prevost McCouch, Jay Martin , Henry Alexander Murray, Howard Nemerov, Allen Tate, Kempton Potter Aiken Taylor, Louis Untermeyer, and others. The collection includes: Manuscripts by Conrad Aiken: A wealth of original autograph and typescript drafts is to be found in the collection. • The majority consists of manuscripts of poems published in Skylight One (1949), The Divine Pilgrim (1949), A Letter from Li Po (1955), Sheepfold Hill (1955), and The Morning Song of Lord Zero (1963) • The Clerk's Journal: Being the Diary of a Queer Man (16 pp.; Jan. 9, 1911), an original autograph manuscript of the poem written for an English course at Harvard University (AIK 2798). The manuscript includes marginal comments by the instructor, Le Baron Russell Briggs, and is accompanied by the proof sheets for the 1971 edition and an early (1970)draft of Aiken's preface, entitled "A Short Memoir of Harvard, Dean Briggs, T. S. Eliot, in 1911" (AIK 3644) • The Conversation; or Pilgrim's Progress (226 pp.; ca. 1940), the first type script of the novel. AIK 3393 • Mr. Arcularis (1946 to ca. 1952), eleven drafts of the short story/play. In 1946 Diana Hamilton's dramatization of Aiken's short story was produced at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London, under the title Fear No More. Deemed a failure by its producers, the play was revised. Hamilton, however, was suffering from brain cancer, so Aiken made the extensive changes leading to its production at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., May 8-27, 1951. Following further revisions, the play was published by Harvard University Press in 1957. The collection also contains four versions of Hamilton's Fear No More. AIK 3774-3784 • Nine Poems (9 pp.; 1952), typewritten manuscript with a few autograph corrections of a piece published in the Aiken commemorative issue of Wake, acquired by the Huntington in 1984. AIK 4714 Conrad Aiken Papers mssAIK 1-4904 3 • Notebook (one volume; 1911-1925), containing literary notes, addresses, etc. AIK 3588 • The Soldier (29 pp.; ca. 1945), the first draft of the poem, written in pencil in a composition book. AIK 3399 • Time in the Rock (112 pp.; ca. 1936), the first draft of the poem, typewritten with numerous autograph revisions. AIK 3698 • The Tinsel Circuit (33 pp.; 1916), the original version of a group of 19 poems. Aiken published slightly revised versions of the seven poems as "Vaudeville Suite" in the fall, 1955, issue of the Carolina Quarterly.