Description
Literary manuscripts: Notes, poetry fragments, single poems, poetry collections,
plays, and prose works of fiction and non-fiction, largely holograph mss. and typescripts with holograph
revisions; travel journals dating from 1960-1986; notebooks; musical compositions by various composers
based on poems of Ferlinghetti.
Personal papers: Clippings of work by Ferlinghetti and clippings
about Ferlinghetti; a small amount of correspondence; posters, fliers, programs and catalogs from events
in which Ferlinghetti participated.
Background
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, American poet, editor, and publisher, was born in March of 1919 in Yonkers, N.Y.,
the son of Charles S. and Clemence Ferling. From 1920 to 1924, he lived in France with his aunt, and
after their return to the U.S., was educated in New York, at the Riverside Country School (1927-28) and
Bronxville Public School (1929-33). Ferlinghetti attended high school at Mount Hermon School in
Greenfield, Mass. (1933-37), then received a B.A. in Journalism from the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill in 1941, his M.A. in Literature from Columbia University in 1948, and his Doctorat de
l'Université from The Sorbonne, Paris in 1949. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1941 to 1945,
and attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Ferlinghetti married Selden Kirby-Smith in 1951, and has
two children, Julie and Lorenzo.
Extent
Number of containers: 64 boxes, 6 oversize boxes, 26 oversize folders and 1 volume
Linear feet: [ca. 28]