Scope and Content Note
The papers of William McGuire (1917-2009) span the years 1868-1998, with the bulk of the material dating from 1967 to 1997. The collection contains personal and professional correspondence, subject files, editorial and research material, production and working files, and other publishing material relating primarily to McGuire's career as an editor for the Bollingen Series, a program of publications sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation. The papers also include similar material concerning the publication of McGuire's books Bollingen: An Adventure in Collecting the Past, a history of the foundation published in 1982, and Poetry's Catbird Seat, a history of the Consultant in Poetry program at the Library of Congress commissioned and published by the Library in 1988. The collection contains research photocopies and transcripts in German and is organized in the following series: Bollingen Series Publications, Office File, Writings by McGuire, and Miscellany.
The Bollingen Series, established in 1943, was funded by Mary and Paul Mellon as a publishing program to bring the writings of the Swiss analytical psychologist C. G. Jung and other works on comparative religion, myth, and literature to the English-speaking public. The program was sponsored by Paul Mellon's Old Dominion Foundation until 1945 when the Bollingen Foundation, another Mellon philanthropy, took control and was published by Pantheon Books. In 1961, the Bollingen Foundation assumed publication until 1967 when the Princeton University Press became publisher. The Bollingen Series was given outright to the press in 1969, and the foundation became inactive. In addition to these papers, the Library of Congress also maintains related collections available to researchers, including the records of the Bollingen Foundation, the C. G. Jung Papers, and the records of the Frances G. Wickes Foundation.
The Bollingen Series published original works, translations of writings previously unavailable in English, and new editions of classics. It consists of one-hundred multivolume titles, constituting more than 250 separate volumes. The Bollingen Series Publications series contains correspondence, drafts, research and working papers, production material and other items relating to specific titles edited and published by McGuire in several editorial capacities. The core of the Bollingen Series was the publication of a complete edition of the writings of Jung. As executive editor of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, McGuire was central to the production of this complex, collaborative effort, which, at twenty numbered volumes and a supplementary volume, was the single most ambitious entry in Bollingen's catalog. In addition to the collected works, McGuire was also editor of The Freud/Jung Letters, Dream Analysis, published notes on seminars conducted by Jung, and co-editor with R. F. C. Hull of C. G. Jung Speaking. The Bollingen Series Publications series documents the planning and publication of these and other volumes related to Jung's life and work, reflecting the production values and editorial complexities of their publication as well as the concerns of the psychological communities they represent.
The Bollingen Series published other volumes in a wide range of subjects including, in comparative religion and mythology, Joseph Campbell's The Mythic Image, The I Ching, and the Essays of Erich Neumann; in literature, collected editions of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Paul Valéry, and Miguel de Unamuno; the poetry of Saint-John Perse; Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov's translation of Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin's Eugene Onegin; and in the fine arts, Max Raphael and The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, a series of lectures delivered each year at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Files relating to these and many other authors and titles are contained in the Bollingen Series Publications file. The series also contains correspondence and memoranda exchanged between McGuire and various editors, translators, and associates, including Joseph Campbell, K. R. Eissler, Anna Freud, Ernst L Freud, R. F. C. Hull, Aniela Jaffé, Franz Jung, Hans Karrer, Ralph Manheim, Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, Kathleen Raine, and Wolfgang Sauerländer.
McGuire became an editor with the Bollingen Series in 1948. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he was managing editor, and in 1967, when the series was transferred to the Princeton University Press, he joined the staff of the press as an associate editor until his retirement in 1982. The Office File contains correspondence, administrative records, and subject files maintained by McGuire, mostly as associate editor of the Bollingen Series publication office at the Princeton University Press. Administrative records contain information on book distribution and sales, editorial procedures, and publication policy including files pertaining to rejected or unpublished project proposals. Subject files contain personal reference material including files devoted to Sigmund Freud, Jung, and related topics. The Bollingen Series became increasingly involved with the reissue of titles in paperback and foreign editions. The Office File contains material relating to these issues and includes correspondence with German publishers Rascher Verlag and its successor, Walter Verlag, and British publisher Routledge & Kegan Paul. The Office File also includes McGuire's correspondence with various colleagues and staff members, including Gerhard Adler, Herbert Smith Bailey, John D. Barrett, Huntington Cairns, Vaun Gillmor, Dorothy Léger, and Paul Mellon.
The Writings by McGuire series is largely devoted to files assembled for the research and publication of two books, Bollingen: An Adventure in Collecting the Past and Poetry's Catbird Seat. The series includes correspondence, research material, drafts, notes, and outlines and includes copies of speeches delivered by McGuire that were derived from the former volume. With the publication of his history of the Bollingen Foundation, McGuire chronicled the activities and accomplishments of Bollingen projects and publications, and his research material is a rich source of information on personalities and topics central to the organization and development of the enterprise. Correspondence exchanged between Mary Mellon and Jung is of interest for the light it casts on the details of a relationship that became the inspiration for the creation of Mellon's cultural foundation.
In commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of its Consultantship in Poetry, the Library of Congress commissioned McGuire to write a book about the history of the program, Poetry's Catbird Seat. The Writings by McGuire series consists of research and working files covering all the poetry consultants and the first poet laureate and includes material similar to that gathered for his Bollingen history. Based on interviews and on research in various collections of the Library of Congress, the book reveals much about the lives of the individual poets, the conduct of cultural affairs by a government agency, and the place of poetry in our national life. McGuire's research files document the background, appointment, and service of each poet and include some original correspondence with selected consultants.
The Miscellany series contains personal files concerning private consulting and editing projects and other subjects not directly related to McGuire's position as editor of the Bollingen Series. The series is composed mostly of files in support of independent editing and research projects, including his contributions to volumes one and two of Ian MacPhail's compilation Alchemy and the Occult: A Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts from the Collection of Paul and Mary Mellon Given to Yale University Library; editing of John C. Burnham's Jelliffe, American Psychoanalyst and Physician; and research for a proposed biography of Natacha Rambova, a Bollingen Fellow specializing in comparative symbolism and Egyptology. In addition to her Bollingen studies, McGuire's research also explores Rambova's careers as actress, costume and set designer, playwright, art director, and fashion designer and contains files relating to her husband, silent-film actor Rudolph Valentino, and her friend and pupil, Maud Oakes. The series also includes correspondence and other items relating to Jung, reflecting McGuire's continuing interest in and contributions to Jungian scholarship.