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Inventory of the Wallace Stevens Papers, 1856-1975
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Table of contents
Title: Wallace Stevens Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1856-1975
Creator:
Stevens, Wallace
Extent: Number of Pieces: 6,815 (including genealogical material)
Repository: The
Huntington Library
San Marino, California 91108
Language:
English.
Acquired from Holly Stevens, January 1975. A few of the items catalogued with the
Collection have been gifts from Wilson E. Taylor and Holly Stevens and later purchases
from Holly Stevens. These are noted on the individual folders.
Collection is open to qualified researches by prior application through the Reader
Services Department. For more information please go to following
URL.
In order to quote from, publish, or reproduce any of the manuscripts or visual materials,
researchers must obtain formal permission from the office of the Library Director. In
most instances, permission is given by the Huntington as owner of the physical property
rights only, and researchers must also obtain permission from the holder of the literary
rights In some instances, the Huntington owns the literary rights, as well as the
physical property rights. Researchers may contact the appropriate curator for further
information.
[Identification of item], Wallace Stevens Papers, The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California.
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was one of the foremost American poets of the first half of
the 20th century. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Stevens retained an interest during his
lifetime in his native Berks County, Pennsylvania. His wife, Elsie Viola (Moll) Stevens,
came from Reading, and both Stevens and his wife devoted considerable time and energy
(primarily in the 1940's) tracing their family ancestries.
Though Stevens refused to consider his life a dichotomy, his poetic activities were
accomplished while he was holding a full-time position as a legal advisor for the
Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company in Hartford, Connecticut, the firm for which he
acted as Vice-President from 1934 until his death in 1955.
Stevens began writing verse as a student at Harvard University and had a number of his
verses published in the
Harvard Advocate and the
Harvard Monthly between 1898 and 1900. In 1908 and 1909 Stevens presented his future wife, Elsie
Viola Moll, with two little notebooks of poems (
A Book of Verses and
The Little June Book) which gathered together short poems Stevens had been
experimenting with since leaving Harvard. Between 1914 and 1923 Stevens submitted poems
to a number of journals, including
Poetry (edited by Harriet Monroe),
The Dial and
Others (edited by Alfred Kreymborg). In 1923
was published Stevens' first book of poems,
Harmonium. With
Harmonium began a lifelong association with the publishing firm Alfred A.
Knopf Inc. Stevens did, however, offer the small fine press, the Cummington Press, three
of his books:
Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942),
Esthitique du
Mal
(1945) and
Three Academic Pieces (1947). The Alcestis Press,
under the direction of Ronald Lane Latimer, printed
Ideas of Order (1935)
and
Owl's Clover (1936).
Stevens was twice awarded the National Book Award: in 1950 for
The Auroras of
Autumn
(1950) and in 1954 for
Collected Poems (1954). He was
awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1955.