Literature and Literary Studies

Strengths include: Eighteenth century and Romantic era British authors, literature of the American South, Walt Whitman, American literary historiography. More...

Personal papers and printed works of 19th- to early 20th-century authors such as

• Walt Whitman (manuscripts and early editions)
• Paul Hamilton Hayne (papers and library)
• Thomas Nelson Page (papers)
• William Dean Howells
• William Cullen Bryant (books)
• 19th-century American humorists

Personal papers and printed works of contemporary authors such as

Archival materials for:

• Flannery O'Connor (in the Thomas F. Gossett Papers)
• Carson McCullers in the Mary Mercer Collections
• Records of the Harriet Wasserman Literary Agency, with extensive materials on:
  • Saul Bellow
  • Alice McDermott
  • Reynolds Price

Works produced by Southern small literary presses from 1945, intensively from 1992, and the records of a number of presses.

A more detailed analysis of the Library's holdings in American and British Literary materials can be found here. RBMSCL manuscript and archival finding aids can be searched under names of literary figures and subjects. Printed and other holdings can be similarly searched in the Duke University Library catalog, especially the "advanced" search, limiting the location to "Special Collections."

Personal papers and printed works of authors noted above and of other novelists and poets of national or international importance, especially from the American South; papers and printed works of authors writing from a bi-cultural perspective; papers and records of literary editors and agents; papers and products of small literary presses in the South; and works that relate to other collecting areas, such as women's studies and African-American studies.

The Jay B. Hubbell Center was established at Duke University in 1976 with the mission to document the inception and continuing development of American literary studies.

For general information about finding materials in the library's collections and how you can use them, requesting permission to reproduce, or other information as well as reference questions about the holdings in this area:

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