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.

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 Richard Gaither Walser Papers on Thomas Wolfe (#70007), North Carolina Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

[Note: Collection number changed from #CW2.2 to #70007 in April 2020.]

Acquisitions Information

Donation.

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, September 2009

Finding aid updated by Dawne Howard Lucas in April 2020 to change the collection number from CW2.2 to 70007.

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.
• Authors, American -- 20th century.
• Authors, American -- North Carolina -- 20th century.
• Magi, Aldo P.
• Penland family.
• Walser, Richard Gaither, 1908-1988.
• Westall family.
• Wolfe family.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938 -- Appreciation.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938 -- Caricatures and cartoons.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938 -- Criticism and interpretation.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938 -- Family.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938 -- Friends and associates.
• Wolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938.

St. Mary's College Thomas Wolfe Collection (#70017)

Richard Gaither Walser was born in Lexington, N.C., in 1908, the son of state attorney general Zeb Vance Walser and Estelle Adderton Walser. He attended Davidson College for one year and then transferred to the University of North Carolina from which he was graduated in 1929. He received an MA from the University of North Carolina in 1933. After returning from service with the United States Naval Reserve, he taught briefly at the University of North Carolina before joining the English faculty at North Carolina State University in 1946. Walser wrote or edited more than 30 books during his career, most of them collections of works relating to various aspects of North Carolina life and literature. He also explored the work of several North Carolina writers, producing major works on Thomas Wolfe, George Moses Horton, and William Hill Brown. He retired from teaching in 1970. He died in 1988.

The collection contains notes, correspondence, and drafts for several of Richard Walser's Thomas Wolfe publications, some of which were done in collaboration with Aldo Magi. Also included are cartoons relating to Thomas Wolfe and information on the Wolfe-related Westall and Penland families.