Permanent URL: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/zk51vg784
Flannery O'Connor Letters to Ashley Brown, 1958-1964: Finding Aid
C1150
Autograph of Flannery O'Connor from one of her letters to Ashley Brown
One Washington Road
Princeton, New Jersey 08544 USA
Phone: (609) 258-3184
Fax: (609) 258-2324
rbsc@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbsc
Published on March 23, 2007
©2007 Princeton University Library
Summary Information
- Creator:
- O'Connor, Flannery.
- Title and dates:
- Flannery O'Connor Letters to Ashley Brown, 1958-1964
- Abstract:
- Consists of thirty-eight letters written by the Southern author Flannery O'Connor to her friend Ashley Brown.
- Size:
- .20 linear feet (1 half-size)
- Call number:
- C1150
- Location:
- Princeton University Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
Manuscripts Division.
Princeton, New Jersey 08544 USA - Language(s) of material:
- English.
- Storage note:
- This collection is stored onsite at Firestone Library.
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 - August 3, 1964) was a Southern novelist and storywriter, born in Savannah, Georgia. Her father had lupus, and the disease was hereditary in the O'Connor family. In 1951, after being diagnosed with lupus herself, she returned to her ancestral farm in Milledgeville. There she raised and nurtured some 100 peafowl. Fascinated by birds of all kinds, she raised ducks, hens, geese, swans, and any sort of exotic bird she could obtain, and she incorporated images of peacocks often in her work. O'Connor authored two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries, including Wise Blood (novel, 1952), The Violent Bear it Anyway (novel, 1960), and A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories (1955). Everything That Rises Must Converge (stories) was published posthumously in 1965.
Description
The collection consists of thirty-eight letters written by O'Connor to her author friend Ashley Brown. The letters discuss mutual friends and other authors, such as Elizabeth Bishop; Caroline Gordon and her husband, Allen Tate; Iris Murdoch; Eudora Welty; her mother, Regina Cline O'Connor, who lived with her; and Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, with whom she stayed in Connecticut in 1949. She writes about her swans and their illnesses, about her own illness and deteriorating health, about Princeton, Princeton University, and the people she knew there, and she makes references to her work, such as writing the introduction to A Good Man is Hard to Find. In a letter dated 12 Novermber 1960, she explains how the ladies of the South voted for Richard Nixon rather than John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential election campaign. Thirty of the letters are typewritten and signed by O'Connor, and eight are handwritten, particularly the later ones when she was suffering from symptoms of lupus and was in the hospital.
Arrangement
The letters are arranged in chronological order.
Access and Use
Access
Collection is open for research use.
Restrictions on Use and Copyright Information
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. No further photoduplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Associate University Librarian for Rare Books and Special Collections. The library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any questions of copyright.
Provenance and Acquisition
The letters were purchased in 1986.
Processing and Other Information
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Dina Britain on November 9, 2006. Finding aid written by Dina Britain on March 23, 2007.
Descriptive Rules Used
Finding aid content adheres to that prescribed by Describing Archives: A Content Standard.
Encoding
Machine-readable finding aid encoded in EAD 2002 by Dina Britain on March 23, 2007.
Finding aid written in English.
Preferred Citation
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Flannery O'Connor Letters to Ashley Brown, Box and Folder Number; Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
Subject Headings
These materials have been indexed in the Princeton University Library online catalog using the following terms. Those seeking related materials should search under these terms.
- O'Connor, Flannery -- Homes and haunts -- New Jersey -- Princeton.
- American literature -- Women authors -- 20th century.
- Women authors, American -- 20th century -- Correspondence.
- Correspondence -- 20th century.
- Brown, Ashley, 1923- .
Browse other finding aids related to the following terms:
Permanent URL: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/zk51vg784