Papers of Robert Peters (1924-2014), American poet, critic, scholar, and teacher. A professor of literature (1968-1992) at the University of California, Irvine, Peters reviewed contemporary poetry for small press magazines beginning in the 1970s, published over thirty poetry collections, and performed his work internationally. Materials include manuscript drafts of recent writing, including individual poems and drafts for collected poetry publications, book reviews; several novels; play scripts; correspondence; and journals.

Robert Peters, distinguished American poet, critic, scholar and teacher, was born in 1924 in Eagle River, Wisconsin. His father, Samuel, and mother, Dorothy, were farmers, and his own hard physical work and closeness to the land may contribute to the preference for the concrete over the abstract in his poetry, criticism, and scholarship. He studied British literature at the University of Wisconsin, receiving the Ph.D. degree in 1952 with a dissertation on several late Victorian poets and their relationship to the visual arts. It served as the basis for his major scholarly work, The Crowns of Apollo: Swinburne's Principles of Literature and Art (Wayne State University Press, 1965). He co-edited the 3-volume edition of The Letters of John Addington Symons (Wayne State University Press, 1967-69) and edited Letters to a Tutor: The Tennyson Family Letters to Henry Graham Daykins, 1866-1911 (Scarecrow Press, 1988) and Edmund Gosse's diary of his visit to America (Purdue University, 1966) among other scholarly pursuits in the field of Victorian literature. After several post-doctoral stints (University of Idaho, Boston University, and Ohio Wesleyan University), Peters received tenure in the English Department of Wayne State University. In 1963, he was hired by the rapidly expanding University of California, Riverside and five years later transferred to the University of California, Irvine, from which he retired in 1992.

22.8 Linear feet (24 archives boxes, 4 card file boxes, 12 records cartons and 6 oversize folders)

Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.

Original sound recordings are restricted. Listening copies may be available for researchers.