Restrictions to Access

This collection is not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact Research and Instructional Service staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options for consulting this collection.

All users must first obtain permission from the curator of the North Carolina Collection. Researchers must also obtain prior written consent from the administrator of the estate of Thomas Wolfe.

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 Wolfe Family Papers (#70003), North Carolina Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

[Note: Collection number changed from #CW to #70003 in April 2020.]

Acquisitions Information

The Wolfe Family Papers were presented to UNC-Chapel Hill by the brothers and sisters of Thomas Wolfe in memory of their parents, William Oliver Wolfe and Julia Elizabeth Westall Wolfe. The first gift was made in 1950. The family has made several additions to the papers since then. For information pertinent to the Wolfe family gift, see the agreement between the Wolfe family and UNC in the Librarian's Papers on Thomas Wolfe (#70015). The Addition of July 2008 was purchased from Charles Apfelbaum.

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.

Processed by: Frances Weaver, A. Hope Shull, Nicholas Graham, 1998

Encoded by: Benjamin Bromley, January 2009

Finding aid updated by Benjamin Bromley in November 2009 because of an addition

Finding aid updated by Dawne Howard Lucas in April 2020 to change the collection number from CW to 70003

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.

• American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
• Asheville (N.C.) -- History.
• Asheville (N.C.) -- Social life and customs.
• Aswell, Edward C. (Edward Campbell), 1900-1958.
• Authors, American -- 20th century.
• Authors, American -- North Carolina -- 20th century.
• Book editors -- United States.
• Estates (Law) -- North Carolina -- History -- 20th century.
• Families -- North Carolina -- Social life and customs.
• Literary agents -- United States.
• Nowell, Elizabeth.
• Perkins, Maxwell E. (Maxwell Evarts), 1884-1947.
• Westall family.
• Wheaton, Mabel Wolfe.
• Wolfe family.
• Wolfe, Fred.
• Wolfe, Julia Elizabeth, 1860-1945.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938 -- Correspondence.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938 -- Estate.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938 -- Family.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938.

The Wolfe family of Asheville, N.C., included author Thomas Wolfe, his mother Julia E. Wolfe, brother Fred Wolfe, and sister Mabel Wolfe Wheaton.

The Wolfe family papers, 1890-1958, contain family correspondence, including letters of Thomas Wolfe; manuscripts; legal documents; clippings; scrapbooks; school notebooks and composition books; printed material; notes and reminiscences of family members; personal items that belonged to Thomas Wolfe or members of his family; and other materials. In addition to family correspondence, there are letters from Maxwell E. Perkins, Wolfe's editor at Charles Scribner's Sons; Edward C. Aswell, Wolfe's editor at Harper & Brothers; and Elizabeth Nowell, Wolfe's literary agent and later his first biographer. There is considerable correspondence documenting the work of Wolfe's literary executors and the administrators of the Wolfe estate. Perkins, in addition to being Wolfe's first editor, was the first administrator of the estate; Aswell took over after Perkins's death in 1947. Letters chiefly relate to members of Wolfe's family, most frequently Julia E. Wolfe, Fred Wolfe, and Mabel Wolfe Wheaton. Also included is correspondence with friends, relatives, and admirers of Thomas Wolfe. In addition to correspondence by and about Thomas Wolfe, there is correspondence among family members and other relatives, friends, and acquaintances that documents Wolfe family life in Asheville, 1890-1958. In addition to correspondence, there are also typed and autograph manuscripts of Thomas Wolfe, including the original typed manuscript annotated by Wolfe of his 1938 speech at Purdue University (pages 18-24 of the speech are missing and believed to be among the Wolfe papers at Harvard University) and typed and autograph drafts of several of Wolfe's plays; school and college notebooks; themes; and quiz books. Personal items belonging to Wolfe include his passports, diplomas, copies of transcripts of his college record, and other materials. Printed material includes items by Wolfe that belonged to either the author or members of his family; among these are several copies of his prize-winning college paper "The Crisis in Industry" and a copy of the limited edition of "To Rupert Brooke." Other printed material is from the Wolfe family's collection of articles, essays, and reminiscences. There are also some unpublished materials relating to Thomas Wolfe and his family, including notes and reminiscences by Mabel Wolfe Wheaton and Julia E. Wolfe; transcriptions of recorded interviews with Mabel Wolfe Wheaton made by the Library of Congress; and several notebooks of family reminiscences.

Mabel Wolfe Wheaton's collection of clippings about Wolfe and the Wolfe and Westall families are included here (see also the North Carolina Collection's special clipping file about Thomas Wolfe and his family). There are also three large scrapbooks compiled by Mabel Wolfe Wheaton that containe clippings, pictures, letters, and telegrams. Because of their fragility, the scrapbooks are restricted from use, but they have been filmed and are available on microfilm and may by viewed by users who have already received permission to use the collection. Copies of the letters and telegrams that had been pasted into the scrapbooks have been filed chronologically with the correspondence.

The Addition of July 2008 contains two letters, one from Fred Wolfe and one from Mabel Wolfe Wheaton, to Samuel McKee Bradley Jr. regarding the hospitalization and death of Thomas Wolfe.