The
Princeton University Library is pleased to announce (https://blogs.princeton.edu/manuscripts/2016/06/07/toni-morrison-papers-open-for-research/, accessed 8 June 2016) that the major portion of
the Toni Morrison Papers (C1491), part of the Library’s permanent collections
since 2014, is open for research (as of June 8, 2016). The papers are located
in the Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections,
in the Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library. They contain more than two hundred
linear feet of archival materials that document the life and work of Toni
Morrison, Nobel Laureate in Literature (1993) and Robert F. Goheen Professor in
the Humanities (Emeritus) at Princeton University. Morrison’s papers were
gathered from multiple locations over more than two decades, beginning with the
files recovered by the Library’s Preservation Office after the tragic fire that
destroyed her home in 1993. Over the past eighteen months, the most significant
of the papers have been organized, described, cataloged, and selectively
digitized. The papers are described online in a finding aid.
Most
important for campus-based and visiting researchers are some fifty linear feet
of the author’s manuscripts, drafts, and proofs for the author’s novels The Bluest Eye(1970), Sula (1973), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1997), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Home (2012), and God Help the Child (2015).
The only exception are materials for Song of Solomon (1977),
which are believed lost. In the interest of preservation, by agreement with the
author, all of these manuscripts have been digitized in the Library’s Digital
Studio. Research access to digital images of Morrison’s manuscripts will be
provided in the Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room. The study of
Morrison’s manuscripts illustrates her approach to the craft of writing and
help trace the evolution of particular works, from early ideas and preliminary
research, to handwritten drafts on legal-size yellow notepads, and finally
corrected typescripts and proofs. The early drafts often differ substantially
from the published book in wording and organization, and contain deleted
passages and sections.
A
single yellow notepad may contain a variety of materials, including content
related to other works, drafts of letters, inserts for later typed and printed
versions, and other unrelated notes. Corrected typescript and printout drafts
often show significant revisions. Material from various stages of the
publication process is present, including setting copies with copy-editor’s and
typesetter’s marks, galleys, page proofs, folded-and-gathered pages (not yet
bound), blueline proofs (“confirmation blues”), advance review copies (bound
uncorrected proofs), and production/design material with page and dust-jacket
samples. In addition to documenting Morrison’s working methods, the papers make
it possible to see how books were marketed to the reading public and media, and
also to trace the post-publication life of books, as they were translated,
repackaged, reprinted, released as talking books, and adapted for film.
Among
unexpected discoveries that came to light during archival processing are
partial early manuscript drafts for The Bluest Eye and Beloved; and born-digital files on floppy disks,
written using old word-processing software, including drafts of Beloved, previously thought to have been lost. Morrison
also retained manuscripts and proofs for her plays Dreaming Emmett (1985) and Desdemona (2011); children’s books, in
collaboration with her son Slade Morrison; short fiction; speeches, song
lyrics; her opera libretto for Margaret Garner,
with music by the American composer Richard Danielpour; lectures; and
non-fiction writing.
Also
valuable for researchers is Morrison’s literary and professional
correspondence, approximately fifteen linear feet of material, including
letters from Maya Angelou, Houston Baker, Toni Cade Bambara, Amiri Baraka,
Gwendolyn Brooks, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Leon Higginbotham, Randall Kennedy,
Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, and others. Additional literary correspondence is
found in Morrison’s selected Random House editorial files, where her authors
included James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, Angela Davis, and Julius Lester.
Morrison also retained drafts, proofs and publication files related to two
works by Toni Cade Bambara, which Morrison posthumously edited for publication;
as well as photocopies of selected correspondence of James Baldwin, 1957-1986,
and materials relating to Baldwin’s literary estate.
The
remaining Morrison Papers are being processed and will be made available for
research gradually over the next year, with arrangement and description to be
completed by spring 2017. These include her Princeton office files and teaching
materials, fan mail, appointment books (sometimes called diaries), photographs,
media, juvenilia, memorabilia, and press clippings. Complementing the papers
are printed editions of Morrison’s novels and other published books;
translations of her works into more than twenty foreign languages; and a
selection of annotated books. Morrison’s additional manuscripts and papers will
be added over time.
Beyond
the Toni Morrison Papers, the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
holds other archival, printed, and visual materials about African American
literature and history. The best files are in American publishing archives. For
example, the Manuscripts Division holds the Harper & Brothers author files
for Richard Wright’s books Uncle Tom’s Children (1938), Native Son (1940), Black Boy (1945), Outsider (1953), Black Power (1954),
and Pagan Spain (1957); Charles Scribner’s Sons author
files for Zora Neale Hurston, chiefly pertaining to her novel Seraph on the Suwanee (1948); and the Quarterly Review of Literature files of Ralph
Ellison’s corrected typescripts and proofs for three extracts from early
working drafts of his second, posthumously published novel Juneteenth (1999).
(Early draft of Morrison’s Beloved in the collection...)
(Toni Morrison: African World-centredness...)
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