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Collection Overview
| Size | 4.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 2,500 items) |
| Abstract | Richard S. Kennedy was born in 1920. Kennedy's dissertation (Harvard University, 1953) on novelist Thomas Wolfe, the first to make use of Wolfe manuscripts in Harvard's Houghton Library and to examine Wolfe's literary career in depth, was published by UNC Press in 1962. Kennedy was on the faculty of the University of Rochester, 1950-1957; the University of Witchita, 1957-1964; and Temple University, 1964-1988, emeritus 1988-2002. He continued to work on Wolfe throughout his career, but also wrote extensively on e.e. cummings and Robert Browning. Kennedy died in 2002. The papers include include correspondence, writings, research notes, subject files, and other items related to Richard S. Kennedy's life-long interest in novelist Thomas Wolfe. There is correspondence beginning in 1949, that includes letters from Elizabeth Nowell, Wolfe's agent and biographer; correspondence with Edward Aswell, Wolfe's editor and executor of his estate; a 1950 letter from Malcolm Cowley; a 1959 letter from Robert Penn Warren; and letters between Kennedy and others who knew the Wolfe. Some of those letter include personal accounts of the author. There are also letters between Kennedy and other Wolfe scholars, collectors, and researchers, and materials documenting Kennedy's involvement with the Thomas Wolfe Society and with author and collector Aldo P. Magi. Also included are letters and clippings related to Kennedy's role in "Wolfegate," a debate in the early 1980s about the role of the editor in Wolfe's posthumously published works. Writings include manuscript and typescript drafts of Kennedy's articles and books on Wolfe and photocopies of manuscript and archival materials. Kennedy's handwritten research notes appear on hundreds of index cards that are arranged by subject. There are also a few subject files that Kennedy maintained. |
| Creator | Kennedy, Richard S. |
| Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. North Carolina Collection. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Processing Information
Processed by: Nicholas Graham, July 2006
Encoded by: Nicholas Graham, August 2006
Finding aid updated by Dawne Howard Lucas in April 2020 to change the collection number from CW2.5 to 70010
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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.
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Biographical Information
Richard S. Kennedy was born in Saint Paul, Minn., in 1920. He earned a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, an M.A. from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1953. Kennedy's dissertation on Thomas Wolfe, based on Wolfe manuscripts in Harvard's Houghton Library, was published as The Window of Memory: The Literary Career of Thomas Wolfe (UNC Press, 1962), and was the first extensive examination of Wolfe's literary career. Kennedy was on the faculty of the University of Rochester, 1950-1957; the University of Witchita, 1957-1964; and Temple University, 1964-1988, emeritus 1988-2002. He continued to edit and write about Thomas Wolfe throughout his career, publishing The Notebooks of Thomas Wolfe (with Paschal Reeves, UNC Press, 1970), Beyond Love and Loyalty: The Letters of Thomas Wolfe and Elizabeth Nowell (UNC, 1983), among other works. Kennedy also wrote extensively on e.e. cummings and Robert Browning. He died in Marion, Pa., in 2002.
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Scope and Content
The papers of professor, author, and critic Richard S. Kennedy include include correspondence, writings, research notes, subject files, and other items related to his life-long interest in novelist Thomas Wolfe. There is correspondence beginning in 1949, that includes letters from Elizabeth Nowell, Wolfe's agent and biographer; correspondence with Edward Aswell, Wolfe's editor and executor of his estate; a 1950 letter from Malcolm Cowley; a 1959 letter from Robert Penn Warren; and letters between Kennedy and others who knew the Wolfe. Some of those letter include personal accounts of the author. There are also letters between Kennedy and other Wolfe scholars, collectors, and researchers, and materials documenting Kennedy's involvement with the Thomas Wolfe Society and with author and collector Aldo P. Magi. There are letters and clippings related to Kennedy's role in "Wolfegate," a debate in the early 1980s about the role of the editor in Wolfe's posthumously published works. Writings include manuscript and typescript drafts of Kennedy's articles and books on Wolfe and photocopies of manuscript and archival materials. Kennedy's handwritten research notes appear on hundreds of index cards that are arranged by subject. There are also a few subject files that Kennedy maintained.
Throughout the collection, Kennedy's original folder titles have, for the most part, been retained.
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. Correspondence, 1949-2000.
Arrangement: chronological and alphabetical. Kennedy's arrangement of these materials has, for the most part, been maintained.
Correspondence chiefly relating to Kennedy's work on Thomas Wolfe. Correspondence, 1949-1950, is about Kennedy's dissertation research and includes many letters to and from librarians and archivists regarding Wolfe letters in various respositories. During these years, Kennedy also corresponded with Aline Bernstein, Edward Aswell, and John Skally Terry, among others. Correspondence from 1959 includes several letters between Kennedy and people who knew Thomas Wolfe. Later correspondence addresses Kennedy's attempts to publish his dissertation and includes many letters between Kennedy and Edward Aswell regarding Kennedy's proposed book on Wolfe. Included are letters from Malcolm Cowley (28 December 1950) and Robert Penn Warren (21 September 1959).
Materials from the 1980s relate primarily to the publication of two volumes edited by Kennedy, Beyond Love and Loyalty: The Letters of Thomas Wolfe and Elizabeth Nowell (UNC Press, 1983) and Welcome to Our City (LSU Press, 1983), and include correspondence with editors and with the estate of Thomas Wolfe. There are also copies of contracts. Most of the correspondence from the 1990s is between Kennedy and members of the Thomas Wolfe Society.
Correspondence with author and collector Aldo P. Magi and with Elizabeth Nowell was filed separately by Kennedy. The bulk of the materials in the Magi files are photocopies and clippings, though there are several letters from Magi. The Nowell folders contain many letters from Elizabeth Nowell, Wolfe's agent from 1933 until his death in 1938, editor of a volume of Wolfe's letters, and author the first Wolfe biography. Nowell and Kennedy corresponded frequently as they worked at the same time on books about Wolfe. Letters from Nowell often include details about Wolfe's life and reports on the progress of her work. These letters also document the growing friendship between Kennedy and Nowell.
The two folders labeled "Controversy with Halberstadt" contain correspondence and clippings related to a 1980 article by John Halberstadt in the Yale Review entitled "The Making of Thomas Wolfe's Postumous Novels." Halberstadt suggested that Edward Aswell, the Harper's editor who worked on Wolfe's final two novels, took excessive liberties with the text. Halberstadt's assertions received much attention in both the scholarly and the popular press. Kennedy wrote a letter to the New York Times Book Review, published in July 1981, in defense of Aswell's methods, and the press labeled the ensuing debate "Wolfegate."
| Folder 1 |
Correspondence, 1949 |
| Folder 2 |
Correspondence, January 1950 |
| Folder 3 |
Correspondence, February-December 1950 |
| Folder 4 |
Correspondence, 1951-1952 |
| Folder 5 |
Correspondence, 1953 |
| Folder 6 |
Correspondence, 1954 |
| Folder 7 |
Correspondence, 1955-1958 |
| Folder 8 |
Correspondence, 1959 |
| Folder 9 |
Correspondence, 1960-1979 |
| Folder 10 |
Correspondence, 1980-1982 |
| Folder 11 |
Correspondence with Preston Wild, 1981 |
| Folder 12 |
Correspondence, 1983-1989 |
| Folder 13 |
Correspondence, 1990-1997 |
Folder 14-17
Folder 14Folder 15Folder 16Folder 17 |
Correspondence with Aldo P. Magi, 1984-2000 |
| Folder 18 |
Correspondence with Elizabeth Nowell, 1949-1950 |
| Folder 19 |
Correspondence with Elizabeth Nowell, 1951-1956 and undated |
Folder 20-21
Folder 20Folder 21 |
"Controversy with Halberstadt": Correspondence and clippings, 1973-1989 |
| Folder 22 |
Correspondence, drafts, and notes, undated |
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Series 2. Writings and Related Materials.
Arrangement: alphabetical.
Materials relating to Kennedy's books and articles on Thomas Wolfe. Many of Kennedy's manuscript drafts and notes are included, along with photocopies of manuscript and archival materials. There is also some correspondence. Materials relating to The Window of Memory document his efforts to secure a publisher for the book in the late 1950s and the book's acceptance and eventual publication by the UNC Press in 1962. Included is correspondence between Kennedy and UNC Press Director Lambert Davis.
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Series 3. Research Notes and Subject Files.
Arrangement: alphabetical.
Chiefly undated manuscript notes written by Kennedy. There are some references to folder numbers, suggesting that these may have been taken in Harvard's Houghton Library, where the majority of Thomas Wolfe's literary manuscripts are held, or in other libraries.