Scope and Content Note
The papers of Louis Simpson (1923-2012) span the years 1922-2011, with the bulk of the material dated between 1937-2011. The papers contain correspondence, working drafts of various poems and prose, administrative material regarding publishing and publications, reviews, translations, interviews, memorabilia, copyright permissions, collected material, and subject files related to Simpson's career as an author and professor. The papers are organized into five series: Correspondence, Writings File, Professional File, Subject File, and Oversize.
The Correspondence series, arranged both alphabetically and chronologically, contains personal and professional correspondence with Louis Simpson’s many friends and associates in the literary world. Among the noted figures in the Correspondence series are: Saul Bellow, Brian Cox, Serge Fauchereau, Thomas Flanagan, John Haines, Hiram Haydn, Seamus Heaney, David Ignatow, Carolyn Kizer, Lotte Kramer, Elizabeth Kray, J. T. Ledbetter, Alison Lurie, James Nolan, Micheal O'Siadhail, Robert Pack, Allan Temko, Claire Nicolas White, Jon Manchip White, and James Wright. Featured within this series are correspondence with the poets Robert Bly, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, and writer Carol Bly, with whom Simpson wrote to frequently with throughout his life. The early correspondence between Simpson and his Columbia University mentor, Mark Van Doren are also included. Beyond the listed correspondents and personal correspondence, other material appearing in the Correspondence series features various aspects of Simpson’s professional life, potentially including material also found in the Professional File series such as speaking engagements, correspondence with publishers, and various administrative affairs.
Also included in the Correspondence series are letters between Louis and his family, notably his mother, Rosalind de Marantz, and his children, Anthony, Anne, and Matthew Simpson. Rosalind de Marantz lived in New York while Louis Simpson was a teenager at Munro College in Jamaica and later moved to Italy when Louis was an adult. While Louis served in the U.S. Army during World War II, he frequently wrote to his mother and the extended Marantz family.
The Writings File contains primarily working and edited drafts of various poems, prose, and other types of writings spanning Louis Simpson’s entire career. The papers document Simpson's evolution as a poet, moving from conventional poetic forms to a more Walt Whitman-influenced free verse style. Featured are Simpson’s drafts for books including Adventures of the Letter I, Caviare at the Funeral, Searching for the Ox, and At the End of the Open Road, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Other featured works within the series include several unpublished notebooks, translations, and reviews of and by Simpson. Many of the papers included in the Writings File arrived at the Library in a state where it was extremely difficult to identify from which books, if any, many of the drafts originated. Effort was made to identify where possible what books belonged to which set of drafts; however, if a book could not be positively associated with a set of drafts, it was placed at the end of the series under the "working drafts" heading and arranged by circa date. Drafts of individually titled works can be found under the "poems, prose, and other writings" heading, but may also appear among the "working drafts." Documentation of Simpson's works published in anthologies, print magazines, newspapers, and poetry journals, are located under the features in "books and periodicals" heading. Poems and prose sent to Simpson from colleagues, fans, and friends, appear under the "other people's writings" heading.
The Professional File covers the administrative dealings of Simpson’s career in both the literary and academic world. Included in this series are various administrative memoranda regarding Simpson’s published works. Additionally featured is professional correspondence between periodicals that frequently published Simpson’s poems, including the American Poetry Review, American Scholar, New York Times, The New Yorker, Hudson Review, The Ohio Review, and The Gettysburg Review. Additional material related to publishing may be found within the general publishing correspondence folders.
Material concerning Simpson's academic career within the Professional File relates to both his time as a student at Columbia University and professorships he held at the University of California, Berkeley and State University of New York at Stony Brook. Also covered are Simpson’s Pulitzer Prize, his serving as a jury member for various literary awards, and his various engagements including poetry readings, speeches, and award ceremonies. Many of the poetry readings are documented on index cards with the date, location, and titles of poems read. Simpson's involvement in professional organizations such as the Academy of American Poets and the Guggenheim Foundation are documented as well.
The Subject File contains items collected from Louis Simpson’s personal filing cabinets, including memorabilia, scrapbooks, and printed material on various topics of interest. Major aspects of this series include Simpson’s awards, travel files, personal papers related to himself and his family, interviews, articles about Simpson, and personal recommendations for other poets, authors, and students.
The Oversize series contains two items: an undated poster for a poetry reading featuring a caricature of Louis Simpson and a woodcut-print portrait of Walt Whitman by Mark Nuccio, gifted to Louis Simpson in 1982 by members of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.