Timeline extended for launch of Wilson Library facilities work.

Collection Number: 70136

Collection Title: Elizabeth Lemmon Collection on Thomas Wolfe, 1934-1935

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Collection Overview

Size 5 items
Abstract Consists of four letters (three typed, and one handwritten) from Thomas Wolfe, a white author, to Elizabeth Lemmon, a white Virginia socialite. The letters, all written in 1934, relate to Lemmon’s invitation to visit her, as well as the status of his work. Also contains one typed draft, inscribed to Lemmon from white book editor Maxwell Perkins, of the Irish literary critic Mary Colum's 1935 review of Wolfe’s Of Time and the River, published in the magazine The Forum and Century.
Creator Lemmon, Elizabeth, 1893-1993
Curatorial Unit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. North Carolina Collection.
Language English
Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Information For Users

Restrictions to Access
No restrictions. Open for research.
Restrictions to Use
No usage restrictions.
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 Elizabeth Lemmon Collection on Thomas Wolfe #70136, North Carolina Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Acquisitions Information
Purchased from Lorne Bair Rare Books in 2022 (Acc. 20220902.1), with money from the Aldo P. Magi Fund and the Morton Teicher Fund.
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.
Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Processing Information

Processed by: Dawne Howard Lucas, September 2022

Encoded by: Dawne Howard Lucas, September 2022

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subject Headings

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.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Related Collections

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Biographical Information

Elizabeth Lemmon (1893-1993) was a white Virginia socialite. In 1922, Lemmon met Maxwell Perkins,a white book editor, in an encounter that began what would evolve into a 25-year relationship between the two, documented in A. Scott Berg's biography Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978), and Rodger L. Tarr's As Ever Yours: The Letters of Max Perkins and Elizabeth Lemmon (2003). Through Perkins, Lemmon became friends with the white authors Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

Consists of four letters (three typed, and one handwritten) from Thomas Wolfe to Elizabeth Lemmon, and one typed draft of Mary Colum's 1935 review of Wolfe’s Of Time and the River, published in the magazine The Forum and Century. The letters from Wolfe, all written in 1934, relate to Lemmon’s invitation to visit her, as well as the status of his work.

Back to Top

Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Elizabeth Lemmon Collection on Thomas Wolfe, 1934-1935.

5 items.
Folder 1-4

Folder 1

Folder 2

Folder 3

Folder 4

Thomas Wolfe letters to Elizabeth Lemmon, 1934

Folder 5

Review: Of Time and River, 1935

Original 3-page typescript draft of literary critic Mary Colum's review of Of Time and River, published in the magazine The Forum and Century Volume 93 (April 1935, pp. 218-219). Inscribed to Elizabeth Lemmon by Maxwell Perkins. Perkins refers to Colum as "Molly Colum."

Back to Top