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Guide to the Albert J. Guérard's Research Materials on John Hawkes, 1959-1994
Special Collections M0898  
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"Photocopies of 201 letters, many of them long, written by John Hawkes (JH) to Albert and Maclin Guerard (AJG and MG) between 1959 and 1994.

Scope and Content Note

These letters rank with the best by a 20th century novelist." The originals are held by the Harvard Libraries.
Box 1, Folder 1

83 photocopies of letters written by JH to AJG. 1959-1957

Box 1, Folder 2

118 photocopies of letters written by JH to AJG and MG. 1968-1994

Box 1, Folder 3

Notes on the letters in folders 1 & 2 identifying people and situations alluded to by JH in the letters. Prepared under AJG's direction.

Box 1, Folder 4

19 letters, several of them long, or card/letters from JH to AJG or MG. 1958-1996

Scope and Content Note

"The eloquent third paragraph of the May 16, 1968 letter from Greece should be compared with the extraordinary improvisation on Lesbos in John Hawkes Reading at Stanford (Stanford Recordings in Sound). My printout of the improvisation is enclosed with the May 16 letter. But the wonderful play of the voice needsto be heard. Also, a photocopy of a letter to Mark Spilka,head of the English Department, urging tenure for a colleague, Claire Rosenfield."
 

Original letters from Sophie Hawkes, primarily to MG. "These letters would be of great value to a biographer since they give a good sense of their daily lives, particularly while living and working in France."

Box 1, Folder 5

16 letters from SH to MG 1963-1975

Box 1, Folder 6

9 letters from SH to MG 1976-1983

Box 1, Folder 7

10 letters from SH to MG 1980-1983

Box 1, Folder 8

13 letters from SH to MG 1984-1987

Box 1, Folder 9

14 letters from SH to MG 1988-1993

Box 1, Folder 10

10 letters from SH to MG 1994-1996

Box 1, Folder 11

12 letters from SH to MG, undated. n.d.

Box 1, Folder 12

"Photocopies of many corrections and cuts made by John Hawkes on the page proof of Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade. n.d.

Physical Description: 18 pages.

Scope and Content Note

This is the most traditional or 'mainstream' of Hawkes' novels, and some notes suggest a concern for conventional ordering."
Box 1, Folder 13

- JH's text of a 5-page talk on the relationship of poetry to experimental fiction, given to a large audience (over 400) of AJG's Harvard course Comp. Lit. 166, "Forms of the Modern Novel." 1957

Scope and Content Note

"A subtle, packed gem that had the students baffled."
Box 1, Folder 13

- Copy of a memorial statement written by JH on Aristedes Stavrolakes. A former student and friend of AJG who committed suicide.

Scope and Content Note

"Elsewhere Hawkes mentions the suicide as one of the events or forces that went into his novel Second Skin.
Box 1, Folder 13

- 15 page text of a "Conversation with John Hawkes," June 7, 1995.

Scope and Content Note

"The interviewer Salwa Karoui asks brief questions, with more than 95% of the text consisting of Hawkes' monologues. I don't know whether this recent interview has been published anywhere."
Box 1, Folder 14

Full copy of the uncorrected proof for JH's Travesty.

 

4 rare JH periodical publications

Box 2, Folder 1

-"Notes on Violence," in Audience (Spring, 1960), 1960

Physical Description: p. 60.

Scope and Content Note

"Hawkes' first published critical statement, noting on relation of contemporary poetry and experimental fiction. Issue also contains my (AJG) introduction to the "Cambridge Anti-Realists."
Box 2, Folder 1

- "Peau neuve," in Les Lettres Nouvelles 1967 (octobre-novembre 1967).

Scope and Content Note

Translation of the first chapter of Second Skin.
Box 2, Folder 2

- "Burnt Orange" in The Dutton Review 1 (1970), 1970

Physical Description: p. 137-50.

Scope and Content Note

"Selection from The Blood Oranges.
Box 2, Folder 2

- "The Nearest Cemetery," in San Francisco Review Annual 1 (1963),

Physical Description: p.178-185.

Scope and Content Note

"Pages from draft of Second Skin, differing importantly from the published novel. See Carol Hryciw, John Hawkes: An Annotated Bibliography, p. 27 for reprinting"
Box 2, Folder 3

VOICE PROJECT/An Experiment in Teaching Writing to College Freshmen. (U. S. Office of Education, Bureau of Research Report, 1967),

Physical Description: xi-xxxix, 3-305.

Scope and Content Note

"This project, directed by Hawkes under my general supervision as Co-Director of Freshman English, involved 100 Stanford freshmen and eight visiting writers who devoted their entire time to teaching one experimental section throughout the year. The report, with a history of the project and a summary of its methods and findings signed by Hawkes, is on xi-xxxix. The greatest educational value (and value for the biographer) lies in the detailed printed record of taped sample classes, with Hawkes' voice in exchanges identified by 'Jack.' The Voice Project and the freshman English anthology The Personal Voice: A Contemporary Prose Reader co-edited by Albert Guerard, John Hawkes, Maclin Guerard, Claire Rosenfield (Lippincott, 1964) were early and probably influential examinations of the concept of authorial voice that would later become current, with the word voice used in a number of later anthologies and repeatedly used in literary criticism."