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Guide to the William Miller Abrahams Papers, ca. 1945-1998
Special Collections M1125
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Table of contents
Title: William Miller Abrahams Papers,
Date (inclusive): ca. 1945-1998
Collection number: Special Collections M1125
Creator:
Abrahams, William Miller, 1919-
Extent:
42 linear ft.
Repository:
Stanford University. Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
Language:
English.
None.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights
reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To
obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the
Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
Gift of Peter Stansky, 2000.
[Identification of item], William Miller Abrahams Papers, M1125, Dept. of Special
Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
A poet and a novelist, William Abrahams became one of the leading literary editors in the American publishing scene. He worked
with many renowned writers including Joyce Carol Oates, Lillian Hellman, Diane Johnson, Brian Moore, Thomas Flanagan, and
Pauline Kael. Beginning as a poet, Abrahams released his first novel Interval in Carolina (1945) to good reviews. He followed
with By the Beautiful Sea (1947) and Imperial Waltz (1954) before beginning a career in editing for Atlantic Monthly Press
in 1963. In 1965 he began supervising the O. Henry Awards, editing annual anthologies of the best entries, which he continued
until his retirement in 1996. Abrahams also produced four non-fiction works that he co-authored with historian Peter Stansky,
Journey to the Frontier; Two Roads to the Spanish Civil War (1966), The Unknown Orwell (1972), Orwell: The Transformation
(1980), and London's Burning: Life, Death, and Art in the Second World War (1994).
In addition to his editorial career, Abrahams also served as a trustee for the Lillian Hellman-Dashiell Hammett Literary Estates,
and as a member of the William Saroyan Foundation. Abrahams' longstanding relationship with Hellman as both editor and friend,
subsequently led to his being named official biographer for Hellman in 1983. Abrahams worked sporadically on the Hellman biography
until his death in 1998, never reaching completion due to his extensive editorial commitments and deteriorating health.
The William Abrahams Papers include material on books that Abrahams edited under his own imprint for such presses as the Atlantic
Monthly Press, Holt Rhinehart and Winston, and E. P. Dutton. The papers contain working drafts, typescripts, research notes,
and correspondence. Financial reports and correspondence relating to his service as literary trustee are also present, along
with research files on both Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett. Additionally, a collection of the books Abrahams edited
during his distinguished career, and the texts he co-authored with historian Peter Stansky are available.
The papers are divided into 4 series: 1. Editorial Files, 2. Trustee Files, 3. Hellman Biography Material, 4. Personal Files.
Wherever Abrahams' original arrangement of materials was encountered, the order was retained. A substantial amount of the
material, however, showed little sign of a concise intellectual schema, and therefore required an imposed order. Where possible,
arrangement notes for the specific series will indicate which portions retain Abrahams' original arrangement and which reflect
an ordering imposed by the processor.