Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Charles Mills Papers #04270, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Marguerite Mills of Penfield, N.Y., in May 1981. Addition of 6 items received March 1997 from William Z. Schenck of Washington, D.C. (Acc. 97026); additions received from St. Bonaventure University in June 2008 (Acc. 100950) and Robyn Somerville in August 2008 (Acc. 101075).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Authors, American-20th century-Correspondence.
• Baxter, Walter, 1915- .
• Beck, Lewis White.
• Carrier, Warren Pendleton.
• Chapel Hill (N.C.)-Social life and customs-20th century.
• Cotten, Elizabeth Henderson.
• Fitzgerald, Robert 1910- .
• Gilbert, Allan H., 1888- .
• Gilbert, Katharine Everett, 1886-1952.
• Green, Paul, 1894-1981.
• Henderson, Archibald, 1887-1963.
• Italy-Social life and customs-20th century.
• Kuhn, Helmut, 1899- .
• Leighton, Clare, 1899-1989.
• Mills, Charles, 1914-1975.
• Nahm, Milton Charles, 1903- .
• Novelists, American-20th century.
• Smith, Betty, 1896-1972.
• Starr, Nathan Comfort, 1896- .
• World War, 1939-1945-Burma-Personal narratives.
• Mills, Marguerite.

Charles Mills was born in 1914 in Griffin, Ga. He studied at the University of Virginia, the University of Florence (Italy), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He married his wife Marguerite around 1935. In 1936, the Millses traveled to Italy where Charles studied singing and began his first book, The Choice. The Millses left Italy in 1945 (just before the invasion of Munich, Germany) to return to the United States. In 1943 Charles Mills completed The Choice which was on the New York Times bestseller list for a time. Perhaps paralleling Mills's own life to an extent, the book depicts a young Southern man rebelling against the narrowness of his small-town Georgia life by traveling to Italy where he becomes more aware of his independence, passion, love of tradition and culture, and creative writing abilities.

Mills immediately began work on another novel, The Alexandrians. During this time he and his wife, young son, and two baby daughters lived in Chapel Hill, and he studied languages at the University of North Carolina. He served briefly in the military during World War II. By 1952 Mills had completed The Alexandrians, a novel on the South, also on bestseller lists. It is a panorama of life in the small Georgia town of Alexandria from the time of its settlement in 1839 until its centennial. Following the life of a central character, the book develops such themes as the struggle over slavery, religious intolerance, changing social customs, and the decline of the plantation economy. After Charles Mills's death in 1975, his wife lived in Penfield, N.Y.

The collection includes mainly letters to Charles Mills and Marguerite Mills from literary and academic colleagues and from personal friends. Significant correspondents include Walter Baxter, Lewis White Beck, Warren Pendleton Carrier, Elizabeth Henderson Cotten, Robert Fitzgerald, Allan H. Gilbert, Katharine Everett Gilbert, Paul Elliot Green, Archibald Henderson, Helmut Kuhn, Clare Leighton, Milton Charles Nahm, Betty Smith, and Nathan Comfort Starr. Also included are typed copies of writings of a few correspondents, probably sent to the Millses for review and a war journal Warren Carrier kept while serving in the American Field Service in Burma in 1944 and 1945.