Collection Guide
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Desti (Mary) Collection on Isadora Duncan
MS.P.005
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries
Title: Mary Desti Collection on Isadora Duncan
Creator:
Desti, Mary
Identifier/Call Number: MS.P.005
Physical Description:
1.2 Linear Feet
(2 boxes, 1 flat box)
Date (inclusive): 1901-1930
Abstract: The Mary Desti Collection focuses on the dancer Isadora Duncan. Materials include incoming correspondence from or relating
to Duncan, photographs, ephemera, clippings, programs, artifacts and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings. Mary Desti was Duncan's
close friend and biographer.
Language of Material:
English
.
Collection is open for research. Researchers must use microfilm or photocopies of fragile restricted items in boxes 3 and
4.
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and University Archives.
Mary Desti Collection on Isadora Duncan. MS-P 5. Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine, The UCI
Libraries. Date accessed.
For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this
collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.
Gift of Albert Dukow via Professor James Penrod in 1971 or 1972.
Preliminary processing by Special Collections staff; completed by Laura Clark Brown in 1997.
Mary Desti (1871-1931) left Chicago for Paris in 1901 with her year-old son Preston Sturges. In Paris, she met and befriended
dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan. Desti undertook various enterprises in Europe, including a cosmetic business. She
frequently accompanied Duncan in her travels, and occasionally Duncan lived with her. Duncan was staying with Desti in Nice
at the time of her sudden death in an automobile accident on September 14, 1927.
Following Duncan's death, Desti, a casual writer of both fiction and non-fiction, wrote a Duncan biography,
The Untold Story: The Life of Isadora Duncan (New York: Liveright, 1929). Isadora Duncan's autobiography
My Life (New York: Liveright, 1927) recorded events through 1921, prior to the period when she opened a dance school in Moscow. Desti
intended to tell the rest of the story.
The Mary Desti Collection focuses on the dancer Isadora Duncan. Materials include in-coming correspondence from or relating
to Duncan, photographs, ephemera, clippings, programs, artifacts and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings. Mary Desti was Duncan's
close friend and biographer. Although the majority of correspondence was received by Desti, the collection does not comprise
her personal papers.
Materials are organized in three series: correspondence, printed items, and other materials. The internal arrangement within
series is based on format, such as clippings and programs, and chronology. Dates are provided in the container list, when
known.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Photographic prints
Artifacts
Modern dance -- History -- Sources
Dance cards
Choreographers.
Dancers.
Dance -- Archives
Duncan, Isadora -- Archives
Online Archive of California