Robert Lowell was first approached by W. H. Bond, librarian of the Houghton Library at Harvard University, to sell his papers in 1966, “but Lowell felt uncertain and the matter was allowed to drop for four years,” writes Rodney G. Dennis.1 The letters in the present edition document what happened once the idea was again raised by Elizabeth Hardwick. Hardwick was thinking not only of the literary and financial value of the papers but also of protecting their daughter, Harriet Lowell, from having to sort through them after the deaths of her parents. In Lowell’s absence at Oxford, Hardwick arranged for the papers to be organized and assessed. After three years of negotiations, Lowell sold them to the Houghton in 1973. The sale comprised his “family and literary correspondence generated before 1971 and literary manuscripts covering a period of about thirty-five years, beginning with school poems and ending with Notebook.” It also included eighty letters written by Hardwick to Lowell and to others, and 168 letters from various correspondents written solely to Hardwick.
After Lowell’s death in 1977, his remaining papers (written during his years with Caroline Blackwood) “were placed at Harvard on deposit,” says Dennis. “The library was offered first refusal.” But the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin (HRC) “made an offer that Harvard could not match.”2 In 1982, the HRC came to an agreement with the Lowell Estate to buy the late manuscripts (including those for Lowell’s last four books), together with his correspondence between 1970 and 1977. A selection of twelve letters, telegrams, and cards from Hardwick to Lowell was included in the sale.
Left out of the sale were 101 letters, telegrams, and postcards from Hardwick to Lowell, one letter from Hardwick to Blackwood, and Lowell’s 1970 calendar, all of which Blackwood had previously set aside and mailed to Frank Bidart, Lowell’s literary executor, on April 25, 1978. Bidart kept them in his apartment until 1988, when he deposited them at the Houghton Library, with a note explaining that they were the property of Lowell’s Estate. “In the event of my death, they are to be returned to Caroline Blackwood, who entrusted them to me for safekeeping. If at that time Caroline Blackwood is dead, they are to be kept here at the Houghton Library until the death of Elizabeth Hardwick—at which time, they are to be returned to the Estate of Robert Lowell.”3 Blackwood died on February 14, 1996. Hardwick died on December 2, 2007. In May 2010, Bidart informed Evgenia Citkowitz (Blackwood’s daughter) and Harriet of the existence of the letters. They are currently on deposit at the Houghton Library.
In 1991, the HRC separately agreed to buy from Hardwick her own papers, including “seven boxes of creative works, correspondence, printed material, articles and photographs,” together with all of Lowell’s letters to Harriet and to her.
Letters in this edition are mostly housed at three repositories: the Houghton Library; the Elizabeth Hardwick Papers at the HRC (all letters from Lowell to Hardwick and Harriet); and the Robert Lowell Papers at the HRC (twelve letters and telegrams from Hardwick to Lowell, and all letters from Blackwood to Lowell). Letters from Mary McCarthy to Hardwick are in the Vassar College Archives & Special Collections Library and the HRC. All other incoming letters to Hardwick and to Lowell in this edition are at the HRC. The locations of outgoing letters are as follows:
Robert Giroux to Charles Monteith |
Archives and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library |
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Hardwick to Elizabeth Bishop |
Vassar College Special Collections Library |
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Hardwick to Blair Clark |
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin |
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Hardwick to Ian Hamilton |
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin |
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Hardwick to Harriet Lowell |
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin |
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Hardwick to Mary McCarthy |
Vassar College Special Collections Library |
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Lowell to William Alfred |
Brooklyn College Library Archives and Special Collections |
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Lowell to Frank Bidart |
Houghton Library, Harvard University |
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Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop |
Vassar College Special Collections Library |
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Lowell to Blair Clark |
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin |
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Lowell to Stanley Kunitz |
Firestone Library, Princeton University |
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Lowell to Harriet Lowell |
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin |
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Lowell to Mary McCarthy |
Vassar College Special Collections Library |
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Lowell to Adrienne Rich |
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University |
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Charles Monteith to Robert Giroux |
Archives and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library |
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Robert Silvers to Lowell |
Archives and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library |